The Road Ranger. 1997 SEMI

[Curious Hound]

You have to tear half the dash apart to pull the instrument cluster. So, seats out might be easier.

Should drive a 3rd gen. Instrument cluster is easy to remove, with exception of unclipping the speedo cable.

 

[scotts90ranger]

No speedo cable on a '97 so that helps. Pulling the cluster isn't bad, pull the two screws under the stereo then pry out the bezel around the stereo and such, it has metal clips, those two screws are the only fasteners. Then there's two screws vertical kinda above the cluster then the rest of the dash bezel is held in with clips if I remember right, it doesn't really want to go past the hazard button but it will. After that I think there's 4 or 5 bolts holding the cluster in then 3 connectors to undo

 

[sgtsandman]

Should drive a 3rd gen. Instrument cluster is easy to remove, with exception of unclipping the speedo cable.

I’ve only worked on a 1998 and 2011. So, all I know.

Lower kick panel and steel plate needs removed to pull the center dash. Then the panel around the instrument cluster can be pulled. I think the cover on the steering column needs pulled as well but I can’t remember for sure on that.

 

[Rick W]

I finally got the CB and single antenna done. I mounted the single right in the middle of the headache rack, and the only thing that sticks up above it (besides the two antennas that are now dead) is a few inches of the rotating beacon gizmo. I had an LTD 29 hooked up on my bench set up, and when I got this thing in the truck, I did a few radio checks back-and-forth with whoever was driving by on the interstate. With the antenna on top of the workshop, I could catch people an exit or two down from the interstate which is a mile and a half away. The one in the truck, now with a 4 foot antenna, would reach the interstate, but I couldn’t hold anybody too long, so I’m guessing it’s got half the range. I plan on redoing it anyway. It’s now low priority, now that I have a radio that works.

I double checked all my other circuits from the switch panel, and I used a junk 8ohm speaker to check the PA function. The PA speaker I want is back ordered.

In keeping with the holiday season, I made my list, actually I’ve made about 30 lists, and summarized them all, and checked them twice. So there’s only like a 90% chance I forgot something, but I rolled the carpet out in it this afternoon.

Before I rolled it out, I cleaned up a little tiny bit of accumulated mud under the drivers feet, dried that with the heat gun, and then smeared a little fresh scrap Rustoleum over the bare spots, which were very few.

2/3 of those 1 inch rubber plugs were missing, and even though I had some, I decided to leave them out. I assume the past owner had them out for when he rode through mud puddles, to let the thing drain. I don’t plan on doing that, but having been raised in the north, a few drain holes never hurt anything.

The ad for the carpet, and the instructions that came with it, say you might have to trim the edges a little bit, and you might have to add a hole for your seats or such. I was a little disappointed when there were no holes in it at all, not even for the stick shift. And as far as trimming an inch or two off the sides in the front and the back, I think if I do it carefully I’ll have enough to carpet the trailer.

But I did get it rolled out, started to cut the hole for the stick shift, and when I got it squared up, I put in three self tapping screws with fender washers where nobody would see them under the seat, just temporary, to hold it in place.

Ran out of daylight again. Last thing I did was look for the saddles that go over the carpet under each door. I know I have them from when I got the truck, but when I got it, there was no carpet in it, and they were loose, so I put them in a safe place where they wouldn’t get lost. Like usual they are completely safe, since I have no idea where I put them

 

[scotts90ranger]

I’ve only worked on a 1998 and 2011. So, all I know.

Lower kick panel and steel plate needs removed to pull the center dash. Then the panel around the instrument cluster can be pulled. I think the cover on the steering column needs pulled as well but I can’t remember for sure on that.

The lower panel might have to come off, don't remember exactly but it's only a couple bolts. The steering column trim definitely doesn't need to come off, I've never had it off on any of the three rigs with that dash that I've had the cluster out of... it might help but I just flexed the cluster trim a bit around the flasher button.

I'm pretty sure I started and finished the tach cluster swap on my '97 within about 2 hours and that included changing the stereo for a different stock unit and pulling the speedo out of the factory cluster and putting it in the junkyard cluster...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I’m not sure about the 97 dash, but I want to say it’s the same as the dash in my 00 Ranger. Want to say there was a dash split where like the dash’s went from 89-94 and 95+ which doesn’t coincide with the generations of Ranger. Anyway, I believe you have the more modern style dash. IMHO, having no speedo cable makes this easier, but the dash is more complicated than the older style.

If I’m correct, you pull two bolts above the HVAC controls, then pop the radio/HVAC trim out, there’s a bolt behind the trim near the cluster that has to come out. Hood release and e-brake release have to be unbolted and there’s a couple/few bolts down there for the lower plastic trim, then it has clips at the top. Then you pull the steel plate that’s behind it, 5-6 bolts, IIRC. Then you can get the bottom two bolts and the three above the cluster and if you’ve already pulled the one behind the radio trim, you can pop that off. For an auto, it makes it easier if you disconnect the indicator cable under the steering column before pulling the 4 screws that hold the cluster. Since it’s so irritating to get this far, I prefer replacing all of the bulbs in hopes I don’t have to go back in again. Oh, I’ve also done it with and without removing the column trim. For the three screws for the column trim, it’s worth pulling.

