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

[Curious Hound]

Installed my breather manifold. Got the rear diff and transfer case connected. I thought the transmission would have a vent tube. But didn't find one. So I ran a hose to the front diff and got that connected. Not easy to get pictures where I mounted it between the bed and cab.

Also made some progress on my new spare tire carrier. It's going to swing out and down to ground level. Wait til Friday for a better idea of how it's going to work. I should get a lot more done then and it will be easier to see the concept. The arm on the right pivots at 45 degrees on the bumper. The tire will be mounted to a plate welded to the left arm, which pivots at the top of the right arm. I anticipate 3 bolts to lock it in place in the stowed position.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Got the A/C working!

Went to put my new gmrs in it.

And discovered the heater core is now leaking.

AND IT WAS JUST LOOSE HEATER HOSES!!!

I suppose the new hoses had to take a set. Went to pull the hoses off and they were barely tight. I know I had them tight.

Not that it is hard to replace but color me happy to return the $50 heater core.

Installed my breather manifold. Got the rear diff and transfer case connected. I thought the transmission would have a vent tube. But didn't find one. So I ran a hose to the front diff and got that connected. Not easy to get pictures where I mounted it between the bed and cab.

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Also made some progress on my new spare tire carrier. It's going to swing out and down to ground level. Wait til Friday for a better idea of how it's going to work. I should get a lot more done then and it will be easier to see the concept. The arm on the right pivots at 45 degrees on the bumper. The tire will be mounted to a plate welded to the left arm, which pivots at the top of the right arm. I anticipate 3 bolts to lock it in place in the stowed position.
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M5OD vents thru the shift tower... kinda hard to do much with it.

 

[Curious Hound]

M5OD vents thru the shift tower... kinda hard to do much with it.

Thank you

 

[superj]

i put those new window visors on from the other thread. the ones that go into the window track area. they look nice on the truck. no pic though

 

[Ranger850]

My dad pulled the intake and heads of of my blown 3.0 yesterday. Rear piston on DS was disintegrated. I knew it was toast, but dad thought he would "take a look see" I'll get a few pics when the weather eases up. It's been raining every afternoon from 3-6 almost everyday for a week now. Dad has WAY more free time than I do, so he's going to try to get some of my projects moved along. Starting with the Ranger.

As promised, pictures:

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

As promised, pictures:
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#6 piston has left the chat…

 

[Ranger850]

#6 piston has left the chat…

We were expecting to find the broken valve stem or something in the cylinder. We couldn't even find the piston

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So I finally got the heads on the engine for the green Ranger today. Still have to get pushrods and rockers on, but I dusted off the heads, put the valves in and together and got them bolted down. Pretty sure I didn’t mess it up, lol. Gonna get them finished up and get the lower intake on tomorrow and we’ll see if I get anything else done on it. Friday is a wash, gonna go to the farm show with friends and a weekend of R&R at the GFs.

 

[Bill]

I drove it to Walmart to buy a tube of form-a-gasket, but my head spun around a few times when I noticed Walmart charges $11 for a 1oz tube of it. So, I go back in my Ranger and went to Autozone where it was $5.89 for a 3oz tube.

And while I was in Autozone I was taken back at the different choices of RTV. Back in the 80s we had black RTV, blue RTV, and high temperature RTV, sealant numbers 1, 2, and 3, a tacky sealant to hold gaskets in place and a shellack. That's it. Now there must be 40 varieties of the stuff. There was a different RTV product for sealing up the cooling system, gear oil, valve covers and oil pans, plus RTV in a rainbow assortment of colors. Now figuring out what gasket stuff you need is like trying to decide what flavor of ice cream you want while you walk up to the 50 ft long freezer full of different ice cream and popsicle products at WinCo.

