WELCOME TO RIVER DAVES PLACE

Building my Ranger Crew

RiverDave

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Barkers fabrication - 928-846-7755
Safeglowhips - http://safeglowhips.com/
Young Guns Auto Salon 951-201-5599
Wired For Sound - 951-696-2200
Kicker Audio -
SSV Works
Green Ball Tires
Wheel Pro's - www.wheelpros.com
Maxed Out Marine - 928-854-3060

This build is going to go through several sessions as it gets ready for Desert Storm, and I will document it all as we go along. This all started awhile back when I wanted to get a safari rack made for my Ranger. I was thinking more or less a square box (maybe radiused corners if I was feeling super spiffy.) and a light in the front of it.. I have seen other rangers online that have them and they look pretty cool so something simple kind of like that.

I got together with www.Safeglowhips.com on the light bar, and had been searching for a fabricator that could understand what I wanted, build something trick and not hack up my Ranger in the process. My buddy called a couple of the big name shops on my behalf, and while one or two said they would do it, it was fairly obvious that they were disinterested in it (which invariably ends up being... blah when you're done). Point in fact the only reason I think they said they would do it is because the owner of safeglo called them to see if they would type of deal.

I met Eric Barker and his Dad in a mexican restaurant a year and a half ago shooting the breeze about their two Mandella's, and a Brummet that they have. (We will come back to at a later date.. They have some seriously bitchen boats). Eric as it turns out isn't just some fabricator that mig welds cages and the like together.. Eric is some kind of mad scientist that builds bad ass 200+ mph tig welded Tube Chassis drag cars for the kind of people that can afford to go race and campaign things like that. Readers digest version on that, it's pretty much next level shit on the brains, know how, and finished product. (He's got one in his garage that he's building right now which is why I can speak to that with some authority)

So I get to talking to Eric one night and he says "Dave I'll build your little rack for you, just bring it over we can be in and out in a couple of days and I'll make it cool." Eric had to finish some work on a race car, and then he did a quick service on some full boogie sand rail deal.. And he calls me up and says "I got a little time bring it on over and lets see what you got."

In the meantime 2 pretty decent size boxes show up at my house from Safeglowhips, and I open them up to find a complete array of lights inside. There's a large light bar for the top, there's 2 2inch square lights, 1 2 inch square amber light, 4 Red Dome lights (under car lighting), 2 white Dome lights (interior lighting), a 12 inch double row light etc.. I'd say we have the lights more then covered for a safari Rack.

So I grab my boxes of lights throw them in the Ranger and myself and Tommygun head over to check out Eric's shop. As soon as you get there the picture becomes crystal clear. There isn't a spec of dust on the floor. There's a ridiculous drag car being put together in the back. All the fabrication equipment is covered with nice blankets, and the stuff you can see doesn't have a scratch on it. Giant water cooled Welders, and benders, and corner notchers, and on and on..

Eric pulls out all the lights and kind of surveys the situation and asks me "Well what kind of theme are you going for here? Trophy Truck, Pre Runner?" After a brief talk I told him "I dunno.. I was kind of thinking either Search and Rescue or maybe Chase Truck? Something really utilitarian" We BS'd for a bit, and Tommy gun and I left. The one thing I did notice was on his white board in the back it said "RiverDaves over the top Ranger Crew." I brought that up to Tom on the way home and he said "I think over the top means the safari rack deal."

1X7A6862.jpg 1X7A6863.jpg

When we returned we discovered that Eric had made a bad ass bumper that follows the contours of the Ranger! We get to talking and he more or less said "Well if we are gonna build it, then we might as well actually build it!" He then filled me in on Front and rear bumpers and skid plates.. Which then led into a conversation of the styling of the rear bumper (That I didn't even know about until right then) and a douple bumper vs a single, and the rabbit hole begins to deepen.

RD
 

OldSchoolBoats

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I can see the snowball effect here...lol. Next is a lift...haha. Looks good Dave!
 

guest hs

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Dave are you talking about 2 different desert storms???????
 

