Good morning! I am tired of grinding rust off the frame. The box I bought has been completely refurbished. There is no rust. The underside has been undercoated, I spent a week on some minor cosmetic blemishes and repainted the entire box. I finally put in the bed liner coating. It is ready to go on the 2004 Ranger. A friend helped me lift off the old bed and it was worse than I thought. There was no use trying to sell it so I have a "scrapper" coming to get it. I am going to try to install the "new" box on the frame next week but I do have some questions for anybody who has installed a different/new box on their Ranger.
If you look at the red square in the picture you will see a crossmember. I can make some guesses but wonder if anybody has researched this enough to provide an answer. Simply, the box basically has six bolts that screw into blind fasteners. The blind fasteners are in good shape and I was able to remove the six bolts and I should be able to re-use them. Now, for this crossmember. On the passenger side the crossmember has some deterioration. From what I have researched, this is where Rangers generally rust through on the box. I spent $40 on a patch panel and fixed my old rusted out area two years ago on the old box I removed and have talked to several guys around here who have the rusted out area in the exact same place. As I looked at this crossmember, it seemed to have some kind of "material" like a gasket but it was so far gone that I could NOT tell what it was. I went out to the old box I removed, and measured 14.5 inches back from the two front mounting holes and think I have it figured out somewhat. The crossmember is to protect the gas tank??? and had some kind of gasket material to prevent squeaking???? and the gasket material laid in this "trough" and the new box has a corresponding crossmember that sits in this trough when it is installed? Thinking out loud here....
Is this gasket material inside this trough responsible for holding moisture that eventually rusted through the box in the exact same area????
I need to probably replace this gasket but, like I said, it was so far "gone" that I have no idea what I should use if anything. They also have two "pads" on the front of the box that are glued in place and this is to prevent the box from hitting the back of the cab I think.... Is it the same type of material?
My thinking is to cut and place/glue a gasket like insulation material in trough before setting the new box in place. What comes to mind is the insulation we installed under new carpeting on many past projects that has always worked out well..... Here is a link to that at Menards...
Is this what I should be doing? Suggestions/advice appreciated.....
And a PS... is there anything else/complications, I should anticipate setting this new box in place? It looks pretty straight forward and intuitive but I generally over think tasks like this.... In particular, should there be some kind of plumber's rubber gasket where the box sits on the six perches to prevent squeaking? or is that not an issue.....
Again... thanks.....
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