Hey guys, I know there are a ton of threads on here showing off light bars. But the thing I struggled with was how people were installing them - especially in the bumpers of the ecoboost with the intercooler. Its a small opening, and you've got the shutters to contend with. I read comments about people making brackets - but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how these brackets were being installed....that opening is really just a rigid plastic box. There is no metal framing around it to really make the install nice and tight.

My buddy Bryan did the wiring for me so that the light bar comes on with my brights (this thread isnt about wiring, its about installing the bar) - and last night i started working on making it look like it was always supposed to be part of the truck.

I have the bumper grille insert with the two vertical bars - after taking a bunch of measurements of my light bar, the vertical bars in the grille insert, etc.....here is what i cam up with...

(sorry some of the pics are rotated funny)

1. My lightbar (14" Heise blackout) has a small ridge around the face. In the first pic - that's a pic of the top of the light bar to show you the small ridge. Its only about 1/16th of an inch.

2. The next two pics show how I cut the bars. I cut the majority of the bar to be equal to the height of the light bar when viewed from the front (about 3 1/16"). But you can see at the back of the bars i left two little tabs - those are about 1/16th inch and are meant to tuck just behind that ridge around the light bar. To do the cutting, I started with a dremel, but i had trouble really controlling it and getting a nice clean cut. So then i went to a coping saw since it has a super thin blade, and i could start nice and slow to ensure the cut was straight. So it took a bit longer to cut it all by hand, but its definitely worth it

3. The final two pics show close up how the light bar looks when its in place - you can see how the tab on the vertical bar tucks into that ridge and the rest of the vertical bar sits flush with the top/bottom of the light.

At this point, I am just dry fitting things....The fitment right now (without the metal clips that hold the bumper grille in place) is very tight. There is no movement at all in the bar.

My next post (which will probably be tomorrow since I need to run to the store tonight to get some new hardware) will show how things are mounted in the opening and how the light bar is secured in there. Once I get to that point, I will fine tune the alignment so the front edge of the vertical bars lines up nicely with the front edge of the light bar - and hopefully it will look stock.

Hoping this helps someone else toying around with the same project. Stay tuned for my next post tomorrow.

 

Here is the follow up to how I finished the installation...

Like I mentioned earlier the challenge was that the inside of the bumper opening is just a rigid plastic box. The closer you get to the intercooler, the more rigid it gets, but closer to the bumper its pretty floppy - definitely too floppy to support the lightbar.

When the lightbar was initially being wired up, the guy that did it had the idea of using a piece of 1/4" rigid plastic. I think he had this around for another install he was doing. It still has a bit of flex to it - but it creates a much more solid base. You can see toward the back there are screws holding it down to the more rigid side of the box:



Then it came time to figure out the bracket. I couldnt just mount the bracket like normal - to get the light bar centered in the bumper grill opening just right (and given that plastic box I was mounting it to wasnt perfectly square) I had to adjust the mounting brackets a little bit. I took a simple L-bracket, bolted it to the mounting bracket that came with the light bar and used my dremel to shape it up a bit, then gave it a nice painting:




And here it is mounted in the opening




You can see the original bracket now faces forward - this allowed me to get a bit more side to side adjustability when installing the bar. I also didn't even add the nuts and washers on the underside to hold down the brackets until the bar and everything else was in place. This allowed me to get the light bar, bumper grille, etc in place and do some fine tune adjusting before tightening everything down.

 

Now it was just a matter of getting everything put in and tightened down and here are some of the finished pics. I am super happy with how it turned out! It really does look stock, which is what I was going for. Also, since this is the blackout series of the Heise bar - it really ties into the front of the truck more.

One other thought - I've seen trucks on here with some awesome massive lightbars, and at first i thought i was going to give up some performance and this lightbar might not be as bright. HOLY CRAP! If I get this much light from a 14" bar, I can't imagine was those, 30/40/50" bars put out.

These in combo with my mini H1 7.0s give me all the light I could ever need on the back roads.

Oh yea, the mounting is SOLID. Once it was all in - I grabbed the bar and tried to push/pull, etc and it didnt budge even the tiniest bit. The vertical bars from the bumper grille add a ton of stability to it - alot more than i thought. Happy to help anyone thinking through a similar install.

 

Nicely done!

 

Looks good!

 

Nice job nice write up!

 

Where did you order your light bar from? Very nice clean install and great pictures, I am considering something similar and appreciate all the detail.

 

The guy that did my HID retrofit also sells these - he is a member here (defiantcustomrides) - if you google that you will find his webstore too. If there is a specific one you like thats not on his store just send him a note.

The Heise brand is from Metra (who does alot of car stereo install parts) - so its only available through a distributor.

 

Clean install for sure