Vorpal - Horse N Buggys BS Badlands Build

[Horse n Buggy]

To keep a long post from clogging the "What did you to TO your bronco sport today" thread, here is what i did Saturday and Sunday to my 2022 Bronco Sport Badlands.

First things first I installed the Skid Plate and Rally Light Bar from Rally Innovations. Skid plate took less then 5 minutes, swapped out four bolts for included bolts with spacers and bolted the plate in. EZ PZ. The Rally light bar took a bit longer, probably an hour total, most of the time was slowly undoing the bolts at the front towhook mount. Not a lot of space and long bolts. Instructions came with pictures and were really easy to follow.

Next i was onto the lights. I had contacted Rally Innovations about if i could fit the Lights i wanted on the bar, they didn't think i could, but after going through the thorough and ample CAD drawings from Diode Dynamics, i decided to go for it anyways. I went with Diode Dynamics SS5 Cross Link 4-Pod in yellow / combo / sport. Additionally i ordered their Heavy Duty Single Output 4-Pin Wiring Harness and two Stage Series SS5 Universal Bracket Kits as i knew their universal Cross link mount wouldn't fit on the Rally Innovations Bar. Setting up the Cross Link bar was a bit time consuming but not awful, kinda tricky because i wasn't the mounts as designed but it seemed to work out, great instructions and full videos on how to set those up. I had to flip the Rally Innovations Light bar and drill new holes for the RivNuts to secure my Lights, all in all probably an additional 2 hours to get assembled and mounted.

Next up was one of my weaker skills, Wiring. I had the deutche connectors from Diode Dynamics so getting the lights together wasn't hard, and with the wiring harness the trickiest part was getting through the engine bay to my wireless relay. I had to pull the trim over radiator to drop the main line down to fish it out at the light bar, not crazy but took a bit of fishing around to pick my path. Unfortunately i can't use my wireless relay yet as I'm waiting for a blasted A23 battery to delivery, but till then i ran the included switch from Diode Dynamics through the door and into the cabin so i can at least have the Backlights and Full Beams functioning till Amazon sends me my batteries. Yes it does take up quite a bit of real-estate on the front camera, No i don't have Radar Guided Cruise Control so i cant tell you if it screws with those sensors. But im a sucker for the old Rally Styling and i couldn't resist having some big lights front and center.

Last on the docket was a new level of hell. I knew it was going to be a PITA install because i watched the video for the install twice, but that 20min video turned into a 10 hour Hell of a time. Would have been significantly shorter if i had anyone else helping me but whats done is done. I installed JCR-Offroads Bronco Sport Roof Rack. With this install done ive successfully completed the set of completely disassembling the front of the car (for Fog Light swap) The back of the car (For installing the Ford trailer Hitch) and removing the roof liner (This). Unfortunately there was not included instructions i remember or could find so all i had was the video. The video was great but what hardware to use where was a significant issue, and i ended up with a surprisingly amount of spares that i dont know what they do or where they go. Also, someone blasted shipping staples through their sticker sheet. Overall, love the way it looks but if i was smart i would have started with this on Saturday instead of waiting till sunday and finishing at 3am.

Now i got to figure out what to do with the factory rails.

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[Babybronc21]

Modifications are exciting and daunting sometimes. Our vision doesn’t always come together as easily as anticipated. For me, and after researching lighting options for the last 6 months I totally appreciate your post.

thanks for sharing and look forward to seeing future mods

 

[LBinWNC]

Did my wiring with a trigger controller… make life much easier

 

[Horse n Buggy]

Amazon delivered my A23 batteries so I was able to uninstall the temporary switch I set up, plugged in the batteries and now have both the backlight feature and main light feature of my front lights set up on a wireless remote. I used Blazer International wireless remote system per the suggestion of Fordbroncolifts. Relatively inexpensive, simple and really to install (unless the included A23 battery is dead).

First picture shows the fused wireless relay installed via 3m tape on the top of my air box case, red circle shows the emergence of the wiring harness from where I dropped it down behind the grille (excess wires and inline fuse to be organized later). Second picture shows the wireless remote clipped to the driver sun visor so you know what It looks like size wise. It's not the prettiest remote. But it works perfect

 

[Uncle Buck]

I like the idea of the wireless relay, and I am a HUGE fan of Diode Dynamics (a local company and the owner/founder is the son of a late friend of mine, so I am biased).

