We looked at chrome and black Ford ovals at first but went this route. I do like the idea of painting the "Ford" in the body color though.... gotta put some thought into that.

Also I was thinking of getting the grill honeycomb insert in black.... to break up the monotony of the front a bit.

 

No worries. Just checking...

 

Some more progress.... Coming closer to the finish line now.

The past 4 or 5 weeks have been hectic but we did get some things done. The next thing we had done (I can't do this myself) was to have the interior refreshed/customized. We wanted something a little more modern but not so much that it would look out of place in the Excursion. We did not mind the two tone interior that it had but wanted to take it up a notch. We went to a local custom auto upholstery shop and went over a few things. What we ended up deciding on was:

- Keep the two tone look but take the parchment/beige leather up to the headrest on the rear captain's chairs and third row. We wanted to keep the look the way it was in the front.
- Replace the simple "panel" look of the central seats with a diamond stitch pattern. In addition we went with double stitching in the pattern.
- Replace the headrests in the rear captain's chairs with a far larger one than the anemic ones that came from Ford. Frankly, the small ones are useless, particularly if you wanted to recline the chairs.
- We added two working headrests to the rear bench. This gave me more uniformity all the way to the back.
- We padded the center console in the same leather and diamond stitch. We lost the paper clip but got rid of the fake wood grain.
- We replaced the carpet panels on the 4 doors and the two rear barn doors with the same diamond stitch that we have in the seats.
- We replaced the parchment carpet with brand new black carpet. We also did the rear spare cover and made sure to go way down on the back side to really hide the tire well from being seen from the outside.

In addition to the upholstery work, we made some changes to the dash, the plastic door inserts, the upper center console and the rear A/C control box. The wood grain had to go. Way too 1990 for my taste so I opted to go with something that ties in the black better. We went with a black based carbon fiber look. I am not 200% on the look there, but it is a HUGE improvement over the wood grain and plain parchment parts. I just may go with something else, but for now.... this is what we have.

A couple of additional details include the Lloyd's Mats and a few charging ports.

On the mats, I went with the complete kit. The two fronts, the one center/rear that is a "T" shaped to run between the seats, the rear row and the cargo area. We added the Ford Powerstroke embroidery and they look amazing!

On the power ports, I picked up a few units that give me two 2.1A output USB ports and a Volt meter to assure I'm running at the right voltage.

Here are the shots,

 

Moving back outside, while the truck was getting the interior work done, I got the running boards and rear bumper covers off. The parchment/beige plastics had seen better days and 13 years in the sun was to blame. I was not a fan of the color on the running boards anyway. What we decided to do was go black on those parts. Essentially tying the them together on the exterior. We wanted to go with the black/grey look outside. We blacked out the badges and put on the black/silver wheels. The beige running boards did not work and, faded, even less. We decided to have them Rhino Lined by an authorized applicator. We wanted it to be done well and last almost indefinitely. This is the end result. I absolutely love this.

 

VERY NICE! Both inside and out.

 

Super nice! I love the running boards! Interior is super cool too. I don't know if I'd do the carbon fiber look, but it does look cool! Well done!!

 

Thanks!

You know I'm a bit on the fence about the Carbon Fiber finish. I was expecting something a bit more muted. In other words, the lighter parts of the weave to be darker. This comes across a touch too grey to me. I will say that I prefer it to the black dash though....

In the end, if it bugs me too much, it not that expensive to do the parts again. If I do, I may go to a darker effect.

Thanks....