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$100 daily driver


Jimmyrig

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Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
78
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1
Points
8
Location
Northwest oregon
Vehicle Year
1985
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.8
Transmission
Manual
My credo
It ain't stuck till it don't move
Picked it up for a hundred bucks. 85 ranger, 2.8 with a five speed. It came with cut fenders, semi dismantled interior, and a new clutch. Just had to tighten the bellhousing bolts and put the driveshaft in. Oh, and no clutch master. Drove it home on borrowed tires and mounted up a set of pr78-15 buckshots. Later some 32's. The y pipe was hacked up and the rest of the exhaust was full of holes, no cat, so I scrounged up an exhaust system.
Got a y pipe and exhaust from a scrap truck, no cat there either, but it had a glasspack. Way too loud so I put a used Flowmaster behind the y pipe, I don't have to deq where I live so it works. Next was a free used clutch master, soon to be replaced with new parts. Swapped the doors for an early 90's set, painted the door panels, inside trim, and glued up a headliner to replace the scotch tape and beach towel it came with. I reassembled the interior with new explorer visors and started driving it and working out the kinks.
Kink #1, 8.99 miles per gallon. Kink #2 alignment so far off I had to hold the wheel 90 degrees to the right to go straight.
I reset the toe until it drove straight and started tinkering. Oil change, cap, totor, plugs, wires, fuel pump, oil pressure sending unit, things got better. I found an edelbrock air cleaner and added a new filter to it. Next came oil change #2 after the first month. Added a quart of at a week before the oil change then ran some napa brand oil flush and got a lot of gunk out, it was black\amber before the flush, black and almost gritty when it was drained. I've super cleaned and pressure washed the engine twice to help chase oil leaks, furl pump, oil pressure sender and valve covers were the worst of it. Set the valve lash while the valve covers were off, then deleted the smog pump. I waited until I had driven it for about a month then adjusted the carb, it was running rich and I found out why, the right screw was out 10 turns, the left 12 turns. Then I set the idle and adjusted the fast idle solenoid. Along the way it got a stereo, speakers, amp and sub, cb and amp, stainless whip antenna, and some off road lights.

It drives good and aside from the starter bolts backing out last week it hasn't given me any issues. My short term plans are to build a new front bumper, add a winch, more lights, and an electric fan, and replace the rusty passenger fender. long term goals are for a chevy leaf spring swap and lift, 4.88 gears, explorer front axle and second gen explorer rear axle. I also plan to swap the bed, mines almost junk, and to take factory wheel wells and stretch them to the same size as my current cut fenders. 35's with only a 2 inch lift is worth the work.they barely clear now, but not well enough. For now it's 32's for driving and the buckshots for wheeling.
 

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Jimmyrig

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
78
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
Northwest oregon
Vehicle Year
1985
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.8
Transmission
Manual
My credo
It ain't stuck till it don't move
A quick update, after blowing out a sidewall on one of the 32's I'm ordering a new set of 31\10.5's. I'm also putting two 10" mtx subs behind the seat. After doing some searching and not finding what I'm after, I'm going to build my own enclosures. I will probably use 3\4" form board from work because it will work well for this and it's free. Things change as you build but the plan is to make two boxes 11"x14" and as skinny as I can get them. I plan to router out the back panels to make room for the magnet and possibly do the same with the front to inset the speakers to save space. The amp will go under the seat. I built a trial box out of some plywood I had laying around so I could get an idea of how the dimensions would work out. (And because my son wanted to build something together) At 12"x12"x6.5" it almost fits, I had to move the seat forward one notch and it pushes on the seat back because it's a little tall, so I'm going to lose an inch of height, and make it an inch or so thinner. Due to the small size they will be ported. The trial box, with large ports sounds great, and hits plenty hard, so two of them made out of not rotten wood will be more than enough for the small cab. I will be adding a geq to my stereo system with volume and tone control for the subs and the ability to turn them off. I already know this combination works well because I've had this same equipment in several rigs over the years with the only variable being sub enclosures sized to fit the vehicle. I even had them mounted in 5 gallon buckets in my explorer.
Other changes include removing the sway bar and installing the amplifier for my cb. The truck still handles fine without the sway bar and I gained a lot of down travel and flex off road.
If I remember to, I will take pictures when I build the sub enclosures and include the final measurements so they can be copied.
 

alwaysFlOoReD

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TRS Banner 2012-2015
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Apr 13, 2009
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13,872
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Points
113
Location
Calgary, Canada
Vehicle Year
'91, '80, '06
Make / Model
Ford, GMC,Dodge
Engine Size
4.0,4.0,5.7
Transmission
Manual
2WD / 4WD
4WD
That's a hellofadeal !!!
 

koda6966

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2007
Messages
7,898
Reaction score
61
Points
48
Location
The green part of NY.
Vehicle Year
1988
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.9
Transmission
Automatic
Can't beat $100 for a running driving truck.
 