That said, the blocking of the front camera would be a problem for me. When off road and cresting a grade with a drop off beyond, those cameras are really helpful. That said, most/all of our off road driving is in my Expedition that is setup for that, including an aftermarket front camera, so maybe blocking the camera on the Badlands is not an issue.

I do like the way your setup looks! And I am glad I am not contemplating that roof rack – more disassembly than I care to undertake. You're more brave than me!

 

[Horse n Buggy]

So, while the Blazer International Wireless relay works great and is rather inexpensive compared to other wireless options, it has one major issue, there are no lights or indicators on the remote or the relay to show what's powered and what isn't. Now I have terrible memory and I have several times since installing the relay and light bar forgotten to turn off the backlights on the pods. Good news is they are low draw LEDs and both times I was only gone a couple minutes or someone let me know the lights were on, but I still wanted to fix this

So I bought a couple LED 12v power indicator lights, a 2" dash pod mount and a 2" acoustic panel cover and built a small (possibly temporary) Power indicator. I'm not ready to run wires through the firewall, I'm waiting till I possibly give up on the wireless relay, so I'm temporarily mounted the pod on my dash and ran the wires through the door. Each pod reflects a different switch on the remote, and it's skewed light it is to mimic the placements of the buttons on the remote.

I keep referring to this whole setup as possibly temporary because I don't yet know how hard on exterior lights i want to go and this setup is low cost and effort to get started. That and I'm dealing with a curious issue with Auto Start / Stop causing a power stutter that shuts off my auxiliary lights (this was something i noticed before doing anything with the lights, when the car started itself the headlights would restart) and now I can see it in full action with my indicator pod.

 

[Horse n Buggy]

Probably last update for a while. To Wrap up all the Roof Rack mods for the time being i got the wires needed to setup my Area Lights. I installed the JCR Offroad LED Rack Area Light and the JCR Offroad Roof Rack Grab Handles.

The grab handles are easy enough to install on the JCR Roof Rack, just undo the bolts holding in the cross bars on two locations on each side and mount the Grab handles at those locations using the included longer bolts. EZPZ. The area lights are a bit of a handful to get into place, the lights mount into a rubber gasket, through one of the holes built into the side of the rack, through a tension plate and held in place with two bolts, lock washers and nuts (for the record, Superbright LEDs apparently makes the LED lights). Its on odd bit of kit to hold in place and run the hardware through, but didn't take a ton of time. Now, running and splicing the wires is a bit more of a process. I ran passenger side to driver side through one of the rail slots on the side of a cross member in the roof rack and used black RTV to hold them in place (well, zip ties are holding them in place till the RTV cures). At the passenger side, i made the 2-1 splice using solder seal sticks and some additional shrink wrap, and some more RTV for security (why not).

From there, i ran it along the rack to the front mounting location, down below the Original Rail trim that was modified during the Rack installation, forward to the windshield and down the A-Pillar via the "Accessory Ready" channel (I've linked the video i used as a guide to get into that A-Pillar). From there it was just running it though the engine bay and into the Blazer International Wireless Relay under one of the 2amp slots. And Viola, relatively cleanly installed area lights. Below are on / off comparisons of the area lighting.

 

[Ford Motor Company]

Probably last update for a while. To Wrap up all the Roof Rack mods for the time being i got the wires needed to setup my Area Lights. I installed the JCR Offroad LED Rack Area Light and the JCR Offroad Roof Rack Grab Handles.

The grab handles are easy enough to install on the JCR Roof Rack, just undo the bolts holding in the cross bars on two locations on each side and mount the Grab handles at those locations using the included longer bolts. EZPZ. The area lights are a bit of a handful to get into place, the lights mount into a rubber gasket, through one of the holes built into the side of the rack, through a tension plate and held in place with two bolts, lock washers and nuts (for the record, Superbright LEDs apparently makes the LED lights). Its on odd bit of kit to hold in place and run the hardware through, but didn't take a ton of time. Now, running and splicing the wires is a bit more of a process. I ran passenger side to driver side through one of the rail slots on the side of a cross member in the roof rack and used black RTV to hold them in place (well, zip ties are holding them in place till the RTV cures). At the passenger side, i made the 2-1 splice using solder seal sticks and some additional shrink wrap, and some more RTV for security (why not).

