Chausaster's Orange-R Build

[Chausaster]

Hi, I'm Lance and I'm here to talk about the journey of this 2021 Ranger Lariat in the Cyber Orange color. I've been driving a 2006 Nissan Frontier since 2014 and have had no complaints up until last year when it started to nickel and dime me at 200k. I decided its time to look into new trucks. I test drove a 2018 F-150 that I thought I wanted and to my surprise the girlfriend and I didn't really enjoy it. It felt like driving a spaceship in size and complexity. So I was poised to stay in the realm of mid size pickups. I looked all of the available mid size trucks on the market and while looking through some auctions I randomly saw an Orange Ford Ranger. I just enjoyed its boldness so I went ahead and bought it without test driving a Ranger.

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[Chausaster]

As you can see, it doesn't seem like it was all too bad in the photos. But the photos weren't the best so I went in knowing full well it could be worse than it was but I was willing to take the chance. No more than 3 days after paying for it. It arrives at the shop! We start tearing into it to see what we'll need to fix on it. What we had found was the front bumper, upper bumper cover, head light, driver fender, driver door and hood had been damaged on the exterior. Under that the apron and the frame section from the bumper support to the control arm had a little bend to it.

The bumper, upper valence, headlight and driver fender were done for so those were replaced. The door and hood were able to be fixed. All the little pieces for the bumper were so pricy that it was more expensive that purchasing a Rough Country bumper with parts/paint. So I opted to do that instead. The parts came in and off to the frame shop it went to be pulled and aligned back into place!

 

[BS67]

Welcome Lance! Looks like you have a project!

 

[Chausaster]

The frame guys did an excellent job and we were able to get things back into spec. While I was waiting for the frame guys to do their magic, I starting buying small things to add to the truck. I got some Bushwacker fender flares, Raptor Grille, 2" wheel spacers, Rough Country Leveling kit, All weather mats, STEDI light switch panel, Draw-Tite 7500lb Hitch, Anzo Tail lights, and Ranger Tailgate Emblems.

We get the truck back and prep it and paint it!

 

[Trigganometry]

Wow! Lookin good. Few things, the taillights on that are LED type with bliss sensors that are tied to your vehicle. You will most likely have a Christmas tree dash turning it over if they’re not present. The modules are removable though. So you don’t like the stock lights?

Other thing I noticed was on your driver door. Black strip upper outside edge is not painted. It’s a stick on strip. Underneath is factory paint.

You’re going to love this truck. Especially if you put a tune in it. Nice work btw!

 

[Chausaster]

Can I say that my paint guy did such a fantastic job matching the paint. It does not show any difference indoors or outdoors. It was matched so well!

We knew that it was a bright idea to replace the suspension components on that left side for the just in case purposes. So all of that got swapped out and I did the lift while I was under there. It then went to the alignment guy and windshield people to have the things sorted out there. While I was at it, we removed the crash bars and put on 285/65r18 Falken Wildpeaks on it. After all of that was said and done, I added the little accessories to it. I'm still waiting for the fender flares to be painted and a few other bits to come in so I'll post it as they come along. So the journey so far has been six months in the making. Lots of waiting in between and juggling work/life to get it here. But I am so happy with it so far!

List of Mods so far:
2.5" Rough Country Level kit
Rough Country Front Bumper w/ Adaptive Cruise Module adapter plate
Raptor Front Grille with reflective wrap on the FORD portion
2" Wheel spacers on OEM wheels with 285/65r18 Falken Wildpeaks
Anzo Clear Lense Tail Lights
STEDI Light Panel Switch - Not hooked up yet
Drawtite 7500lb Hitch
Bushwacker Fender Flares (not painted yet)
Auto Venshade Bugflector II (Not pictured yet)

Planned things:
Get all Pods and Light bars mounted and hooked up and wiring routed stealthily
Get protective tape between fender flares and fenders.
Purchase and install Softtopper Shell
Purchase Eibach Coilover Kit
Add more stuff as I think of it.

 

[Chausaster]

Wow! Lookin good. Few things, the taillights on that are LED type with bliss sensors that are tied to your vehicle. You will most likely have a Christmas tree dash turning it over if they’re not present. The modules are removable though. So you don’t like the stock lights?

Other thing I noticed was on your driver door. Black strip upper outside edge is not painted. It’s a stick on strip. Underneath is factory paint.

You’re going to love this truck. Especially if you put a tune in it. Nice work btw!

