My 91 Street Turbo Ranger Build!

[Silver talon84]

Well, I guess I'll make an official build thread, since I'm cluttering up the turbo section with my pics. As of yesterday, I started pulling the ranger motor out, and get it ready for the new motor. Didnt get alot done, as I only had a little time, but its still a little progress.


I'll start back a little while ago, and catch everyone up! This is my 91 2wd, 5spd, 4cyl, short box Ranger!







I bought it from a friend of mine, who bought it from a friend, who bought it in Texas and had it shipped up here to Maine. Its a Texas origional truck, with ~50k origional miles on it, and it shows! These pics are how it sits as of last week, but also the way I bought the truck last fall. I havn't had any time to do anything to it yet.



This rear end is from a splash from up in this area, and is a 3.73 Limited Slip rear end. See how clean it is! The rear end has more rust on it that the entire truck! No northern salt for this baby!



This is where she gets stored in the winter for her no salt diet (or winter salt fasting, lol!) Don't have any rust on it now, don't need any to start!



And the donor victem....errr I mean, gracious donor! Its an 86 Merkur XR4Ti. Bought it for 400 bux a couple of years ago with hopes to put it on the road, but after replacing a blown head gasket, I found out it wouldn't pass inspection. I guess having NO rockers left due to rot is a slight saftey issue!





And then a couple of weekends ago, the Merkur goes under the knife to give up her heart for the ranger. It took my buddy and I about 6 hours to have it out and on an engine stand. We ran into a few problems, as neither of us has taken a motor completely out of a car. Just worked on them inside the car.



Hoodless for better access and less headaches (litterally!)





Start of the tear down went pretty easy and straight forward. Not much glamor, just alot of coolant hoses!





Our chain falls that were wrapped around just two rafters, as I didn;t have any steel lying around to hook it to. Found out that this was a REALLY bad idea later, I still have to go and buy some lumber to fix the rafter we broke, lol. I ended up having to cut a board to fit in between the two rafters. That way it wouldnt pull the two together and break the rafters further than they allready were by that point. Isint hind sight a great thing?



This next photo is almost 3 hours after the first ones of the tear down. We had one bolt in the tranny that was a nightmare to get out, and after we go it loose, there wasnt enough room behind the firewall to pull it out all the way, so it reared its head up again later too. The worst part was trying to figure out why the engine wouldnt come forward any, even after we put some lift on the engine. We tried for over an hour to move it forward, but it would only come about 3/4 an inch from the tranny, then it wouldnt budge! And wouldnt ya know, the last thing we thought of was the oil pan hitting the front cross member!! It was, and that hint was given to us after a few phone calls to my dad for help, and shortly after, ended up here! Great success!!



Ahh!!! Motor and tranny seperated for life, never to see each other again! What a feeling to have that slide off! So its off the tranny, but its still a very tight fit, not quite sure about it coming out the way it is, but I dont really want to take any pulleys off or anything. Kinda late for that anyway.







This was probably the tightest part here, and we did end up bending some of the fins in the radiator to get the pulley out and over the rad support, and scratched that up too some, but its ok, it's the sacrificial lamb still!



Some twisting and turning....





And like a calf out of a cow *phhhllllooooooopppppppp!!!!!!* Out she comes!!









And the naked Merkur!! Looks like enough room for a small block ford!







Hanging by a thread!! I made sure not to put my feet under this thing. I dont think my steel toes would help out much there. The lift test was a big negative, wont be lifting this by hand anytime soon. I had to refrain from taking 100+ pics of it like this, cause it looked so cool!





Flywheel looks pretty good, almost new! Clutch was brand new, and came off pretty easy!



See anything funny about this? Looks a little ovaled out to me, should I be worried about it?



Then appon closer inspection, I found this tag. Never seen one before, anyone have any idea's if this is factory, or a replacement or something?







Hey, I think there is something missing!



Oh, there it is!



Some parts we had to pull to get the engine out. The fan I dont need, as my ranger has allready been swapped to electric.



The clutch, and in pretty fine shape if I do say so myself!!



Now, my baby in her temporary home. Hopefully a VERY temporary one!

[Silver talon84]

Update!!

I did some work on sunday. Not much but atleast started the ranger tear down. Got it jacked up and the fluids drained. Boy was that messy!

The ranger with the hood off, again for better room and less headaches.



All jacked up on the I beams. Man isint this thing clean!! Its too bad I have to take those pretty beams out to put drop ones in!



Frame and everything else is really clean too! Well, besides the oil down that it had last year. Ill have to get some degreaser and go to the underbelly after the swap is done.



Fuzzy and oily, but you get the picture of how clean this thing is.



This I think is the only real rust that is on the body, from anywhere that I can see. Not bad, but I'll have to adress it at some point.



While taking the radiator hoses off, I stumbled onto some of the problem, or evidence at least, of why the motor is DOA. I pulled this hose off, and this merky rusty brown liquid flys everywhere, and there is this stuff in the rad outlet. Any guess as to what it is?