 

[superj]

i spent a ton of time on google and ebay looking up cool ranger stuff. exhaust, sway bars, lowering stuff, etc. i wish i had normal front suspension instead of this torsion bar set up. it would be so easy to lower the truck and make it usable at the autocross.

and aftermarket sway bars are very expensive for rangers. i don't actually know what size are on my truck but if i had to buy aftermarkets, man oh man do they cost some dollars.

i am thinking of a 50 series flowmaster to try and get the sound i want from the exhaust. it has no sound now which is not terrible but i like to hear the exhaust when i rev it up. still stuck in the old days on that i suppose. straight pipes on my 65 mustang in school and then a stinger on karmann ghia in the army, straight pipes on my 89 325i autocross car, plus everything i put on my previous vehicles. i am even thinking of a borla system for my titan because they sound awesome on v8s

 

[scotts90ranger]

The front sway bars on V8 Explorers seem giant, I don't know if they're any bigger than Ranger versions...

 

[pjtoledo]

I had a front bar from a 2001 Sport Track on my 2000 Ranger. it was so stiff I removed it.

FYI 98+ coil spring sway bars are a couple inches wider than torsion bar types.

 

[Roert42]

Now figuring out what gasket stuff you need is like trying to decide what flavor of ice cream you want while you walk up to the 50 ft long freezer full of different ice cream and popsicle products at WinCo.

I feel that. They are are for very specific instances.

I use Red High temp on pretty much everything. I have a couple of tubes of Ultra Black, for oil contact areas. I use them interchangeably.

If you squirt a bit of RTV into the cap before you screw it on the RVT seals the cap to the tube and your tube in not all dried up next time you go for it. Ever since someone told me that I have been using the same couple tubes of RTV for years. Instead of buying a new tube every other time I needed it.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

i spent a ton of time on google and ebay looking up cool ranger stuff. exhaust, sway bars, lowering stuff, etc. i wish i had normal front suspension instead of this torsion bar set up. it would be so easy to lower the truck and make it usable at the autocross.

and aftermarket sway bars are very expensive for rangers. i don't actually know what size are on my truck but if i had to buy aftermarkets, man oh man do they cost some dollars.

i am thinking of a 50 series flowmaster to try and get the sound i want from the exhaust. it has no sound now which is not terrible but i like to hear the exhaust when i rev it up. still stuck in the old days on that i suppose. straight pipes on my 65 mustang in school and then a stinger on karmann ghia in the army, straight pipes on my 89 325i autocross car, plus everything i put on my previous vehicles. i am even thinking of a borla system for my titan because they sound awesome on v8s

So, there is a kit out there (or at least a good write up, think it was on the Explorer forums but I’ll have to dig around if you’re really interested) about converting to coil overs in the front and ditching the torsion bars on 98+, basically it was a set of coil overs and some weld on reinforcements for the shock tower, IIRC. Not exactly cheap, but effective.

95-97 Explorers use a 36mm front sway bar, 98-01 use a 34mm front sway bar. IIRC my 00 Ranger has a 26mm front sway bar. Well, had anyway, I have a 34mm that’s going in the front. Not sure what Rangers had for a rear sway bar, but I suspect it’s the same size as the one from the Explorer I used for a donor which was a 19mm. There may be other junkyard options.

My choptop had a Flowmaster 40 series and I kinda liked the sound. When I put headers on and had a new exhaust made (2.25” stainless, high flow cat, straight out the back) the muffler shop insisted on putting a Flowmaster 10 series on, which I was worried would be entirely too loud. Instead it’s rather quiet at idle and close to and only starts getting noisy when you’re on the throttle hard. I kinda liked the 40 series better. The V-8 Ranger that I built with and for dad I used a Magnaflow crossover muffler. It had a nice low grumble at idle and got a little louder than dad wanted when you got on it, but it sounded really, really nice. I’m planning on doing some kind of crossover muffler on my V-8 Ranger. Be nice to tamp the sound down a little more to make it more of a sleeper, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m also considering exhaust dumps after the cats for it but they are not cheap

 

[superj]

So, there is a kit out there (or at least a good write up, think it was on the Explorer forums but I’ll have to dig around if you’re really interested) about converting to coil overs in the front and ditching the torsion bars on 98+, basically it was a set of coil overs and some weld on reinforcements for the shock tower, IIRC. Not exactly cheap, but effective.

that sounds like it would be too much work but let me have the link if you happen to find it. it might be cool to do.