RayInStl

Member
Supporting Member
Joined
Oct 30, 2015
Messages
267
Reaction score
3
Points
18
Location
St. Louis, MO
Vehicle Year
1983
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.3L
Transmission
Manual
My credo
Well, that didn't work. Let's try something else!

Jimmyrig

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
78
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
Northwest oregon
Vehicle Year
1985
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.8
Transmission
Manual
My credo
It ain't stuck till it don't move
Little update, had $800 worth of 31x20.5's put on it Saturday, and immediately realized how crappy that truck drove before. Now I gotta get creative next weekend because the wiper transmission is going out and apparently it's either a dealer item or a wrecking yard item, but that's on the back burner because it's acting like it has a hole in the pickup tube in the fuel tank, another item the parts store can't get, so it's probably going to get sleaved with rubber fuel line. Cheap truck= gremlins lol
 

wildbill23c

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Joined
Aug 22, 2012
Messages
3,917
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572
Points
113
Location
Southwestern Idaho
Vehicle Year
1987
Make / Model
Ford Ranger
Engine Type
2.9 V6
Transmission
Manual
2WD / 4WD
2WD
Total Lift
0
Total Drop
0
Tire Size
215/70-R14
My credo
19K, 19D, 92Y, 88M, 91F....OIF-III (2004-2005)
There's a reason that truck was $100, and you are finding all those reasons in a very short time LOL. My 84 Bronco 2 ran and drove too at $700 but it was falling apart and the lady's idiot son didn't help matters at all. When I picked it up it was spraying fuel out of the fuel line going to the carb, the starter bolts would loosen up on a weekly basis which is what led to me parting ways with the vehicle. The only good thing was it had a manual transmission...far more fun to drive than my 88 B2 with the A4LD automatic.
 

Jimmyrig

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
78
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
Northwest oregon
Vehicle Year
1985
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.8
Transmission
Manual
My credo
It ain't stuck till it don't move
The story behind this one is that a friend of my uncles bought it at an auction for the rear end, then found out it wouldn't work for his explorer and litteraly just dropped it off at my uncles house, this only makes sense if you know my uncle. I heard about it, he was asking a hundred for it unless he got around to scrapping it first. I told him I'd buy it if it ran and we threw a battery in it, pumped it twice and it fired right up on the first rotation. Aside from needing a tune up it sounded good, no missing or tick or knock, so I bought it, borrowed 4 tires, tightened up the bellhousing bolts, put the front driveline in and removed the short half of the rear driveline, ignored the clutch pedal not having a clutch master to hook to, and float shifted it 5 miles to my house
 

Jimmyrig

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
78
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
Northwest oregon
Vehicle Year
1985
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.8
Transmission
Manual
My credo
It ain't stuck till it don't move
Had a hole in the fuel pickup tube and the carburetor was acting up. so i swapped the carb for another stock one, and pulled the bed last week and slipped some fuel line over the pickup tube where the hole was. had to tear into it again this weekend because the lock ring for the sending unit was rusted out and after i put it back on i couldn't put more than 3/4 tank in it without it leaking. also had to swap out the throttle position sensor for the one from the old carb because the plug was different.
after fixing all that i started on the bed. its toast, knew that when i bought the truck. what i didn't know until a couple of months ago is that when they cut out the wheel wells they didnt address the outer body not being hooked to the wheel wells anymore. to add to that, both braces had pulled out of the outer panel, the front one is gone, and this allowed the bedside to flop some. add to that the only dent on the truck being the bed crunched on the passenger side under the tail light, and i got a crack that turned into the whole rear of the bedside tearing loose under the tail light. i welded it back together a few months back, but got busy and didn't get a chance to fix the braces. so when i fought the bed off last week it tore out again. i had no time to deal with it, so this weekend its getting fixed.
Today after i fixed the tank i flipped the bed upside down and welded the wheel well back on. then i moved to the tail light area. I cut some metal out of one of the original doors and made a patch panel for where it had torn loose on the bottom and welded that back in then screwed it to the underside where it used to be hooked up. Then I pulled the split section apart and bent the majority of the crunched corner out of it before stitching it back together in the two spots the metal touched, Then worked my way out from there removing the dent as i went and filling the dime sized holes caused by welding on thin, stressed metal. I was about a half hour short of having that done when it got dark on me.
Tomorrow i'm going to finish that then give it a little bondo than do small patch panels behind where the braces pulled out to spread out the stress, then bondo those as well. then I'll just have to weld the drivers side wheel well back together and sand down the bondo before tossing some more primer at it and bolting the bed back on. its about 10 times as much work as the bed's worth, it's cracking out bad in the front corners too, but it will hold together and look decent until i can find another one.
If I have time after that, i might cut a patch panel for the passenger front fender corner that's rusted out up past the lower body line, just for the sake of doing it. It's always good practice.
 