Thank you! I appreciate it! The Anzo taillights are Blis compatible so they are already prewired to run the sensor. I just had to take the sensors out and swap them. The only issue I ran into was the Anzo taillights did trigger a hyperflash, so I disabled it in Forscan. No problems there.

Not sure what you're talking about with the black strip. Are you talking about the portion between the 2 doors? The door nearest the fender was only painted and blended.

Oh ya.... So I work near where Bullydog is headquarted at and picked up a BDX tuner and am using the 91 octane canned tune... I forgot that minor detail lol.

 

[Trigganometry]

Thank you! I appreciate it! The Anzo taillights are Blis compatible so they are already prewired to run the sensor. I just had to take the sensors out and swap them. The only issue I ran into was the Anzo taillights did trigger a hyperflash, so I disabled it in Forscan. No problems there.

Not sure what you're talking about with the black strip. Are you talking about the portion between the 2 doors? The door nearest the fender was only painted and blended.

Yes the black strip between the doors is a vinyl application. So if you do take them off at any point that will be factory paint underneath. Seeing how well it’s matched probably wouldn’t notice anyways.

You did a fine job bringing it back to life and in better shape than the day it was built.

 

[Chausaster]

Yes the black strip between the doors is a vinyl application. So if you do take them off at any point that will be factory paint underneath. Seeing how well it’s matched probably wouldn’t notice anyways.

You did a fine job bringing it back to life and in better shape than the day it was built.

Yeah, I had no plans to remove that. If it ever decided to go bad, I'd find some new vinyl and pretty it up again.

I appreciate the effort we put into it and it really makes me excited to be able to present it in a way that I can be proud of it. Thanks for the positive feedback!

 

[Glocker]

Great work saving a nice truck!

 

[JACKSMYDOG]

Looks like a good resto @Chausaster

 

[hookem57]

Can I say that my paint guy did such a fantastic job matching the paint. It does not show any difference indoors or outdoors. It was matched so well!

We knew that it was a bright idea to replace the suspension components on that left side for the just in case purposes. So all of that got swapped out and I did the lift while I was under there. It then went to the alignment guy and windshield people to have the things sorted out there. While I was at it, we removed the crash bars and put on 285/65r18 Falken Wildpeaks on it. After all of that was said and done, I added the little accessories to it. I'm still waiting for the fender flares to be painted and a few other bits to come in so I'll post it as they come along. So the journey so far has been six months in the making. Lots of waiting in between and juggling work/life to get it here. But I am so happy with it so far!

List of Mods so far:
2.5" Rough Country Level kit
Rough Country Front Bumper w/ Adaptive Cruise Module adapter plate
Raptor Front Grille with reflective wrap on the FORD portion
2" Wheel spacers on OEM wheels with 285/65r18 Falken Wildpeaks
Anzo Clear Lense Tail Lights
STEDI Light Panel Switch - Not hooked up yet
Drawtite 7500lb Hitch
Bushwacker Fender Flares (not painted yet)
Auto Venshade Bugflector II (Not pictured yet)

Planned things:
Get all Pods and Light bars mounted and hooked up and wiring routed stealthily
Get protective tape between fender flares and fenders.
Purchase and install Softtopper Shell
Purchase Eibach Coilover Kit
Add more stuff as I think of it.

That's nice!!

 

[Chausaster]

Update dump time. I was doing a lot soon after I got this truck up and running so here are a few things that happened:

Got married:

Fender Flares are now painted and installed:

Purchased a Softopper from someone on here and got a bike tailgate pad:

And added new shoes in the form of Black Rhino Shogun 17x8.5 -10 offset w/ Falken Wildpeak AT3W 255/80r17:

Still looking into purchasing some suspension stuff. Also due to the Softopper, I'm going to try a 3 channel rear view mirror dash cam. The plan is to modify one of the cams to fit in the tailgate somehow so I can actually see out of the rear and mount a cam on the front grill to get a ground view.

 

[Hickesy]

Update dump time. I was doing a lot soon after I got this truck up and running so here are a few things that happened:

Got married:

Fender Flares are now painted and installed:

Purchased a Softopper from someone on here and got a bike tailgate pad:

And added new shoes in the form of Black Rhino Shogun 17x8.5 -10 offset w/ Falken Wildpeak AT3W 255/80r17:

Still looking into purchasing some suspension stuff. Also due to the Softopper, I'm going to try a 3 channel rear view mirror dash cam. The plan is to modify one of the cams to fit in the tailgate somehow so I can actually see out of the rear and mount a cam on the front grill to get a ground view.

Congrats!

 

[jflogerzi]

Looks good my friend and congrats on tying the knot.

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