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Hey guys, it's Nick from F150LEDs.com. Today we're here with our EcoBoost equipped 2018 Ford F-150. We're going to be showing you how to install our CREE Paladin series LED bar here in the lower intake opening of your bumper. These bars are extremely bright and they look fantastic once they're installed on the truck. The installation is simple and we're going to show you how it's done right now.
If your F-150 is equipped with this front tag plate, the first thing we need to do is simply remove it from the truck. This particular tag holder has two bolts and we're going to use a size seven socket to remove both these bolts and then pull it directly off the truck.
Now that we've got our front tag off the truck, you'll notice that there are two columns here. These are to keep debris, large debris from flying up into your intake area, but we're going to need to remove this for our bar install. In order to remove these, the first things we need to remove are this right and left bumper pad here, if you want to call it that.
What we're going to do, we're just going to use a couple of flathead screwdrivers to gently pry them off of the truck. Be careful with your paint. You don't want to damage your bumper. You can just work your way around the sides prying gently out. They have push-in lock tabs that hold them on. I'll show you once I get this on off. You can see these push-in lock tabs that they've got. Just work your way around them and they'll come off. Now we need to remove this lower intake guard. It's held on by the same tabs as the passenger and driver's side bumper pads were so pulling directly out on it, pull it away from the truck.
Now that we've got our lower intake guard off, we need to modify it slightly so that our LED bar can fit right in the center of our bracket. Go ahead and lay your grill bracket face down and then we're going to put our bar right on top of the backside of our protective bracket here. Line it exactly in between these tabs. You'll notice there's equal space here between our tabs and make sure it's lined up this way with the bracket as well. Okay, so now just take a Sharpie or a marker and just make it a notation about 1/4 inch away from your bar on both sides. And you also want to come and make a center notation here on the ends.
Okay. Now we can set our bar to the side and now what we're going to want to do is just connect these lines. We're connecting these lines because we're going to remove these two inner portions of this grill guard because that's what the space that our LED bar is going to occupy. Okay, so we've made our marks there. What we're going to use today, and we're going to grab some safety glasses. We're going to use a Dremel, but you can use a hacksaw, or a knife, or anything that can cut through plastic basically. We're going to go ahead and follow along the lines we just made, two lines so we're going to be again, opening up these center spaces here for our bar to insert.
Now that we've got our columns opened up to allow space for our bar to come in and mount to, we just need to add two holes that we marked earlier on each end to mount our bar to this frame. To drill our holes, we're going to be using a 3/8 drill bit again, on the location that we marked earlier. It should line up right with this tab and we're going to rest our bit a little bit against this base here. Rest your bit centered with this tab and then we're going to drill our hole right through our marking. Then we'll repeat for the other side.
Getting our bar mounted into our bracket here is very easy. What you're going to do is go ahead and take your bolts and we're going to go ahead and insert them on each side before putting our bracket in, so go ahead and insert a bolt in and then you're going to use our rubber gasket here. There's a small and a large side, so you'll put the small side up against the bolt and then you'll just fold the gasket back on itself. That's how a gasket works. Just fold it back. Go ahead and insert your bolt and then spread your gasket. Open the bolt.
Now we can go ahead and drop our bar in place. Go ahead and line it up with one side and thread it in one or two threads just to make sure that your bolt's locked into place. Yeah, that's good. Now we're going to line up the other side, do the same thing. And now we're just going to tighten one side a little, tighten the other side and we'll just go back and forth until our bar is firmly tightened into the bracket.
We're going to go ahead and get our bar here and our lower intake area. First we're going to route this female plug here. Pass this little air box... It's a little bit tight. There we go. ... so that we'll be able to run this to our harness, to our battery, and to our switch inside our cab. Okay. Now I'm just going to line up these tabs. That's it. Press the thing back into place. Now we just need to push this LED bar and a harness connector up under this metal frame bumper and reach underneath your bumper and grab it and pull it through the rest of the way.
Now we can go ahead and put our bumper pads back on as well. To connect to our LED bar, take our LED bar connector from your harness and run it straight down your engine bay and is going to come out the bottom underneath the truck and we'll be able to match it up with the harness from the LED bar that we just ran under the bumper. Now connect your LED bar to your LED bar harness and make sure it's firmly pushed all the way in. And then bring this bought collar ring and tighten it all the way down. This is going to give you a full IP68 weatherproof seal.
Now we can connect the red terminal ring to the positive side of our battery, and we can connect the black terminal ring to our ground side of our battery. The next thing that we want to do is run our switch side of our harness into the cab of the truck. And where are we going to do that, is located right where I'm standing, where the engine Bay meets the cab of the truck here on the driver's side. It's hard to show on camera, but there's a round rubber grommet with a wire bundle going through it. You can peel that top of that round rubber grommet back, slide our wire through and then just peel the rubber grommet back into place.
Hooking up our switch here inside of the cab is extremely easy. This is the harness that we pulled through from the engine bay through that rubber grommet and this is our switch. Basically, you could take this white connector here on your switch and run it right under your steering wheel and then it come out right in your footwell and your pedals. You can go ahead and make a connection between our switch here and the engine bay. You should notice you've got a light on. Then we'll be able to remove our adhesive on the back of our switch and apply it really anywhere you want. This is a good spot for us. A good amount there. And then we can pull any loose slack in the line and tidy it up with some zip ties. But other than that, our installation is complete.
That's all there is to installing the Paladin series lower intake bar here on your 2018 Ford F-150. This bar is extremely bright. The camera cannot capture how much light this thing puts off, but we guarantee that you're going to be very pleased and it's definitely going to turn night into day for you. We highly recommend it. Not only does it put out a lot of light, but it gives a great look to the truck. It's just a really pleasing aesthetic upgrade as well. You can check them out at F150LEDs.com where you'll find all of our great lighting products for your Ford F-150. We truly appreciate your support and look forward to seeing you there. Thanks guys.
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