RiverDave

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So we get to talking, and Eric informs me that he went online and looked at a bunch of pretty bad ass Rangers that were built for Hunting and other purposes and has some ideas on how we should proceed. "The little Safari Rack that was going to double as a roof should probably be extended out and over the bed, and then tie into the rear bumper somehow. By the way the cool guy ones have lights on all four sides." So I walk outside and talk to Safeglowhips about what is going on here, and that my little Safari Rack project is turning into a pretty extensive deal here and how a light sponsorship would be much appreciated. Eric tells me what he thinks it would need to be cool, and another box of lights is in route to Havasu. Tom, Eric and Myself sit around talking for a little bit and suggestions are going back and forth, and a few ideas are dreamed up on the fly. Eric indicates that he thinks he has some ideas, and so Tom and I depart again.

Two days later my lights arrived, so we went back over to Eric's place to see what was what and go over the lights that showed up to make sure we are all on the same page. We showed up while Eric was welding which was pretty cool to see a guy that really knows what he's doing working at his trade..

(Apparently my .gif experiment failed, so here is the pics)
1X7A6867.jpg 1X7A6866.jpg 1X7A6868.jpg 1X7A6869.jpg 1X7A6870.jpg 1X7A6871.jpg

Which brings us to the Safari Rack itself.. I want to say it's 8 or 9' long x 4 or 5 wide? (Pretty big).. There's a bazillion little details that Eric put into the thought process of building the rack which I will get into as the rack comes together, but for now I'll start with the basic ones.

The first pic is Eric Determining the correct radius of the light bar.

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Radius front corners of the Safari Rack, height of rack determined and height of light determined.

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Bar behind the light bar to prevent things on the top from coming in contact with the light bar.
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Angular corners on the rear of the Safari Rack that match bed on the Ranger down below (Makes it look Aesthetically Correct)
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Eric showing us were the side lights will end up on the Safari Rack.

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Barker's Fabrication Shirt (want one of these if you have any Eric!)
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Squirtsfar

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The bumper looks great, can't wait to see the rest.
 

throttle

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I like the time and precision work that is being put into the light tabs. The lights will look recessed. [emoji106]

Subscribed
 

RiverDave

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ImageUploadedByTapatalk1454634276.071703.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1454634286.107083.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1454634301.359461.jpg

Some quick pics I shot with my iPhone.. You can see the radius matches the light radius perfectly on the front.


Throttle all the lights are recessed a little bit. I asked why on he bumper the top hoops kind of leans forward. The answer was basically. "If you hit something you want it to hit the bumper, not the light."

He's got a bazillion little trick things integrated into this thing already, but I will post what they are as it starts coming together. ;)

One of the things he did was make the center bar that runs front to back a smaller diameter then the outside bars..

Free Rdp shirt if anyone guesses correctly as to why. :). (I didn't get it until he said why and then I thought.. I should have known that.)
 

Cole Trickle

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No need for the extra weight for the inside bars when you tie it all in with expanded mesh inside.
 

Joker

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Looks good Dave. :thumbsup
 

Singleton

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That way you don't see the middle bar when looking at the rack from the sides and the floor will be flat all the way across and match up to the top of the outside bars (will be a very clean look)
 

RiverDave

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That way you don't see the middle bar when looking at the rack from the sides and the floor will be flat all the way across and match up to the top of the outside bars (will be a very clean look)

Yep.. It is so the edges of the aluminum end up on the inside radius of the outside bars.. So when someone puts heir hands up there they don't ever feel a hard edge, and everything is flush.
 

RCDave

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All that extra weight ...gonna need more power.
 

djunkie

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I want one of those shirts too. [emoji16]
I've been thinking about some sort of a safari rack for my rhino as well too.
 

Singleton

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Yep.. It is so the edges of the aluminum end up on the inside radius of the outside bars.. So when someone puts heir hands up there they don't ever feel a hard edge, and everything is flush.

Score. Will pick up my shirt when I bring my boat back to Havasu
 

Hammer

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Are you going to have to revalve and stiffen up the springs?
 

RiverDave

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Are you going to have to revalve and stiffen up the springs?

You wouldn't have too.. Ranger crews are rated for something ridiculous like a 1000 lbs in the bed.. They can tow something like 2000 lbs stock.

These things actually ride better when you load them up with people.. Lol

I plan on doing suspension work before DS so I'll deal with that when we get to it.
 