From there, i ran it along the rack to the front mounting location, down below the Original Rail trim that was modified during the Rack installation, forward to the windshield and down the A-Pillar via the "Accessory Ready" channel (I've linked the video i used as a guide to get into that A-Pillar). From there it was just running it though the engine bay and into the Blazer International Wireless Relay under one of the 2amp slots. And Viola, relatively cleanly installed area lights. Below are on / off comparisons of the area lighting.

Love these personal touches on your Bronco Sport, Stoge! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Horse n Buggy]

So with the roof rack installed, it felt like time to reclaim my trunk. For the longest time now I've had one or two boxes / baskets in my trunk filled with tiedowns, straps, coats, zipties, shackle receiver etc. Essentially random things that I 'might' need. In order to reclaim this space i wanted to utilize the extruded aluminum rails of the JCR Roof Rack (which are 8020 Series 10 Aluminum Bars) to semi-permanent or permanently mount a storage box on the roof.

The criteria for the box were
1. It fits on the roof rack (72" X 47" area)
2. Low profile height to clear my garage
3. Weather Resistant because Florida and
4. Lockable

With all things in consideration i knew i didn't want a more traditional style roof box because i want to be able to mount other thing around and ontop of it and, well, they don't look as cool as a more rugged cargo style box. Considering the height restriction i ended up looking more at Double Rifle style cases instead of more 'cargo' roof boxes and eventually narrowed it down to the Pelican Vault V800 or the Apache 9800 and settled on the V800 because it looks less like a guncase and uses its footprint a little better (and i got it 20% off on amazon).

I did some research, ordered a set of 1/4-20 Economy T Nuts, 1/4-20 3/4" Long SS Bolts and M8 Bonded Sealing Washers for the install. First, i measured center to center inside the pelican case of its outermost molded drill mounting locations (41" on the V800) and drilled a 1/4" hole in all four selected locations. Then I loosened the rear rail and positioned it 41" away from the rail that closest matched that dimension. From there i slid the T-Nuts across the rail, placed plastic straws in the T-Nuts for centering and carefully lowered the case over these straws. With the straws protruding into case i removed them, and bolted the 3/4" bolt through the Bonded sealing washer and into the T-Nut below the case, tightened snuggly, gave the case a shake, vocally said "This ain't going nowhere" and cleaned up my work area.

I unfortunately found out the temporary master lock i ordered doesn't clear the locking locations, which is a bummer but its okay. Just wont have anything in it for a while, which is fine because i want to stability check the case at interstate speeds, and check the weather proofing. I have Keyed alike ABUS locks on order that will arrive eventually, good vibes that those fit.

For reference, here is how i would currently be packing the case if i had locks that fit (and note there is about 1" of foam below everything in this picture), From Left to Right, top to bottom, 1x 3/4" x 20' Voodoo Offroad Kinetic Recovery Rope, Misc bag of ratchet straps and tie downs, 1x Rhino USA D-Ring Shackle Hitch Receiver, 1 single unknown sized bungee cord, 2x King-Pro soft Shackles, Voodoo Offroad Tire Plug Kit, 4x Diode Dynamic SS5 Light Pod Covers, Many Misc length zip ties, 1x Rhino USA Trailer Hitch Lock, 1x King-Pro Snatch Ring, 1x Voodoo Offroad Tree Saver Strap. Plenty of space for more things, especially once i figure out how i want to organize with all of the foam the case came with

(I cannot speak for the quality of any of the recovery gear because i have yet to do something stupid enough to need it)

 

[Horse n Buggy]

So todays goal was to install a Renogy 100W Solar Panel onto my JCR Roof rack. Hypothesis was it would be easy due to the extruded aluminum T-Slot rails and technically yeh, it was. Except i never think forward so everything i did i had to do several times. I used Renogys 28" Adjustable mount as the primary attachment, plenty of places on the frame to attach to my rails but the question was did i want it to have the option to tilt towards the front of the car or to the driverside of the car? In retrospect the answer was unless you want to crawl on the top of the rack to adjust things, static mount flat. Because if i wanted it to tilt to driver, i would have had to loosen and adjust the location of two of my rails, and if i wanted to adjust forward, i would need to physically be ontop of the rack to adjust the passenger side hardware for the tilt feature. Luckily tilt forward was easier to mount to the rack and thats what i went with.

