What did you do to your Ranger today? (Part Deux!)

[Isk Stark]

Congratulations, man. It's a victory.

Thanks. Finally got all the heater system removed. Used the 'Easy Button' (sawzall) and got 'er out.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Took the '90 to the beach over the weekend, long drive, fuel for the F350 was spendy ($5.20 AFTER $.50 off per gallon...), went fine, not enough time... after loading it on the trailer a buddy looked up noticing the wrench welded to the top of the frame on the drivers side shackle mount, been like that for a few years and has been fine but now it's broken... so now I have like 3 weeks to change it before the next outing... glad we put that wrench up there though, its the only thing holding any load...

 

[sgtsandman]

Vegetation can attenuate UHF. It isn't too bad on 2 meters. Vegetation type and moisture content also have an effect. The vegetation here doesn't have a high moisture content, and once you get above about 2,000 ft in elevation, the vegetation is dominated by pines, incense cedar, and fir. Conifers don't appear to have as much of an impact as broadleaf vegetation, but I could be wrong. 6 meters does OK over hilly terrain as long as you aren't at the bottom of a deep or narrow canyon. HF is even better. Over here most of the highways run parallel to and nearly at the top of most canyons. That, combines with the numerous repeaters on mountaintops, make VHF coverage OK in most places. The canyons along the west slope of the Sierra Nevada are also open towards a west or southwesterly direction, which provides good access to quite a few repeaters in the coast ranges.

Rowdy is from out your way and would benefit from your experience better in this regard. Our mountains are shorter and rounder with a lot more deciduous than conifer forests. Kind of apples to oranges comparing our terrain to yours out there. At the time when we were doing the exercise, we were operating with MURS frequencies since not everyone was Ham or GMRS licensed yet. The band may have been part of the problem. Than and being limited to 2 watts on the HTs because of the band.

 

[Maritime Drag Racing]

Had to make sleeves for the 4° wedges to get the head of that center bolt back up where it's supposed to be. Otherwise there wouldn't be enough to engage the locating hole in the spring saddles. That stalled our CalTracs installation for a couple days until I made the tapered sleeves and file fit it all to the wedges which had to be made .a couple thou bigger. Please ignore the ancient coffee cup warmer LOL. There has been many gallons of coffee dripped on it over the years LOL.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

I went and drug it off the mountain to where I can get to it with a trailer. I messed up the trans and it was sitting in the middle of the road in the mountains, on BLM since the beginning of December. I just got lucky that it was a side road and the snow that was keeping me from getting it off the mountain, also kept the shady people away.

 

[Bill]

Rowdy is from out your way and would benefit from your experience better in this regard. Our mountains are shorter and rounder with a lot more deciduous than conifer forests. Kind of apples to oranges comparing our terrain to yours out there. At the time when we were doing the exercise, we were operating with MURS frequencies since not everyone was Ham or GMRS licensed yet. The band may have been part of the problem. Than and being limited to 2 watts on the HTs because of the band.

If anyone has any questions I'll answer them if I know the answer. I'm not an RF engineer, but I've been playing radio for a long time and I know enough to get first place in the Sacramento Valley Section on a VHF contest.

 

[superj]

i signed the ranger up at ford to get the airbag recall done friday. i saw it on my carfax so i called and talked to their service guy. the number is nhtsa # 21v081, if anyone wants to check on theirs

 

[Bill]

I drove from Fresno to Visalia, then back up to Sacramento. I tried hypermiling to see what kind of gas mileage I can get doing that. I drove back in the middle of the night and tried to drive 55 as much as I could to see what the gas mileage would come out as. I really don't have the patience to drive 55. There was very little traffic most of the way. There may have been two or three cars within a mile of me in the rural areas, and maybe a dozen going through some of the cities. Now, what I don't understand is why people come flying up behind me at 80 mph in the slow lane, then act like children because I'm not going fast enough for them. Note that there is an open lane to the left and over most of the trip two open lanes to go around me. Some of these misfits drive five feet behind my rear bumper and turn their high beams on and off. And one of America's best and brightest did all that in addition to revving his engine behind me and laying on the horn for several miles before he figured out that he could get around me by moving over into one of the two lanes to the left. Anyway, I'll post the mileage results when I fill up.

The next project is picking up gear oil and a gasket so I can investigate the slack in the rear end and change out the fluid. I hate doing this because gear oil stinks. AC Delco has a grape scented gear oil (I'm not kidding). I thought about using that, but it is $16.00 a quart and I'm not paying that price for gear oil.

