My Ranger anniversary

my '88 has been better than the '93. both bought used. the '88 had 98,000 on it when i brought it home. at 145,000 i had to do a rebuild but i attribute that to letting a girl borrow it to drive to canada, the converter plugged and i got it back with a burnt valve on one cyl, went ahead and did a full rebuild, along with a complete clutch job. other than regular oil changes, it went to 203,000 before i traded it in with every thing oringinal. the '93 however was bought with 60,000 on it, at 80,000 i lost 2nd gear, $1,100 for a rebuilt trans, also did a complete clutch job. had a failed fuel rail gasket and leaky valve cover gasket at 110,000. ive done all 4 of the rear spring hangers and in doing the fronts i bumped a rusty fuel line on the sender and had to get a new fuel pump assy. pulling the trailer eats a set of front brakes every year. (but i cant complain about that) the front core support and the rear bumper/tailgate are rusting badly. i currently have a slightly leaking radiator and leaking front pinion seal. have got about 138,000 miles on it now. all in all not been too bad, but the '88 did hold together a little better. the '93 is a more more capable truck. funny thing is i drove the '88 hard most of the time. the '93 hasnt been ran half as hard as the '88 was. worked harder, sure. but theres no way the '88 (2.3) would have pulled my box trailer.

Good to see that someone is living out my dream I would have loved to buy a factory fresh 91-92 Ranger 4.0, M5OD, manual everything, single cab, short bed. It would have easily still been my DD.

I apologize for the thread jack in advance, but I have a bit of a story behind my RBV's as well.

Number one, my 91 XLT 4x2 2.3 M5OD Long bed... I bought it as a beater to deliver pizzas in. The interior was absolutely showroom quality, no lies. Bald tires, broken cab mount, no parking brake, no exhaust period. You could shine a light through the side of the bed into the rear window, and the tail gate fell off numerous times. I was 17 and learned standard on that beast. Drove it for give or take 7000 miles in high school, but the rust just was too bad when a second cab mount let loose. 237k, and the truck made it from Syracuse, NY, to Perrysville, Ohio, and back. I will never own another truck that I trusted like that.

Number two was an 84 Bronco 2 4x4 2.8 TK4 1350M and factory lock outs with ball park 185-190k. I drove the snot out of that little four speed. No idea how many miles ended up there, but it leaked exhaust into the cab from a broken Y-pipe, leaked out around 2 quarts a week in oil, and pumped out more blue smoke than you could ever imagine. I bought the truck like that planning to fix it up, but under the hood was a mess. I honestly have no idea how the engine was even running with so many things disconnected.... It had the bench seat from my 91 Ranger in it, and I put on black and silver tail gate that had a red stripe, making the truck 5 separate colors. That truck took a slave cylinder, a tfi, and air horns while it was running. I never once could get this truck stuck in snow, no matter how hard I tried... Eventually it started to drip fuel down the side of the carb, the terrible fiberglassing was peeling off...

The third RBV (I think I'm addicted!) is the current DD. It's a 94 Explorer XLT 4 Door 4x4 4.0 M5OD. It has every feature short of the leather interior. Considering I was blessed to have crank windows in the last two, these options are a blessing. Seeing as the body is near mint, the frame is near mint, and the interior is still beautiful, I decided to invest in her. She got a new intake boot, new front pads, new front pass brake line, coil pack, plugs, wires, ignition module, 1 fuel injector, thermostat, DPFE sensor, fresh coolant, and Valvoline Maxlife Synthetic every 2500 Miles (The short changes with that quality of oil are of no concern really. She is so worth every penny). She came with 90% tread Goodyear Wrangler Radials. I love this truck, and RBV's in general. She will be DGD (driven gently daily) for a good long time hopefully.

I guess that would be the story in progress for my little Ford Family. I hope to add another B2 to the ranks, but who knows what the future will bring...