Sawtooth

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Looks good Dave/Eric, Eric has skills when it comes time to dream up and glue steel together. The barker family are good people.
 

CLdrinker

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What's powering all of these lights? Dual odyssey 925's? Alternator would be sweet.
 

RiverDave

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What's powering all of these lights? Dual odyssey 925's? Alternator would be sweet.

Haven't gotten that far yet.. One step at a time. ;). I will address the battery problems when it goes to the stereo shop.
 

RiverDave

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Aren't you married with kids. We all need more ammo to add HP... As Tim Taylor said, we need mooooore power!

Been doing a little research.. I believe the Rangers are pretty easy to unlock a bunch more power.. These things are torquey but slow..
 

DLC

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Looks cool Dave! Can't wait to see the finished project at DS!! That's going to be an awesome safari rig!
 

RiverDave

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Some updated pictures from last week! The rack is tacked together and mounted to the Ranger. :) I am really stoked with the aesthetics and how it is turning out!

Eric made the rack so that it can be removed via a series of Pin's if you wanted to take it off for some reason. (I'll never take it off, but it's still a nice option to have)
1X7A7327.jpg

You can see the attachment point on the back of the stock cage
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Looking up at the side of the rack and the light bars on the side of the rack
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Hard to see in tthis pic, but you can see the light is slightly recessed and the arc of the rack matches the light perfectly.

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Front View

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Should note these pics were taken last week and the Ranger is further along now. I need to get over there to take some updated pics. :)

RD
 

RiverDave

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Is the rack going to be cantilevered off the back or is it going to have some supports to the rear bumper?

It will have vertical supports to the rear bumper. On those vertical supports will be two "barn doors" that mount spare tires like one of chase trucks.
 

Flying_Lavey

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It will have vertical supports to the rear bumper. On those vertical supports will be two "barn doors" that mount spare tires like one of chase trucks.
Gotcha. Where all the goodies get mounted. Lol!
 

Sawtooth

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Are you guys planning on running the light wiring internally in the new tubes or externally DCB zip tie style. Eric and his dad Walt talked about building something like this about 8 or so years back that rescue personal could use to get back into no mans land to help/rescue someone. Its good to see his vision and ideas come to reality, its looking very cool.
 

RiverDave

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Are you guys planning on running the light wiring internally in the new tubes or externally DCB zip tie style. Eric and his dad Walt talked about building something like this about 8 or so years back that rescue personal could use to get back into no mans land to help/rescue someone. Its good to see his vision and ideas come to reality, its looking very cool.

It will be wired externally.. But I expect it will be a kind of mix with some internal for short spans that make sense and the major wiring being external.
 

River Lynchmob

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Curious since you are adding all this stuff (which looks great btw) why you didn't replace the stock cage?
 

RiverDave

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Curious since you are adding all this stuff (which looks great btw) why you didn't replace the stock cage?

Well to be honest the plan was just for a little safari rack on the top Lynch.. I didn't know that Eric was doing all this stuff until he texted me a pic of the front bumper. Lol. Which I think I commented "looks a little low to be a safari rack?" I was as surprised as anyone when I went over to his house and saw the whole plan.

That said on the 2015's while it's not impossible it would be a pain in the dick to replace the cage on them. The stock cage and bungs are weird shaped and I woul have to machine these weird T shaped kind of bungs to make it adapt to round tubing. If you do that you also lose the ability to put in the factory glass which is really nice.
 

RiverDave

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Got some updates pics from Eric and the Lift Kit came in!

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1455990937.086316.jpg

ImageUploadedByTapatalk1455990946.834720.jpg

I am extremely excited about how this is coming out!!
 

guest hs

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Dave when is the next SXS run Dr. Rob and I want to come down for it?
 

RiverDave

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Dave when is the next SXS run Dr. Rob and I want to come down for it?

I don't really have one planned for us.. After Eric gets done with this my whole program is going to California for the stereo / powder coating and wiring over at wired for sound.. That should take about two to three weeks I'm guessing?
 

throttle

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Its looking like my grandpas old land cruiser[emoji106]
I am curious, what made you guys decide to stick with the Polaris stock cage?

Edit. Sorry. Missed your previous reply.
 

Taboma

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With those two support tubes running under the bed --- will it still raise for access and or dumping ?
 
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