It looks like dirt, and is inside this hose too!



So naturally I'm pretty curious by this point. I stick my figer in there, and feel small stabs in the end of my finger as I pull some gunk out. It seems to be metal shavings from somewhere, not sure where yet, but there is a TON of it. I can only imagine where else all of this is.



And how I left it that night. I didnt have much time (about 1.5 hrs) but still got a decent amount done, while still taking pictures.





I'd be working on it tonight, but I'm going with the wife and kids to camp for a day and a half. But will have time when I get back, as they are staying the week, and im coming back by myself! All kinds of time to play!

[Davis]

Why did you kill such a nice merkur?

That's definitely a re-manufactured engine.

Replace that pilot bearing. It's kind of a pain, but they are only 6 bucks. Get the flywheel machined, it looks terrible in that pic!

Good luck, it'll be a fun truck.

[Silver talon84]

Originally Posted by Davis

Why did you kill such a nice merkur?

That's definitely a re-manufactured engine.

Replace that pilot bearing. It's kind of a pain, but they are only 6 bucks. Get the flywheel machined, it looks terrible in that pic!

Good luck, it'll be a fun truck.

In my post earlier i mentioned the tottal lack of rockers under the body cladding. And I mean NO rockers left, you could see right into the car if you peeled back the carpet. The rear frame was about to have serious issues, and the sway bar had been ripped from the frame on several occasions, and half-assed welded back on. It need to be welded again also. I would have waaaaaaayyyyyyy too much money in the merk to get that back to a safe condition, let alone safe condition. I really didnt want to do it to the car, but it just isint worth putting the time and money into the car. Atleast the motor will live on right?

The pilot bearing is what is ovaled in the pic right? And why do you say send out the flywheel? Looked pretty decent to me, but I've only seen a few.

[Davis]

I guess I missed the part about all the rust. From the top it looks really nice.

Yeah that's the pilot bearing, though I think it's just the seal that is ovaled. I just say replace it now so you don't have to drop the tranny later and replace it.

The flywheel surface looks burned to me, like it slipped a lot.

[ZMan]

looks good, should be a fun project. The stuff in your radiator is probably rust, maybe the original owner never changed the coolant, or maybe it had all water in it being a texas truck, you need SOME antifreeze as it has anti-corrosion properties, or it could be stop leak, who knows...I wouldn't worry too much about it.

[jhammel85]

Nice build man. Should be good once its finished!

Kinda sad to see such a low mileage engine get taken out though. Was there anything wrong with it at all?

[skyy_4life]

damn man, if that Xr4Ti had rockers, i would have baught a diff car for donor and kept the merkur. nice truck though and keep us updated on build!

[Downey]

nice build man but how the **** do you work in a garage that is that big of a mess

[Silver talon84]

Originally Posted by Davis

I guess I missed the part about all the rust. From the top it looks really nice.

Yeah that's the pilot bearing, though I think it's just the seal that is ovaled. I just say replace it now so you don't have to drop the tranny later and replace it.

The flywheel surface looks burned to me, like it slipped a lot.

Yea, car was decent outside, but the inside was about toast also. Needed seats front and back, new carpet etc. I hate to see it go, but there just wasnt enough to save. Ill look into the pilot bearing replacement while its on the engine stand. Anything special to do when I replace it? The flywheel I think looks like that from not really being used over the last 2-3 years. It was slipping in the merkur when I finnaly got it going, but the more I drove it, the better it was. So Im thinking with use, it will clean up.

Originally Posted by ZMan

looks good, should be a fun project. The stuff in your radiator is probably rust, maybe the original owner never changed the coolant, or maybe it had all water in it being a texas truck, you need SOME antifreeze as it has anti-corrosion properties, or it could be stop leak, who knows...I wouldn't worry too much about it.

It could be from rust I guess, but there seems to be alot of metal in it. Not sure where, but I know that a friend was driving it a few weeks ago, and it sprang an oil leak, and they ran it without oil and got it really hot. Now it seems to run on 3 cyl's not 4, so it called for the turbo swap to happen a little faster than planned. Here is a pic of the sparkplugs that I pulled out of the last cyl. Looks like it got pretty hot in there, lol!

Originally Posted by jhammel85

Nice build man. Should be good once its finished!

Kinda sad to see such a low mileage engine get taken out though. Was there anything wrong with it at all?

See quote above, lol. I plan on taking a peek in the oil pan, and under the valve cover when I get the engine out of the truck. I know it got pretty hot, but Im not sure what got damaged when it overheated.

Originally Posted by Downey

nice build man but how the **** do you work in a garage that is that big of a mess

Well, I tell my wife this constantly! But everytime I clean the damn thing out, she hears that I cleaned it, and has 50 more bags of crap to bring out and fill it back up with! Im lucky that I can even get my truck in there!

[stegomon]

nice!!! glad to see a fellow mainer!

[rbill2k3]

Any updates? Project looks good!