Local Legend Vital Designs Regular Cab Ranger

Thank you guys 🤘 Its been a fun truck to build so far, this is the first time ive been able to do what I want on a truck since I have built our personal f150 back in the day which has been cool to be able to show where im at now. This truck is still on the mild-ish side compared to the ideas I have in my head and the level of stuff I want to be building, but it takes time to build the name and reputation to get the client to spend that kind of money with you

Ryan has been super cool about letting me do what I want and believing in the process, especially now with it coming down to the finish detail type work it gets brutal with all the small parts and peices needing to be ordered and all the loose ends being wrapped up, etc. If you've ever built a truck start to finish you know how gnarly the last 10-15% is. The first 85% is "quick" and fun to watch something take shape, but the last 10-15% is what makes or breaks the final result of a truck
 
ChristianEwing said:
Thank you guys 🤘 Its been a fun truck to build so far, this is the first time ive been able to do what I want on a truck since I have built our personal f150 back in the day which has been cool to be able to show where im at now. This truck is still on the mild-ish side compared to the ideas I have in my head and the level of stuff I want to be building, but it takes time to build the name and reputation to get the client to spend that kind of money with you

Ryan has been super cool about letting me do what I want and believing in the process, especially now with it coming down to the finish detail type work it gets brutal with all the small parts and peices needing to be ordered and all the loose ends being wrapped up, etc. If you've ever built a truck start to finish you know how gnarly the last 10-15% is. The first 85% is "quick" and fun to watch something take shape, but the last 10-15% is what makes or breaks the final result of a truck
Click to expand...
the last 15% is one of the most expensive time consuming, so little progress, little excitement part of most all builds. its where some corners are cut and many projects sit until sold or part out.
 
Got started on the wiring process for this thing!

Last 6/8 months I’ve been researching wiring pretty heavily, bought a couple HPA courses that were super helpful and joined a couple Facebook groups with a lot of great info.

Originally the plan was to strip all the smog and AC stuff off the engine bay harness, and the interior harness and then clean it up. After we tore the stock harness out of the truck, I jumped into the interior harness first and honestly just fucked it all up haha. I deloomed it and didn’t zip tie the wires as I was thinning the unneeded wires out so when it was all thinned out, the rats nest of wires that was there was a huge mess. I learned my lesson after that and zip tied all the wire harnesses and the pulled wires out one by one, tightening the zip tie to keep its uniform shape.

Pretty much the only stock wiring I’m using at this point is the engine harness, and the bare
minimum of wires needed to go to the PCM. Everything else I’m redoing, because why put 30 year old wiring on this thing haha.

Started with making a mock up rope harness for the rear of the truck. Everything on the rear of the truck will go through an HDP20 29 pin plug. The main harness branch will have DT connectors for things like removal of the bedsides/tail lights, removing the fuel pump, a roof LED rack. Everything is being ran down the passenger side of the truck and will be wrapped with the appropriate sheathing to protect from the exhaust etc while fuel related will be kept to the drivers side of the truck.

3/8 size rope is used due to it being similar to how a wire lays down and doesn’t kink when you bend it. Smaller diameter rope will allow some kinks and bends you should try to avoid. Zip ties and painters tape is your friend with anything wiring I have learned.

Anyways enough yappin, 6ish hours and a couple hazys and we had a complete mock up rear harness! Got it laid out on some peg board and am excited to knock this out.


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Edit: I don’t think I said harness enough 😂
 
wow, to much for me. that's why I paid someone to rewire my truck front to back. just wiring up my van with a house battery/inverter/fans/solar and others was enough.
 
Enjoy the process!

crimper for those connectors is bank if you don't know someone with one.

You gonna try and twist them and do service loops and all that shit? That's where I drew the line. hahah

(oh and I used cheaper weatherpack and metripack connectors too, except for firewall plug)
 
FasterNU said:
Enjoy the process!

crimper for those connectors is bank if you don't know someone with one.

You gonna try and twist them and do service loops and all that shit? That's where I drew the line. hahah

(oh and I used cheaper weatherpack and metripack connectors too, except for firewall plug)
Click to expand...

I know you can easily blow 800+ on a pair of DT crimpers. I bought a rip off pair of JR ready DT crimpers off Amazon for Black Friday at $130 and they seem like they’ll be more than enough. I bought a genuine DT kit from prowire and was messing around practice crimping and I was taking the wires crimped with the solid connector terminals on and a pair of pliers to try and pull them apart and couldn’t.

Twisting and service loops, twisting probably not because I’m using TXL wire and not tefzel. You twist TXL I guess it becomes really stiff. I might try some service loops out, trying to push my self with this
 
Pulled this thing out the other weekend to film a new update video for Wings World. Seeing it in this state is pretty rad with all the front glass on it. Also got some of the rear tin work done, Ryan and I agreed that no bead rolls are gonna be the way to go on this thing, once the panels are powdercoated and the rear storage boxes are on it on each side of the backhalf it should look super clean


IMG_8026.webpIMG_8028.webpIMG_8032.webp
 
ChristianEwing said:
Pulled this thing out the other weekend to film a new update video for Wings World. Seeing it in this state is pretty rad with all the front glass on it. Also got some of the rear tin work done, Ryan and I agreed that no bead rolls are gonna be the way to go on this thing, once the panels are powdercoated and the rear storage boxes are on it on each side of the backhalf it should look super clean
Click to expand...
Looks awesome! I like the clean, no bead roll, also if its just flat you could always adapt different materials later if you ever feel like changing it up, not that you would haha. Looks sick.
 
the bodj said:
Gonna sound like thunder without the bead rolling while karate chopping whoops! The best way to strike fear into the hearts of your enemies.
Click to expand...

Shouldnt hear it at all! Once the chassis is coated im gonna lay 1/4" foam between the panel and the tubes where the lacing in the backhalf is. All the edges of the panels are rolled as well so its holding tension to the tube work 🤘
 
After getting all the mock up rope harness tied down to the peg board I was able to get the wires cut to length. Rope provides a good visual of how many wires there really is and is so much easier to work with.

Got everything spliced and thinned out, both tail lights into one, both back up lights into one, etc. Fucked up once or twice but I got it done.

DCECE3F5-97BE-4202-BE76-3C967DAF1A88.jpeg

I bought a label printer and heat shrink labels to label all the wires. Ease of serviceability is priority on all this.
IMG_6100.jpeg

Main harness plug on the rear wall. It’s close to the exhaust so we’ll have to figure something out for the actual wall heat wise. The main harness trunk will be wrapped in insultherm fiberglass sheathing rated to 1200F. Ordered plug boots so those will be covered from the elements and really clean up the look.
IMG_6112.jpeg
Driver side fuel pump wires, and the driver side cyclone wires going up past the exhaust. Again, will be wrapped in insultherm fiberglass sheathing. Putting the fuel pump on a DTP plug.

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I’ve done all this on a table at my house and then taking it to Christian’s to test fit. Everything on the pegboard with the tape really helped get all my junctions right, I pretty much built my backhalf on the pegboard. When I plugged the plug in all the junctions were on point, only had to move one or two an inch.

Rear harness is pretty much done, just needs sheathing, boots, and trimming the ends to put terminals on and connect. Getting started on the front tomorrow!
 
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