What's going on, ladies and gentlemen?
Travis from americantrucks.com.
And today, we're checking out light bars and roll bars for 2015 or newer F-150.
Now, you've probably seen a couple of the different options available on the site, but
today we're checking out the most affordable one that you can pick up.
This is the K3 Light Roll Bar.
This guy comes in just under the $400 price point, whereas most options start at around
$600 and they easily go up from there.
Some of them even go up past $2,000.
Now, even though this is the most affordable option, it still shares plenty of features
and functionalities as some of those more expensive options.
Obviously, as the name implies, the big goal with this bar is to install some auxiliary
lighting over the cab so you get better visibility when you're off-road, or you're on the work
site, or you're driving around on those back country roads or whatnot.
And the K3 does a very good job of allowing you to easily mount any light that you choose.
In my hand here is the bracket that they provide so you can mount pretty much any light you
want to on top of the light bar.
This is really cool because it just clamps over the bar.
Only takes a couple of seconds.
You just got to tighten it up here with the provided bolts and nuts in the kit.
And then you got this nice little universal mounting tab here with a hole pre-drilled,
but if you want to, honestly, you could probably modify this even further to pretty much accept
any light mount or post for either a light bar or a light cube.
So, you can get pretty creative and you can get pretty universal with this.
That's really nice because it's kind of an open slate and you can really do what you
want as far as auxiliary lighting is concerned.
And then as far as overall build quality is on par here as well.
Even though it's super affordable, we have some pretty heavy duty tubular steel, which
features a black powder coat finish on top.
Black powder coat is a little bit more rugged than a painted on or a polished finish.
It's actually baked on at the factory and it's safe to say that this will definitely
stand up to some abuse, maybe some light strikes or direct impacts, again, when you're off-road,
maybe you got some big heavy duty equipment in the truck bed or whatnot.
And, again, even if you do manage to take the powder coat off, you do have stainless
steel underneath here so you don't have to worry about excessive rust or corrosion anytime
soon.
And then the last thing to consider is how the light roll bar actually mounts to the
truck.
And these brackets that they include are very heavy duty.
They probably weigh in about 10 to 15 pounds a piece and they measure about a quarter of
an inch to half inch thick.
So, it's safe to say once you get this thing bolted down, it's really not going anywhere.
It's also pretty lightweight at the same time.
So, if you're doing this by yourself, the install shouldn't be a huge concern.
Now, this is not a bolt-on kit, 100%.
You do have to drill some basic holes in the bulkhead here of the bed itself, but that
only takes a couple of seconds with a hand drill.
So, for that reason, I'm still gonna give the install a relatively modest two out of
three wrenches on the old difficulty meter and it'll probably take you about two hours
to get this thing bolted in.
Now, a small word of caution here.
Because this thing does come in a bunch of different pieces, they do tell you to assemble
it before you throw it on the truck.
Guys, you can run into some fitment issues with a product like this when it comes in
pieces like that.
So, I'm actually gonna walk you through the entire install in just a minute.
We're gonna go about it a slightly different way, that in my humble opinion, makes us a
little bit easier, so the install should not be a huge concern.
So, again, if you're looking for the most affordable light roll bar for a 2015 newer
F-150, you wanna throw some cool auxiliary lighting over the cab, get that real old school
pre-runner/trophy truck look, then K3 has got you covered with our super affordable
light roll bar.
And if you decide to stick with the K3 over those more expensive options, come back in
a little bit, I'm gonna show you all the tools that you have to dig out of the toolbox and
then we'll get working on that install, we'll finish that up step by step.
All right, guys, before we get started, you will need a standard drive ratchet, you need
a 13-millimeter socket, a 19-millimeter shallow socket, 5/32 Allen key or Allen head socket,
4-millimeter Allen key or Allen head socket, and a 19-millimeter wrench.
You also need a hand drill with a 5/16 drill bit.
Optional but helpful tools include an 1/8-inch drill bit for a pilot hole, 19-millimeter
ratcheting wrench, an impact gun, and a magnet for the double nut plate.
All right, guys, once you have all the tools out of the kit, you're gonna grab that one
of these mounting brackets.
This is kind of the foundation for the whole thing.
Now, if you're looking at the instructions, they do tell you to assemble the entire light
bar as one whole piece and then throw it on the truck, size it up, and get it in place.
But that can be a little bit difficult if you're working by yourself and honestly, once
you piece it together, even though you don't have it tightened down yet, trying to get
it to actually size up and fit correctly can also be a little bit difficult.
So, we're just gonna play it simple here.
We're gonna install it on the truck piece by piece.
So, again, go ahead and grab the passenger side bracket, throw it on top of the bed rail.
You wanna make sure that this little bracket right here with these two holes is flush up
against the bulkhead.
Once you've done that, you're gonna grab these little brackets provided in the kit, they
got these little rivnuts on there, they're threaded, you're gonna slide them underneath
the bed rail so this little tab comes out of the bracket itself.
Once you've done that, go ahead and grab one of these bolts with a flat washer and just
hand-tighten that in place.
Gonna do the same thing on the other side here.
And, we're just hand tightening this hardware.
We're not gonna tighten it all the way yet.
Just keep that kind of loose.
Okay.
Once you have those little brackets in place, we're gonna drill two holes through the bulkhead
of the bed itself and then we're gonna secure two more bolts and the bracket to the bed
rail using the double nut plates provided in the kit.
You'll need a 5/16 drill bit for this, but to make it a little bit easier, I definitely
recommend drilling a pilot hole.
I'm using an 1/8 of an inch bit first.