I loosely installed the t-nuts so i could adjust the bottom rails and traded off tilting forward and tilting backwards to finalize their placement (which wont be final final because hindsight is 20/20 and i need to push it more to center for future rack attachments) from there (and ignoring the literal hours of time spent trying to figure out how i can get the tilt feature to work for me) it was fairly easy install, 4 mounting locations with the option of another 4 more mounts if it didn't feel secure (interstate test had this thing rock solid so im sticking with 4 mounts).

Next up was wiring and i kinda lucked out. I did literally no research up till this part on how i would get the wires into the trunk but as i will cover, it kinda worked out. I used Renogys 20ft Solar Extension cables to run the wires below the roof rack, into the hatch area next to the hind, partially behind the driver side brake lights, along the weather stripping and to my surprise, in through a precut tab in the weather stripping, how convenient. I'm mostly pleased with this because its after the bottom curve which will hopefully work towards minimizing water intrusion, and without having to cut or drill any additional holes (which i've already cut and drill a lot of random things and i shouldn't be opposed to doing, but i still don't like doing it if i can avoid it). From there its simply a SolarEnz Solar to 8mm connector (with their polarity inverter on the 8mm cable so it works with a Jackery Explorer 500) And voila, all that was left to do was reassemble and test drive.

Took a brief drive around town and onto the interstate to see if there were any squeaks, rattles, clinks, bumps or increased wind noise. Truth be told, i didn't notice anything, no noticeable changes to handling, wind noise, fuel econ, but it was a short drive and when i get a chance to actually set the cruise control i will update this thread with any impacts.

Only down side, it was a rather overcast day, but the Jackery did show it was getting (some) power to it so hey, it works so far. Ill hopefully see its full effects as i monitor the battery charge level. As a fun aside, Jackery sells a 12v to alligator clamp cable for their units so it can recharge my car battery incase i got one of Fords bum batteries

Bonus shot because the sun kinda peaked out after i was done with everything

 

[metalbender]

Turn your spare upside down. Lots of wasted space under there.

 

[Horse n Buggy]

So I wanted to customize and "upgrade" my pelican case that I've been using as a permanently mounted roof box. I ordered two mylar air brushing stencils (one of the Phoenix Squadron emblem and one of the Rebel Starbird) as well as three additional colors of Montana Gold spray paint to add along the yellow I already had from painting the tow hooks (Ordered Red, Orange and Purple). Uninstalling the box was easy enough, four hex bolts that went into T-Nuts in the aluminum rails, and I made a setup in my back yard with a log of spare cardboard and tape.

I wanted to have the spray jobs seem rustic, and I didn't want to clear coat them because I want them to get banged up for the aesthetic. So I taped down the stencils onto a cardboard frame so they would float just over the surface of the box so the spray paint would over spray and give softer transitions at the edges. Starbird was first with Montana Gold Red, followed by the Phoenix Squadron which I overlapped sprays going from purple, red, orange finally to yellow to give it a color fade. And I'm quite happy with how they turned out. The case being ontop of the car will make it so very few people will ever see the emblems, but it makes me happy.

Next was installing some All-Top universal brackets I ordered for my VooDoo Offroad Traction Boards. I wanted to not mount them to my rails so I would have more space for other things, so I figured it would be neat to install the brackets in the lid of my case. Lots of measuring and lamenting I misplaced my Metric Drill bits all it took was 8 new holes and a stack of rubberized washers and plugs and I had the mounts in the case. Kinda felt weird to immediately drill holes into my new spray paint jobs but I think they turned out fine. And no, I don't intend on leaving the traction boards on my car all the time. Even if the boards are UV stabilized it doesn't seem like a game worth playing when it comes to safety and recovery equipment. Also the mounting pegs all have holes for locks so you can secure your boards when you don't trust people.

And finally I got back to reinstalling the case on my roof rack but I wanted to make a QOL modification. Instead of using the T-Nuts and bolting down, which was frustrating to line up those sneaky nuts, I switched to a 2" tall T-Bolt I found. Made install a breeze and allowed me to use rubberized washers and wide flange wing nuts to secure them from inside the case.
Additionally I was struck with inspiration when I was cutting holes in the foam inserts for the much taller T-Bolts and I ended widening up the mounting holes for two small and two medium Quick Fist clamps to mount over the foam onto the T-Bolt studs. For the mediums I had to dig out some of the foam underneath, the smalls required no modification to the foam. All four pieces were secured with a nylock nut. These clamps will allow me to secure things like axes, saws and shovels in the case without worry about them bumping around. Bonus pic of possible offroading / camping equipment setup in the case.

