Product R&D Time - Ranger Rear Seat Delete

[John E Davies]

Lovely work, the problem with your posting detailed pics is you get questions like this: the brackets that attach to the top of the plastic Ford cubby liners and also on top of the OEM carpet, do you remove material and/or install hard spacers? Heavy loads on TOP of these soft materials is not good, they will break or compress. Please comment.

I like that the main brackets can remain in place when the seat goes back in, that might be a deal breaker otherwise, my wife is at this time against my removing the seat. Any design changes that can speed up removal and reinstallation of the platform will be most welcome. No reaching around and fiddling blindly with washers and nuts! Threaded inserts are great!!!

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

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[el_sabio]

I would love a semi-rear seat delete. Fold up seat, but place a platform down to create a flat floor with mount points, access panels, for accessories, fridges, etc when on solo trips, but quick removal for passengers. And a removable MOLLE for folded up seat. Just my $.02

 

[AdventureLab]

Very excited about this! I had been waiting to see what GooseGear came up with and am now happy they've not yet released something.

I'll second the air vent extension.

In addition, and this might be an edge case not worth the effort but ramps are very useful for senior dogs on a vehicle as tall as the ranger. Either a stowage pocket under the platform for a ramp, or at a minimum, some attachment points on the edges by the doors(simple holes maybe?) for a customer supplied ramp to hook onto.

There is a decent amount of airspace around the platform as it is, but I think we could definitely come up with a way to duct the airflow above the platform. We would make it an optional component as most of our market (overland and commercial) would probably choose to leave that option off.

As for the ramp, I think you'll find that our ability to build components for our platforms makes our product line super flexible. Building hooks for dog ramps would be a piece of cake on this system. We do a similar ramp for dirt bikes. We could make a design that's more applicable to feet vs. tires, but a similar concept would probably work well.

https://americanadventurelab.com/product/aal-dirt-bike-carrier-and-ramp/

 

[AdventureLab]

I have a trip planned end of August, any chance this might be ready before then?

Will be done tomorrow! I'll be installing a few into a commercial application in a week or so to validate with other vehicles. After that, we'll be good to go! I'm working on the back wall today.

 

[John E Davies]

I would love a semi-rear seat delete. Fold up seat, but place a platform down to create a flat floor with mount points, access panels, for accessories, fridges, etc when on solo trips, but quick removal for passengers. And a removable MOLLE for folded up seat. Just my $.02

On a full sized truck this would be great, but the interior volume in a Ranger is garbage. Without removing the seats entirely, you just wouldn’t gain very much usable space for bulky items. It really is a shame that these seats are not center split from the factory. It is a huge design flaw!

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

 

[AdventureLab]

Lovely work, the problem with your posting detailed pics is you get questions like this: the brackets that attach to the top of the plastic Ford cubby liners and also on top of the OEM carpet, do you remove material and/or install hard spacers? Heavy loads on TOP of these soft materials is not good, they will break or compress. Please comment.

I like that the main brackets can remain in place when the seat goes back in, that might be a deal breaker otherwise, my wife is at this time against my removing the seat. Any design changes that can speed up removal and reinstallation of the platform will be most welcome. No reaching around and fiddling blindly with washers and nuts! Threaded inserts are great!!!

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

I will speak to your install questions in a follow up post. Some great news to share there.

As for the plastic, it would take a load of several hundred pounds to cause an issue there. At that point, the steel rails would be suspect, which are overengineered for this application already. I don't think we would provide any type of spacer for that as there is substantial surface contact with the plastic.

 

[AdventureLab]

I would love a semi-rear seat delete. Fold up seat, but place a platform down to create a flat floor with mount points, access panels, for accessories, fridges, etc when on solo trips, but quick removal for passengers. And a removable MOLLE for folded up seat. Just my $.02

That's definitely something we are considering, but not sure it's going to be possible. The seat sits directly onto the cubby "boxes" below the seat. That doesn't leave much room for such a platform. We'll keep noodling on it, though. Thanks!

