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Explorer lighted visors in a Ranger       #: 1723
 Moderated by: Mike69, MaDMaXX,
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 Posted: Sun Aug 18th, 2019 12:04 am
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JAMMAN

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Most of us have already done this, but I noticed a few things while doing mine.

I noticed something the minute I took the first drive, the visors were tilted upward toward the middle slightly.

Why? I used the stock Ranger / explorer without lights latch hook on the open side of the visor.

Sounds simple enough, just use the explorer hooks right? Well it gets a little deeper than that.

I included pictures, the Ranger latch hooks are shorter and COMPLETELY FLAT on the bottom except for the locating pin.
The explorer lighted mirror visor latch hooks are taller but have a protruding portion in the plastic that if you simply screw them in, not only will it not go up all the way if you try to tighten it so it doesn't move you will crack the plastic. Trust me!

First here is the difference, Ranger hook on the bottom:



This is the bottom of the LM expo hook, notice the raised portion around the hole:






You need to grind, scrape, cut, whatever you are good at to remove this. It is way thick enough and will fit much better after:




I used a Dremel style rotary tool and a small burr. End of story, they go in and up like stock and your visor once again will look level.

Since this is a lighted mirror mod thread I should mention the ground wire needed to get this to work
The Ranger visor mounts to 3 plastic grommets. This totally electrically insulates the visor, since they never planned to put a light in the visor.
The explorer lighted visors only have one wire going to them, an always hot (positive) wire. It relies on the swivel being grounded to the chassis to complete the circuit.
A simple ground wire and a ring terminal the size of the mounting screw is sufficient to get the ground the visor needs.

This shows a safe place to drill a small hole for the ground. The other side comes through the headliner and any of the 3 mount screws goes through the other ring terminal. It must touch the swivel mount!




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 Posted: Sun Aug 18th, 2019 09:37 am
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410customs

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wicked good tips! I wondered why they were so tight on the 84 Ranger we did, I should have trimmed the mounts up a bit.


I have had them in my BII for many many years now, I love them! the ability to block sun on the side window and the front is the best part.



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 Posted: Sun Aug 18th, 2019 05:31 pm
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V8 Level II
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JAMMAN wrote:

Since this is a lighted mirror mod thread I should mention the ground wire needed to get this to work
The Ranger visor mounts to 3 plastic grommets. This totally electrically insulates the visor, since they never planned to put a light in the visor.
The explorer lighted visors only have one wire going to them, an always hot (positive) wire. It relies on the swivel being grounded to the chassis to complete the circuit.
A simple ground wire and a ring terminal the size of the mounting screw is sufficient to get the ground the visor needs.

It depends on the model year of the Explorer donor and that of the Ranger donee.

Early 2nd Generation Explorers (95~98) were grounded through the mounting screws. Ford added the plastic grommets to the later Gen2 Ex's (99~01), just like those in your 2000 Ranger. That made it necessary to also add a dedicated ground wire that travels back into the harness on each side. Early was single wire, late was 2-wire. 

Rangers switched to the plastic grommets at roughly the same time as the Explorers. Most likely, 99 MY or thereabout.


  • So, if you use the early Ex visors in a later Ranger (or Explorer), you need to add a ground wire like yours. 
  • For the later 2-wire Ex visors, you can take advantage of the ground wire that's already coming from the visor, running it to a convenient chassis grounding point.
  • Early Ex visors mount the same way early Rangers do. With this combination, the visors ground through the mounting screws and no additional ground wire is needed.



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 Posted: Sun Aug 18th, 2019 06:44 pm
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JAMMAN

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Cool tips thank you :)

I guess I should add the donor for these specific visors was a 97 mountaineer which further validates V8's post.



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 Posted: Sat Mar 7th, 2020 02:42 pm
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Scrambler82
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Thanks for the writeup, I installed my Ex Sun Visors about five years ago and never wired them in.
I will think on these a little more and add the Sun Visor's wiring to the list.



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 Posted: Sat Mar 7th, 2020 09:21 pm
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Mike69

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Scrambler82 wrote:
I installed my Ex Sun Visors about five years ago and never wired them in.
I will think on these a little more and add the Sun Visor's wiring to the list.

I did the same thing as Scrambler82 did, I installed the Explorer lighted visors & never wired them up.



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