Last edited:

mavereq

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Jan 19, 2017
Messages
207
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Location
Concrete, WA
Vehicle Year
1997
Make / Model
Ford
Transmission
Automatic
I’ll give you $200 for it, minus the tires!
 

mavereq

New Member
U.S. Military - Veteran
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Messages
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Location
Concrete, WA
Vehicle Year
1997
Make / Model
Ford
Transmission
Automatic
Cool truck. I like the square bodies.
 

Jimmyrig

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
78
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
Northwest oregon
Vehicle Year
1985
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.8
Transmission
Manual
My credo
It ain't stuck till it don't move
I’ll give you $200 for it, minus the tires!
That one made me laugh a little. It's my daily driver now, so I couldn't sell it if I wanted to. Besides, I've got about $500 in parts into it and a few thousand dollars in labor. Whether you look at it as my time is worth what I get payed at work or if you figure what it would cost in a shop. But that's the way things go, if I bought some flares to cover up the cut fenders, did all of the body work and put a nice paint job on it it would be worth about 1500 bucks, and I'd have about three grand into it. It's all about the enjoyment of having done it myself.
Hopefully I can find another truck with a donor engine before it dies on me, because if not it might end up getting parted and hauled off like the majority of my cars. I average more than a hundred miles a day commuting to work, 20-30 thousand miles a year depending on the year, so I don't buy new cars, I buy cheap crappers and run them into the ground. Some of them, like this truck get more love than others, the last one got maintenance only except for a water pump that went out and a timing belt because I was there (honda). A few get fixed up and made fairly nice like this one currently is, except for the bed. If you discount time spent working on them, and regular maintenance I typically break even or profit on all of my cars, even more so if you figure what I save on the price of a new car.

If your willing to wait a few years, until the engine or tranny go out, if I don't find soares, you can have it for scrap price, because while I can justify hoarding parts I can't justify having a broken truck that's worth as little as this one is taking up space and needing an expensive part
 

Jimmyrig

Member
Joined
Aug 17, 2016
Messages
78
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
Northwest oregon
Vehicle Year
1985
Make / Model
Ford
Engine Size
2.8
Transmission
Manual
My credo
It ain't stuck till it don't move
Cool truck. I like the square bodies.

Thanks. It my favorite body style for rangers. No plastic headlights to fog up and easy to work on
 

JunkCollector

Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2017
Messages
77
Reaction score
1
Points
8
Location
VA
Vehicle Year
'85, '88, '91
Make / Model
B2, B2, Ranger
My credo
Local RBV "expert"
I only wish I could get this much done over the course of a few months! I've owned mine for two now and have only made it run and sorta drive...
Needs everything yours did. Exhaust, rust repair, interior's a mess. New slave is sitting in the package waiting for me to drop the trans and flip the new clutch that the PO installed backwards.

You got a better deal on yours than I did mine. Looks good! I wish there was more info on who made aftermarket brush guards for these trucks. Yours looks different from mine, I know mine's aftermarket. Neither look like the STX bar which I've seen in person on a wrecked truck.
 

mavereq

New Member
U.S. Military - Veteran
Joined
Jan 19, 2017
Messages
207
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Location
Concrete, WA
Vehicle Year
1997
Make / Model
Ford
Transmission
Automatic
I was just making a joke with the purchase offer. I can’t drag any projects home for quite a while.
 

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