All right, guys.
Once you have those holes drilled and cleaned up, now comes probably, arguably the most
frustrating part of the install.
It's not a huge step here, but it might take you a little bit of finesse.
So, what you have to do if you can get one of these double nut plates
on the other side of the bulkhead.
Now, the problem is this is actually a lip on top of here, so you have to come in down
here and try and get your fingers in there and hold this double nut plate in place so
that you can thread both of these bolts through.
It's a squeeze, guys.
Unless you have tiny magical hands, you're probably not gonna be able to get this back
there very easily.
There's a couple ways you can go about this.
You can have the aid of a little magnet or you can actually grab a longer bolt with similar
threads or the same threads and what I'm actually gonna do is I'm gonna press this long bolt
in all the way and this gives me enough travel so I can get over this lip.
I'm gonna thread this bolt into this double nut plate until it kind of locks up.
We're not cross-threading anything, we're just getting those threads to lock up, and
I have a little bit of control here with this double nut plate, then I'll get one of these
other bolts through and then we can secure it.
Let's give this a shot.
Oh, okay.
So, if you get really lucky and you manage to get your fingers in far enough to press
the double nut plate up against the hole and line it up, you might get lucky.
You might be able to get one of the bolts in there without the aid of any assistance.
And once you have one side in, it's just a matter of getting the nut plate to swing up
so you can get the other hole lined up.
All right.
We got lucky.
So, go ahead and do the same thing for the other side and then we can actually get our
light bar installed.
All right, guys.
Once you got both of the brackets secured on the bed rails, you're gonna grab the primary
support bar that goes between the two immediately behind the cab itself.
This secures to either of the brackets using the largest bolts provided in the kit with
the appropriate size flat washers.
We are gonna tighten this bar down completely once we get it installed and in order to do
that you'll need a 19-millimeter ratcheting wrench or a standard wrench.
All right.
Once you have the bolts hand-threaded on both sides, you're gonna need to tighten them down.
Now, unfortunately, this is a big piece of hardware in a small space and it's very difficult
to get a standard wrench or even a ratchet wrench in here.
And honestly, it's kind of difficult getting a socket in there, but as long as you use
a 3/8 drive socket or smaller, you should be able to get this in here.
You might have to put a little bit of pressure on the plate here, unfortunately you might
mar it up a little bit, but you just kind of force it in there until the bolt lines
up with the head.
And go ahead and continue tightening it down.
Okay.
Now that the cross bar's installed and tightened down, we're gonna install these support structures
on either side.
Now, these are held together.
There's a metal frame inside and then you have these plastic covers.
You need to loosen up these plastic covers.
They're secured using these Allen head bolts.
You need to 5/32 Allen had socket or Allen key.
Go ahead and open those up a little bit, slip them onto the crossbar, and then line up this
post here with the other hole on our bracket.
Once we have that secured, we're gonna grab these T-bolts provided in the kit, we're gonna
tighten all this stuff down to the crossbar, then we'll get a 19-millimeter bolt in here
and that'll secure it to the bracket on the bed rail.
Now, we're not gonna tighten down any of this hardware just yet either.
Once we get these T-bolts in place on the crossbar, we'll get this 19-millimeter bolt
here in the second post.
All right.
With that 18-mil bolt now seated, we're gonna tighten down all of those Allen head bolts,
again using our 5/32 Allen head socket.
And also, don't forget to tighten down all the plastic cover bolts as well.
All right, guys, we're almost finished up here.
Now we're gonna install the second crossbar that's gonna go in front of the window here.
There's little pre-threaded holes on either side of the main crossbar and in order to
secure this stuff you're gonna be grabbing these short Allen head bolts, little button
head bolts rather, and you'll need a 4-millimeter Allen key to tighten all this stuff down.
All right, guys.
Our bar is installed, we're happy with where it's sitting, now we're gonna secure it to
the bed rails permanently.
In order to do that, you're gonna tighten down all of these smaller bolts right here
using a 13-millimeter socket.
All right, guys, we're just about wrapped up.
Next, we're gonna install this nice little plastic cover on the inside here.
It's technically optional, but obviously it looks really good.
Secure with some 3M backing, and we're also using two of these little Allen head bolts
in order to secure it.
So, go ahead and wipe this down with some isopropyl alcohol just to make sure that you
have some good adherence with the 3M tape and then go ahead and remove these two bolts,
again, using that 5/32 Allen key or Allen head socket.
Go ahead and throw the cover in place.
Make sure you line everything up before you press down.
Make sure both holes are lined up, most importantly.
Make sure all the 3M tape adheres so it's pressed down nice and tight.
All right.
Once the cover is nice and snug, you're actually not gonna be re-securing it using the original
bolts.
You have these smaller bolts in the kit.
These are still Allen head bolts and you still get to use your 5/32 Allen key, but the flange
is a little smaller in diameter to accommodate the hole on this little plastic cover.
Just go ahead and get both of those hand-threaded, make sure they line up, and again, drive them
home with your socket or your Allen key.
All right, guys, so once you got those plastic covers installed, that'll pretty much wrap
up the install.
Again, if you wanted to throw some auxiliary lighting on there, now would be the time to
do so.
Just clamp these guys down onto the center bar here with the provided hardware and throw
on your light bar, or light cubes, whatever you have sitting at home.
But that'll wrap up the install and that also wraps up my review on the K3 Light Roll Bar,
fitting your 2015 or newer F-150.
I'm Travis.
Thanks for watching.
And for all things F-150, keep it right here at americantrucks.com.