Fixin' up the "Farm Truck"

it's hard times when Santa shops at harbor freight. lol

Ha! Only because Santa has no self control. Went in for a 9,000lb winch, came out with a 12,000lb winch (on sale for the same price!), a sheet metal brake, a 5" swivel vice, and a set of cheapie ratchet straps.

I could write a song: On the first day of Christmas I bought at Harbor Freight....

RayInStl said:

I could write a song: On the first day of Christmas I bought at Harbor Freight....

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Hey that's a thought maybe we can bargain with them for part of their profit and get a few guys together and make a music video for them?

Heck we can maybe include one for Canadian tire for our Canada friends on here.

Any news on the little truck lately??

Not much!

Not a whole lot on the Ranger. It's been pretty hectic over here lately. I spent most of my Christmas vacation tearing my aunt's '04 Impala apart to replace injectors. We had a mystery no-start condition afterwards that took days to figure out. Turns out that some old brittle wires had gotten chafed and were shorting on the block. A little electrical tape and she runs good. That's my cousin who worked on it with me. He's a good kid and I'm glad he was willing to learn.



Then my other cousin's fiance's car had a bad ball joint that was stopping it from passing it's safety inspection, so we tore that apart and replaced it with a new moog ball joint. No pics of that though. It was a lot less painful than I thought. I have more tools now, too. I didn't have any really large sockets, so now I do. lol.

I did finish rebuilding the 2100 and ordered an intake gasket. I should be able to pick that up at advance any time. I haven't even looked to see if the throttle cable will work yet.

Here's a pic of the carb all cleaned up and perdified.


And a before shot:


The Ranger's over at my aunt's as a backup vehicle for her, just in case my shade tree mechanic skills don't work out. I bought a tach and got new 4" dash speakers for Christmas, so I'm kinda antsy to get it back.

I did finally get the tires in some mud! We had to jump the impala and since it couldn't move out of the driveway, I had to pull through the yard in the middle of the worst flooding in a decade.



And I got a new shifter. I don't normally care for aftermarket shifter knobs and other "blingy" things. I like stock. But after straightening the shifter's shaft so it would clear my center console cup holders, it was just barely clearing the dash. The new knob is much narrower than stock, so it's got a good half inch or so before it hits the dash now.



So I guess I had more updates than I thought! lol. Hope everyone had a good holiday season. I had a bunch of fun.

Ray

Update!

Went to the junk yard with my brother to get a trans for his 91 ranger and ended up finding some goodies for myself. I've always wanted a sliding rear window and now I finally have one! I need to figure out how to get the chrome trim back in the gasket though.

I also picked up an overhead clock/light. I've never seen one like this before. Is it common? Found it in an 85 ranger. Same one that had the window. It also had cruise and truck vent windows that I might go back for.

Vacation Time = Ranger Time!

The ranger's been sitting for most of the last few months. It's got a nasty rear main seal leak and my clutch has recently started slipping in 2nd. But with vacation time just around the corner and beautiful fall weather, I'm hoping to change that!

I picked up this Exedy clutch kit:

Exedy Clutch Kit (Amazon)

And this engine gasket set:

Fel-Pro Engine Gasket Set (also Amazon)

I plan to do the rear main seal (updated one piece), valve cover gasket, oil pan gasket, and I haven't decided if I'm gonna pull the timing cover or not. I'm thinking I will. I've gotta look up if you have to pull the pulley for that. I assume you do. I doubt the timing belt has ever been changed so I'll probably pick one of those up as well.

Since I'm going to have the engine out anyway, it's the perfect time to take care of the clutch. Who knows, after all this I might finally daily drive it, like I've planned to since I bought it!

Ray

I would suggest a valve cover from a 95+ Ranger. They are a steel reinforced rubber gasket and reusable. If you're cheap or broke many have pulled them from the junkyard and used them, me included.

I'll keep that in mind if the cork one doesn't seal well. I've had good luck with cork and don't plan to have the cover off again any time soon.

My vacation was approved last-minute and starts Monday! I've already got it down at my brother's place and pulled the radiator last night. The real fun starts today!

The engine is finally out and on the engine stand. The clutch is in better shape than I expected, so I think it was slipping because of oil on the friction material. I ran into a snag with the rear main seal. It looks like someone removed most of the old seal but couldn't get it all out and just left it that way. It's definitely the major source of the oil leak. It's kinda funny, you can tell a PO tried to stop the leak cause the valve cover and oil pan gaskets have silicone slathered all over them.

So I'm a dummy. The rear main seal on the early trucks is a 2 piece. Lucky for me, I was pulling the motor to do all the gaskets anyway, so it was no biggie to take the bearing cap off to take the seal out. It will be getting an updateden 1 piece seal.

I also took everything off of the right side of the motor and decreased it and found this:

Oooo, overbore for more POWA!!!

More progress. Everything's off the left side of the motor. I need some advice. I hear the oil senders tend to leak. Is it the senders themselves or the 90 degree fitting?

Also, does anyone know if the oil separator that the pcv valve connects to can be cleaned? If so, do I just use gunk decreaser, or is there something else I should use? Mine is super gross.

Look the extension fitting over good, if it isn't cracked I would pick on the sender.

I would soak the breather thing in diesel. Shouldn't hurt whatever is in it and it will only soften/loosen gunk.

Have you checked compression on your engine?

85_Ranger4x4 said:

Have you checked compression on your engine?

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No. I meant to before I started, but forgot to in my excitement to get started. I have the compression tester and everything. It runs pretty good, though. It never gave me a reason to think it was wore out. Why, do you see something suspect?