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new bed and topper

john112deere

caffeine junkie
Staff member
10,807
405
central Vermont
I had a little oopsie one icy morning last winter and tore up the bedside on my Ranger. Still serviceable but ugly, and probably not inspectable since the fender no longer covered the tire.

Been playing the CL waiting game since then...and I got lucky last week. Ad was pretty vague but implied it was a good bed from a silver '94 Ranger, so I asked for pics.

Thing looked clean as anything in the photos, guy told me his son wrapped the front of the truck around a phone pole and they were parting it out.

Busted my bed bolts loose Monday night (note: Line-X is f'n vicious when your wrench slips)...and then when I met him Tuesday night and talked him into helping me swap beds- right there in the parking lot. Tossed my old bed in the trailer, set the new one on my frame and put the cap on it.

It's got less rust than my old bed did, color matches plenty close enough, and it came with a bedliner and a decent matching topper. I didn't really want the topper, but the seller it wanted it gone so I'll leave it on there a while and see how I like it. (It's a love/hate thing...been a while since I ran one.)

Still need to get it bolted down properly, and finish cleaning up the details...it's safe for travel but not properly mounted right now.

We were marveling how little changed on these trucks...15 years older, and the bed dropped right on my frame. The newer beds have a couple extra bolts to the frame, but they only added more, the location of the other six didn't change. Taillight configuration went from amber turn signals to just red (with corresponding different bulb and wiring configurations) but the lenses swapped over fine. Only thing I have to modify is drilling a hole under the tailgate for access to the spare-tire winch. The earlier trucks had a better system, where it's just bolted up there and swings down...but the '09 has a dumb cable winch.

Photos later; they're only phone and I'm feeling lazy and tired.
 

john112deere

caffeine junkie
Staff member
10,807
405
central Vermont
It's pretty much just sitting on there...once I snug everything down the body lines should line up a little better.

Not a perfect match with the lower accent color and fender flare, but close enough for my needs.
 

Attachments

  • RangerBed_1.jpg
  • RangerBed_2.jpg

O'Rattlecan

Redneck Prognosticator
26,687
797
Belton, MO
Gotta say with as anal as you are about things I'm surprised you went that route :rofl:

That's what I was thinking! Haha, it looks good though, it's uncanny how little changed.

You didn't like punch grazing the LineX???

Ryan
 

john112deere

caffeine junkie
Staff member
10,807
405
central Vermont
Gotta say with as anal as you are about things I'm surprised you went that route :rofl:

Not really- it's an unmolested factory bed, which is what I had before. I don't think a replaced bedside would've come out as good as a factory bed/paint job...and a new OEM bed with paint would've cost a fortune...

I'm anal about taking care of stuff, but I don't actually care what it looks like...at least not much. (I did pass a screaming deal on a bed- $100 - because I couldn't bring myself to put a red bed on the thing, but...)

You didn't like punch grazing the LineX???

When I got done, my hands looked like this:
 

Attachments

  • knuckles1.jpg

john112deere

caffeine junkie
Staff member
10,807
405
central Vermont
And now for a question...

The cap has lost it's third brake light somewhere along the way. I know a lot of people run caps without them, but I really prefer to have one for safety.

The last cap I wired, the truck had separate amber blinkers...so it needed a converter box for the trailer lights but there was a "brake light" wire I could tap into for the cap...this truck just has red stop/turn lamps on the rear...which means if I tap into the "brake light" it'll blink with one of the directionals. Which I won't tolerate.

So...there's got to be a solution to this....but I'm not familiar with what it is?
 

Jasperrc

Texas Chapter member
Not sure how involved it would be but could you run something straight from the brake light switch? This should bypass the turn signal switch. Not sure if you would want a relay setup but it seems like this could solve your problem.
 

dustybumpers

don't play well w others
Unless you buy the adapter, that previous post is the solution
 

john112deere

caffeine junkie
Staff member
10,807
405
central Vermont
^^There's an adapter? Where do I find one/what are they called?

It was easy to find an adapter box to add a 4-way flat trailer plug (with combined stop/turn bulbs) to my '97 Ranger (with the separate, amber blinkers) but I'm not having luck finding the right search terms for one to go this way?
 
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john112deere

caffeine junkie
Staff member
10,807
405
central Vermont
An internet search turned up a suggestion that there's a capped green wire "somewhere under the fuse box" that does what I need...but I didn't see it at a quick look. Plan "B" might be to try to find the wire that runs to the third brake light above the rear window and tap into that.

I'm also toying with the idea of getting the middle piece of a set of rear clearance lights (the one with three red lights on a bar about 15" wide) and wiring it up with the outside lights on their respective taillights, and the middle one on both taillights...which should give me "high-mount blinkers" and a three-piece stop lamp. A little worried it'll just look stupid, but it'd be pretty easy.
 

CowboyBilly9Mile

Charter Member
7,118
442
USA
...this truck just has red stop/turn lamps on the rear...which means if I tap into the "brake light" it'll blink with one of the directionals. Which I won't tolerate.

So...there's got to be a solution to this....but I'm not familiar with what it is?

This has come up a handful of times on the other truck forum I frequent and I think the answer is still to buy "the box". Could always do a search over there, wasn't too many weeks ago the subject came up (again).

Edit: Tap into the wire running to the 3rd brake light. The harness is inside the vehicle, among locations it will run on the left side of the center hump, if like mine you could tap into it in the back but there are several great places. Pull the left seat, remove the carpet to body trim along the lower door opening, lift carpet and do what comes naturally.
 
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dustybumpers

don't play well w others
You should be able to pull the 3rd brk light on the truck, and tie into that wire.
Drop it back into the cab, and "sneak" it into the interior. Go dow to the rubber plug above the body mount, and poke a hole, stick the wire through, then down the frame you go
 

john112deere

caffeine junkie
Staff member
10,807
405
central Vermont
I didn't really want to run a wire all the way from the cab, but finding the "logic box" was proving damn near impossible...until I had a brainstorm.

WalMart sells a geezer-style receiver hitch cover that's an "extra" taillight. Comes with a logic box- for $13. I'll toss the light assembly. Seeing as I don't have a trailer, I may just leave it set up to plug into my four-way flat connector for now...it's cheating, but 100% reversible if I ever want to do it right later on.


*It took me a minute to understand how the thing worked, but I did finally figure it out. Long story short it'll light up only when it sees something from both sides...so the CHMSL will flash with the four-ways, but that's OK- just as long as it doesn't go with the directionals I'm happy.
 
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O'Rattlecan

Redneck Prognosticator
26,687
797
Belton, MO
I didn't really want to run a wire all the way from the cab, but finding the "logic box" was proving damn near impossible...until I had a brainstorm.

WalMart sells a geezer-style receiver hitch cover that's an "extra" taillight. Comes with a logic box- for $13. I'll toss the light assembly. Seeing as I don't have a trailer, I may just leave it set up to plug into my four-way flat connector for now...it's cheating, but 100% reversible if I ever want to do it right later on.


*It took me a minute to understand how the thing worked, but I did finally figure it out. Long story short it'll light up only when it sees something from both sides...so the CHMSL will flash with the four-ways, but that's OK- just as long as it doesn't go with the directionals I'm happy.

That's a sweet short cut, nice find.

Ryan
 

CowboyBilly9Mile

Charter Member
7,118
442
USA
X2, good job on repurposing an easy to find item!
 

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