Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and NTkiller7000
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2013
- Messages
- 19
- Reaction score
- 3
- Points
- 3
- Location
- under my truck
- Vehicle Year
- 1988
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Engine Size
- 2.3 L4
- Transmission
- Manual
Hello, I am going to restore a 1988 Ford Ranger to driveable condition. But first I feel it is appropriate to discuss it's past. I'm not completely sure of this truck's past, but this is my take what happened to it. The origional owner wrecked the truck, I'm thinking it was a deer from the impression it left on the radiator support. He took the front end apart and he was trying to fix it, but he was finantially in dire straits, and his house got repossessed
. This is where my family comes into the story.
You see, our family worked for a company that cleaned up repossessed houses for Fannie Mae. Our job was to remove all of the stuff the previous people had left and then we cleaned up the house. Back to the story, we got to the house where we found the Ranger, and we knew we had to get rid of it. At that time we hadn't been working for them long, so we didn't know what to do with the truck. We still had to get it out of the yard, so we loaded it up on the trailer and took it home. In the process of loading it, a fellow employee broke the steering column to release the steering lock, then he let the truck roll backwards into a tree
. That ruined the bumper and bent the bed.
When we got the truck home, we unloaded it and called our boss and asked what to do with it. At that time we didn't know that our boss had power of attorney, which means anything on the property is confiscated along with the house, including the truck. My brother did a little work to the engine and got it running, and we used it around the house for a little while, then he wanted to drive it on the road. He then ran into a small problem: we didn't have a title. In Georgia, if a vehicle doesn't have a title, then it's useless. You can't insure it, you can't sell it, and you can't even scrap it. My brother didn't know what to do so he just rolled it into the woods and left it to rot
. This is where another car comes into the equation.
We went to another house we were cleaning up and we found a 1998 Isuzu Amigo nose first in a dried up pond (it's the blue thing in the second picture). It looked like it had been there quite a while. The same situation happened with it, we loaded it up, took it home, someone wanted to drive it and couldn't because there was no title. Then my brother did some investigation and found out how to get a title. All we had to do was "buy" the car from the company we worked for, then use the bill of sale to apply for a lost title. It worked, and to this day my mom drives that thing to work just about every day
.
Back to the truck, It's been ten years since we left it for dead, and I need a truck (my first roadworthy vehicle, to be exact). My brother said I could have it. So I repeated the process he used to get the title to the Amigo, and it worked just perfectly. So now I legally own a Ranger that had been smacked by a deer, then left for dead, then saved, then left for dead again
. I've attached a few pics of the truck after we dragged it out of the woods.
So what I plan to do is restore this truck to roadworthy condition, while doing some fuel efficiency mods at the same time. Yes, I know it's a truck but I've read of ways to make it get 30+ MPG. My plans are to first swap the 2.3 that's in it now for the 2.3 that came in the later rangers, the one with mass flow Fi and DIS. I've heard this can have a profound effect on gas milage. As far as a transmission, it already has the mazda 5 speed that's in useable condition, so nothing to do there. As far as eco mods go, the farthest I think I will go is some aerodynamics mods, mostly in the form of an aerodynamic bed shell. From what I've read, the backdrop at the back of the cab causes a ton of drag, so a bed shell made the right way would fix that. I'll post progress here as I go along.
. This is where my family comes into the story.You see, our family worked for a company that cleaned up repossessed houses for Fannie Mae. Our job was to remove all of the stuff the previous people had left and then we cleaned up the house. Back to the story, we got to the house where we found the Ranger, and we knew we had to get rid of it. At that time we hadn't been working for them long, so we didn't know what to do with the truck. We still had to get it out of the yard, so we loaded it up on the trailer and took it home. In the process of loading it, a fellow employee broke the steering column to release the steering lock, then he let the truck roll backwards into a tree
. That ruined the bumper and bent the bed.When we got the truck home, we unloaded it and called our boss and asked what to do with it. At that time we didn't know that our boss had power of attorney, which means anything on the property is confiscated along with the house, including the truck. My brother did a little work to the engine and got it running, and we used it around the house for a little while, then he wanted to drive it on the road. He then ran into a small problem: we didn't have a title. In Georgia, if a vehicle doesn't have a title, then it's useless. You can't insure it, you can't sell it, and you can't even scrap it. My brother didn't know what to do so he just rolled it into the woods and left it to rot
. This is where another car comes into the equation. We went to another house we were cleaning up and we found a 1998 Isuzu Amigo nose first in a dried up pond (it's the blue thing in the second picture). It looked like it had been there quite a while. The same situation happened with it, we loaded it up, took it home, someone wanted to drive it and couldn't because there was no title. Then my brother did some investigation and found out how to get a title. All we had to do was "buy" the car from the company we worked for, then use the bill of sale to apply for a lost title. It worked, and to this day my mom drives that thing to work just about every day
. Back to the truck, It's been ten years since we left it for dead, and I need a truck (my first roadworthy vehicle, to be exact). My brother said I could have it. So I repeated the process he used to get the title to the Amigo, and it worked just perfectly. So now I legally own a Ranger that had been smacked by a deer, then left for dead, then saved, then left for dead again
. I've attached a few pics of the truck after we dragged it out of the woods.So what I plan to do is restore this truck to roadworthy condition, while doing some fuel efficiency mods at the same time. Yes, I know it's a truck but I've read of ways to make it get 30+ MPG. My plans are to first swap the 2.3 that's in it now for the 2.3 that came in the later rangers, the one with mass flow Fi and DIS. I've heard this can have a profound effect on gas milage. As far as a transmission, it already has the mazda 5 speed that's in useable condition, so nothing to do there. As far as eco mods go, the farthest I think I will go is some aerodynamics mods, mostly in the form of an aerodynamic bed shell. From what I've read, the backdrop at the back of the cab causes a ton of drag, so a bed shell made the right way would fix that. I'll post progress here as I go along.
and I guess I will start working on it after the year rolls over. By my tally I need $3000 of parts, but that is only a guesstimate of each part's price, and it also includes parts I might not need. My hope is to come out around $2500.