 

[superj]

grape scented gear oil would be so nice. i hate the smell of gear oil, also

i had some jackass drive that way behind me yesterday too. we are on a three lane highway and he is riding so close i cannot see his bumper. makes me wish i had a little compartment full of marbles that is controlled by a lever under the dash. pull the lever and the marbles drop out from under the bumper

 

[Roert42]

$10 says instead of it smelling like burning hobo piss it smells like burning hobo piss and grape sodas.

 

[Blmpkn]

I've locked my brakes up on tailgaters before and literally come to a dead stop in the road (real bad day).

I'm not so heavy on the pedal with my brake-checks anymore though.. just because I really like my truck lol. Put me back in a bomb and I'd be right back at it though. Maine law says the jerk behind you is at fault if you stomp on your brakes hard enough for them to hit you, so.. fawk em.

This is why not too many people tailgate BAD up here.

 

[sgtsandman]

I drove from Fresno to Visalia, then back up to Sacramento. I tried hypermiling to see what kind of gas mileage I can get doing that. I drove back in the middle of the night and tried to drive 55 as much as I could to see what the gas mileage would come out as. I really don't have the patience to drive 55. There was very little traffic most of the way. There may have been two or three cars within a mile of me in the rural areas, and maybe a dozen going through some of the cities. Now, what I don't understand is why people come flying up behind me at 80 mph in the slow lane, then act like children because I'm not going fast enough for them. Note that there is an open lane to the left and over most of the trip two open lanes to go around me. Some of these misfits drive five feet behind my rear bumper and turn their high beams on and off. And one of America's best and brightest did all that in addition to revving his engine behind me and laying on the horn for several miles before he figured out that he could get around me by moving over into one of the two lanes to the left. Anyway, I'll post the mileage results when I fill up.

The next project is picking up gear oil and a gasket so I can investigate the slack in the rear end and change out the fluid. I hate doing this because gear oil stinks. AC Delco has a grape scented gear oil (I'm not kidding). I thought about using that, but it is $16.00 a quart and I'm not paying that price for gear oil.

The synthetic stuff doesn’t smell nearly as bad as the petroleum based gear oil. The price isn’t too bad for most of them either. The ones in the squeeze tubes are so much nicer than the traditional bottle as well.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

I drove from Fresno to Visalia, then back up to Sacramento. I tried hypermiling to see what kind of gas mileage I can get doing that. I drove back in the middle of the night and tried to drive 55 as much as I could to see what the gas mileage would come out as. I really don't have the patience to drive 55. There was very little traffic most of the way. There may have been two or three cars within a mile of me in the rural areas, and maybe a dozen going through some of the cities. Now, what I don't understand is why people come flying up behind me at 80 mph in the slow lane, then act like children because I'm not going fast enough for them. Note that there is an open lane to the left and over most of the trip two open lanes to go around me. Some of these misfits drive five feet behind my rear bumper and turn their high beams on and off. And one of America's best and brightest did all that in addition to revving his engine behind me and laying on the horn for several miles before he figured out that he could get around me by moving over into one of the two lanes to the left. Anyway, I'll post the mileage results when I fill up.

The next project is picking up gear oil and a gasket so I can investigate the slack in the rear end and change out the fluid. I hate doing this because gear oil stinks. AC Delco has a grape scented gear oil (I'm not kidding). I thought about using that, but it is $16.00 a quart and I'm not paying that price for gear oil.

Well, what was your mileage???

grape scented gear oil would be so nice. i hate the smell of gear oil, also

i had some jackass drive that way behind me yesterday too. we are on a three lane highway and he is riding so close i cannot see his bumper. makes me wish i had a little compartment full of marbles that is controlled by a lever under the dash. pull the lever and the marbles drop out from under the bumper

I have thought about installing a second windshield washer box with a couple nozzles pointing rearward off the back of my commuter car, filled with something oily or smelly, back in the day. But I never did it.
But I did have rear facing led flood lights flush mounted in the rear bumper of my old dodge. That worked really good when people tailgated me.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

In the choptop once I had a guy tailgating me close, I came rocking up on a hard bend, downshifted and stomped the brakes and whipped around the bend. The guy behind me stomped on his brakes and went straight off the road instead of around the bend.

 

[97RangerXLT]

I looked at it holding down the driveway and thought to myself, "i really need to take the Ranger out for a drive"

so far it is still holding down the driveway.

AJ