 

[AdventureLab]

On a full sized truck this would be great, but the interior volume in a Ranger is garbage. Without removing the seats entirely, you just wouldn’t gain very much usable space for bulky items. It really is a shame that these seats are not center split from the factory. It is a huge design flaw!

John Davies
Spokane WA USA

Split seats would have been amazing!

 

[AdventureLab]

Well, here we go! Today went so well with this part of the process that even when I dropped a bolt, it feel right into the hole! True story. ?

I'm going to eliminate the middle access door. It isn't really usable like I had hoped. The carpet and plastic cubbies take up most of the space below there.

Here's the big news of the day. I think we're going to ship these fully assembled. We figured out a few small design changes that allow us to install and remove this in one assembled piece. That means, installing will take only minutes. The same for removal. It will reuse the stock hardware that holds down the seats plus an additional few M6 bolts. It will ship with a few nut plates that will stay installed in the truck, negating the need for a wrench to hold nuts. We have put a lot of time into the quick-change (from platform to seats) process and are super happy with how this has worked out.

When we ship fully assembled, it makes the packaging a little easier and drastically improves the user experience. Worth the tradeoff for the assembly labor! We want this to be the most premium seat delete platform on the market, regardless of vehicle.

 

[sikedsyko]

Do you have any warnings on the dash from removing the rear seats?

 

[AdventureLab]

Do you have any warnings on the dash from removing the rear seats?

Yes, removing the seat is going to trip the rear seatbelt sensor. We will know more about that, and hopefully have a solution, soon. Disabling that in FORSCAN is probably going to be the proper solution, rather than trying to trick the truck somehow.

 

[AdventureLab]

The back wall worked out great as well. The access door is for the OEM jack or if that has been relocated/removed, it's a great storage space. The sub occupied the space to the right of the jack. There is a US-military-spec MOLLE panel above the jack door. To the right of the MOLLE panel is room for a dual Milwaukee Packout mount or we'll have another MOLLE panel attachment to go there.

7 bolts will hold this back wall into the truck, so install/removal is quick and easy.

I'm expecting about 10 minutes to install/remove the full system with one person. Slightly less with two people.

Back wall to become reality tomorrow morning.

 

[MidnightSpecial]

I'm definitely interested in this. I was keeping an eye on Goose Gear but doesn't seem like they are in any rush to support the Ranger Raptor. What is drawing me in is how you keep mentioning how quick the install is. Most of my build centers around modularity and being able to pull stuff off depending on need. Example, pulling my bed rack in under 30 minutes if I need to haul something.

I've been hesitant with seat deletes in the past because they seem semi-permanent. I like the idea of being able to set up my truck in "off-road mode" for the warm months and then put the seat back in if I need a people hauler or its winter time.

I have to admit, my only concern now would be rattles from the sheet metal or sub distortion from the sheet metal enclosure. My tick is that creaks and rattles drive me crazy. One reason my Gen 3 F150 Raptor drove me crazy. I was chasing rattles constantly.

Looks like the workmanship is there on this product so I'm hopeful!

I genuinely appreciate the transparency displayed here. Authenticity is hard to get in the market these days. Also, really impressed by your teams rapid prototyping skills. Kicking something like this out in less than a month is wild.

 

[BrrRaptor]

Very excited about this! I had been waiting to see what GooseGear came up with and am now happy they've not yet released something.

I'll second the air vent extension.

In addition, and this might be an edge case not worth the effort but ramps are very useful for senior dogs on a vehicle as tall as the ranger. Either a stowage pocket under the platform for a ramp, or at a minimum, some attachment points on the edges by the doors(simple holes maybe?) for a customer supplied ramp to hook onto.

Love the ramp idea. Even if they need to be stored in the bed. Having attachment points sounds great.

 

[Bushmechanic]

A minor suggestion:

It would be nice if, in the documentation, you include the specifications of all the hardware used.

That's good information to have that's normally a pain to get. It's almost like manufacturers go out of their way to use nuts and bolts that aren't on my chain of thread checker things, and the hardware store display doesn't always have what you're trying to match, either.

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