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Ranger Secrets

Posted: December 5, 2016, 11:07 am
by Michelle
I have posted this in other places on this site before but I thought since it was Ranger related that it should be posted here as well. When I was tearing my truck down for restoration I had parts scattered all over the shop. Some had to be repaired, some needed cleaning, some needed sand blasted and painted. I had the cab laying on its back and I was sand blasting the floor and the toe board. There was little or no rust on the bottom of the cab, just mostly grease and forty years of dirt. As I was blasting the toe board and the dirt was falling away I saw something brushed in white on the toe board. I started carefully removing the dirt as not to destroy what was written on the toe board. With the dirt removed you could clearly see XL written on the toe board. After some thinking about this I finally concluded that it must have to do with the bucket seats. If you remember from 1962 until the late 60's or early 70's any full sized Ford passenger car that had bucket seats was called an XL. I once had a 63 Galaxie 500 XL convertible. I know that all Ford cars and trucks are serial numbered before they start production. I come to the conclusion that the XL was painted on the toe board so that when it came time to put the interior in, the workers would know to install the bucket seats. This is just my thoughts on it but I can't think of any other logical reason to do this.

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Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: December 22, 2016, 6:13 pm
by FORDification
I would think the truck would have been painted before assembling the interior, which means the markings would've been covered up before the interior crew saw it. And I'd have to doubt they'd look at the lower firewall for that code. But I have no other ideas...

Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: December 22, 2016, 9:30 pm
by Michelle
Why else would it have been painted on the toe board? As matter of fact I do think it was painted on top of the light coat of red that was on the toe board, I have slept a few times since I blasted that so I really can't say for sure.

Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: January 3, 2017, 5:17 pm
by MY OL 66
Michelle: I just found these markings today when I removed the insulation pad off of the interior side of the firewall, just below the dash.

Looks like the Ranger interior code for my truck was marked on the inside.

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Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: January 30, 2017, 11:59 pm
by Michelle
I am glad that you found the XL markings. That confirms what I was thinking. Same place as mine only on the interior side. I am wondering how many others have found the markings?

Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: March 23, 2017, 2:26 pm
by MY OL 66
Michelle: I just found more "XL" markings on bottom of the cab during my cleanup of that area.

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Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: March 23, 2017, 2:46 pm
by Michelle
That's pretty cool, they wanted to make sure that the assembly line knew that truck was destined to be a Ranger. It was both inside and out.

Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: March 23, 2017, 5:58 pm
by Toyz
Yep, it goes back at least as far as the "XL cab" trucks. I believe that the cabs were standard when started down the line and the markings were to (help) ascertain that the proper reinforcements for the bucket seat packages were installed. For expediency, I suspect Ford retained the "XL" marking even after the XL package became the Ranger package.
:2cents:
Paul

Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: March 24, 2017, 6:33 am
by bruceandersson
Interesting the seat re-enforcing brackets appear to be missing from the inner bolt holes of the buckets.

Re: Ranger Secrets

Posted: March 24, 2017, 7:12 pm
by MY OL 66
bruceandersson wrote:Interesting the seat re-enforcing brackets appear to be missing from the inner bolt holes of the buckets.
Yeah, it looks like they just banged those holes in with a larger drill bit as the cab went along the assembly line.

But also, if you notice, all of the outboard holes for the bench seat brackets are there with the threaded brackets.

On at least one of those holes that are not used by the bucket seat mounts, I found body sealer "stuffed" into the threads to seal the hole.