 

[jarred Wilson]

Nice build !

Tutuapp 9Apps​

 

[Horse n Buggy]

Of all the odd things I’ve done to my Bronco Sport the only thing I’ve been having an issue with it my original choice in solar panel mount, its two separate rails on each side of the panel that bolt into two separate rails attached to my racks that technically allow it to tilt, problem is, I realized I couldn’t reasonably ever tilt it because of how difficult it was to fiddle with the mounting bolts that were towards the middle of the car, so originally I decided it would just be level mounted. Problem was that it is quite tall being level mounted and really difficult to remove / reinstall on the rack because of the two separate mounting rails needing the solar panel bolted to them to find out how to space the mounting rails. I had been positing a solution for a while and had a decent idea of the direction I would need to take, but I was stuck on figuring out brackets for a quick release system, or brackets that would just stay in place if I removed the solar panel. And for the record, the reason removing the solar panel is a question is that we are planning some canoeing / kayaking / paddle boarding trips this year and wanted to see if I could strap two to my roof.

Well, my Eureka moment came exclusively when I found out Pelican had a new color choice for the V800 Vault, Gray and Black. See, Z-Brackets had occurred to me as a great way to bring the solar panel closer to the rack and have access to the bolts for install and removal, however, I didn’t want to have to relocate more roof rail locations to accommodate the solar panel as it might restrict other installs and I already figured out a super easy install and remove system for my original V800, so in a dumb way it made sense to mount the brackets to the case in a similar vein to how I mounted my traction board brackets to my other case.

Step one was drill through the two vertical tabs on all four brackets while they were bolted to the panel, 1/4” drill bit (because I’m using Stainless 1/4” 20 everything for this) straight through the brackets and into the solar panel. Step two was remove the brackets and drill out the holes further with a 3/8” drill bit. From there, 1/4" 20 Riv-nuts were installed in every hole and the brackets were secured to the solar panel. Panel with brackets was laid in place and aligned, center punched where to drill for the permanent bracket locations, removed the panel and drilled the holes. 8 holes ontop of the case and four in the bottom of the case in the same location I drilled the first case (an I know my rails are aligned for those locations). I used metal/rubber sealing washers and nylock nuts to secure the brackets to the lid of the case, made sure the case still opened with the panel on top, and threw it onto the roof. 1/4” 20 T-bolts, two on each side in the same rails I have the other box mounted, positioned the box and dropped the box on the T-bolts. Used more rubber sealing washers and 1/4” 20 wingnuts in the case to secure the case to the roof and plugged the solar panel back in. Now if I need to remove the solar panel, its 8 easily accessible bolts that need to be removed, and because the brackets are permanent in the case lid, I can take additional steps to waterproof if necessary.

 

[Horse n Buggy]

Having now completed several multi hour interstate road trips with the roof rack and Pelican Cases I can provide the following fuel efficiency details from my experiences.

In Florida most of our interstates have a 70mph speed limit, so all of this data is from spontaneous trips to Mexico, it's also using 93 Octane gas in all of these trips.

4 hours @ 71 MPH averaged 27.9mpg
4 hours @ 75 MPH averaged 24 mpg
2 hours (2 separate trips) at 85ish MPH averaged 20.2mpg

Before adding the cases I was seeing closer to 28mpgs at 75, so there has definitely been a loss with the cases (each case also has gear in them) but it's nice to have the full trunk available for trips.

With regards to wind noise, before the cases there was no noticable increase in wind noise from the JCR Roof Rack over the stock Badlands, with the cases there is definitely more "wind against a wall" sound but no whistling I've heard from other racks and roof toppers. With the radio on its not noticable at all.

With that being said, cantilevering the solar panel off one of the cases has created some... Interesting driving mechanics during high single directional wind events when driving next to large semi trucks. Car moves around a lot like my focus use to when driving next to semis. Just wanted to put that out there Incase someone tries to do something similar

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