Rear Bumper Musical Chairs

 

I moved the spare more to the center which covers the backup camera in the center blue Ford oval decal. I found a new backup camera, but I needed to move it to the center of the original license plate location, so I moved the license plate to the passenger side swing arm.

At least this was relatively cheap, the license plate bracket and light were $40. The aftermarket backup camera from Rostra was $165. The only downside is the automatic tailgate lock doesn't work anymore. But I have to manually unlock the GFC window anyway, so no biggee.

the new backup camera

more photos, click here.

Jan 28th

I move the backup camera because the image was very hard to see.

Everything was super overexposed/washed out. I realized it was probably because the backup camera was shaded in the rear bumper recess.

Icon Stage 4 Ford Ranger suspension upgrade

 

 

When I got the truck new, I felt the suspension was a bit "floaty". Probably made that way to be comfortable, but as I added more and more weight to the truck, the truck sway and diving/lifting was pretty bad. The Icon Stage 4 upgrade fixed all that, and the truck handles great now.

I'll be updating the tires soon too. As you can see there's plenty of room, but I'm not going huge. the stock tires are 30.5", going to get 32" tires.

Making Duffel Bags, removing Drawer from Truck

 

 

 

I decided to repurpose the 2nd drawer of the truck into a junk drawer for the basement. Mostly, I wanted to save some weight and space in the truck. I think the drawer and enclosure is at least 75lbs. Bags weigh a lot less, and they make it easier to move stuff back and forth from the house, instead of leaving everything in the truck to freeze/roast.

Soon, I'll have a new blog post on a smaller drawer I'm going to make using an under bed plastic bin. The advantage of a plastic bin is that I can load it with food pantry stuff in the house and then carry out to the truck.

Ditto with a new blog post about making bags. More on that later. Never thought I'd learn to sew, but here we are. Surprisingly, woodworking and sewing overlap quite a bit. The ability to read plans, measure, draw lines, visualize stuff in your head, etc is very comparable. And now that I've made one bag, I plan on using 1/4" plywood scrap to make templates so I can cut the fabric panels and add chalk lines to the pieces more quickly, so it'll be easier to make more bags. In that case, my woodworking will actually directly benefit my sewing.

Here's the 2nd drawer I'm talking about. Now removed from the truck.

It's new home in the basement, by the walkout door to the backyard.

A lot of clutter is now more under control. Weed wacker line, rope, garden hose parts, and misc junk. Everyone needs some junk drawers.