 

[Rick W]

I truly appreciate all the guidance and advice. I’ve done all this 1 million times, but it still makes me really nervous, especially the old plastic stuff. It looks great when it’s sitting there, and then, when you touch it, it disintegrates.

It wasn’t near as bad getting it off as I thought, not as bad as you guys made it look. When half the screws are just missing, and a third of the tabs are already snapped off, it kind of comes apart pretty easy!

The truck is so clean, that actually surprised me. I also realized that somebody worked on the stereo. They were some RCA connectors that didn’t match the truck that were just hanging behind the dash, and all of the wires to the radio had crimp connectors. The wiring work actually looked pretty good, so I just marched on. I’m sure nobody remembers that I picked up an OEM AM/FM cd cassette for 50 bucks a while back, so since I have the dash open, I’m planning on putting that in. Now I’m hoping that the wires will still match up. It has an OEM AM/FM cd in it now, but the CD didn’t work. I picked it up from a guy who just put a state of the art stereo in his truck and claims everything was working properly. We’ll see.

When I got the instrument pod to the workbench, as I kind of already knew, there was only one of the bigger lightbulbs that was working. I have a pile of them from years of scavenging, and I also had a box of new ones. I used the new ones, and I tested every one and adjusted the little brass contacts as I went.

On the little indicator lights, four of them were out. I only had one OEM replacement bulb, but I had some LEDs the same size. The only trick with the LEDs was figuring out the print on the circuit board so I got the positives and negatives in the right place. You can figure out which are the negatives, because that print on the circuitboard will run from bulb to bulb regardless of its use.

So I spent the majority of the time repairing the dash piece. The face is perfect. The upper left vent was cobbled in with a combination of wire and tape and glue, and I brought that back to original with the baking powder/super glue trick.

The light switch female stubs were actually missing, and the light switch had been glued in. I cleaned it all up, and considering the constant use, I drilled through the female stubs, tapped the holes, and ran some 8-32 screws through the plastic from the face of the panel, then I cleaned up where the switch matches up to the plastic, put a dab of E6000 on the face, and used two nuts to hold it squarely in place. I didn’t have anything to repair or replace those female stubs.

The dimmer switch was still all together in one piece with the stubs intact

Several of the pins and stubs that hold the whole dash piece on were broken, but I think if I simply put all the screws back in it, it will work fine. Along the bottom, a couple of the eyes were pulled out, but they were still there with the screw through them, so I put them back on to the panel and reinforced the panel with the baking soda/superglue trick.

It started to drizzle, so I’m letting the glue set really good, not sure I’ll go out today and put it together or not. It’s going to be kind of amazing to have dash lights again…

 

[Rick W]

Afterthought, but at the 40th we were discussing if the cruise control on that stick shift truck was OEM Ford. I thought it was. When I had the instrument pod out, if you took the lightbulbs out from the back, and held the pod up to the light, you could see what each bulb did. The bottom right two lights were to let you know the cruise was on, and that the cruise was engaged. That may be a project after all the other projects, and the secondary project of getting the air conditioning going.

 

[sgtsandman]

Afterthought, but at the 40th we were discussing if the cruise control on that stick shift truck was OEM Ford. I thought it was. When I had the instrument pod out, if you took the lightbulbs out from the back, and held the pod up to the light, you could see what each bulb did. The bottom right two lights were to let you know the cruise was on, and that the cruise was engaged. That may be a project after all the other projects, and the secondary project of getting the air conditioning going.

I probably have those light positions in my 2011 instrument cluster. I’m just not motivated enough to get all the stuff the truck would need to make it work.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I probably have those light positions in my 2011 instrument cluster. I’m just not motivated enough to get all the stuff the truck would need to make it work.

The light positions should be there. Want to say my green Ranger cluster even has a light spot for a suspension warning, which my guess would be for air suspension that I don’t know of any Ranger having. Explorer did though. Cluster is original to that truck.

 

[Rick W]

I got the whole dash back together today.

On the two lights on the bottom right, one was the cruise, but the other one was overdrive. O/D ?. Does that 97 have overdrive? News to me…

When I was carrying the instrument cluster out to the truck, I heard a rattle, so I put it back on the workbench, and I took the face off. The rattle was the little block that fills in the hole where the PRNDL would be on an auto. YEP, a dab of E6000. It also gave me the opportunity to blow the dust out of the inside.

I was kind of amazed that in my bucket of a bazillion Ford screws, I didn’t have enough of the 7 mm to replace the ones that were missing. All the same locations on my Town Cars have a Phillips head, otherwise the same. I have a half a bazillion of them, so I threw caution to the wind, and I swapped them all to Phillips. They were easier to put in and worked out fine.

I ended up taking the cover off the steering column because I was afraid of cracking the dash surround. I’m not sure I could’ve popped it back in without doing that. Also, @sgtsandman was right, I couldn’t even imagine doing all this with the seats still in the truck.

I also scrubbed all the pieces as I put them back in. Check this out.:

Did you guys know there was a turn signal light for left and for the right? Did you know that there are four gauges on that dash cluster? And with the lights, I can apparently drive twice as fast because the speedometer is twice as wide! It’s a silly thing, but you can’t even imagine how happy I am. I had to use a flashlight when I drove up for the 40th.

I was so high on excitement and adrenaline, I replaced the burnt bulbs in the HVAC control too:

The last thing I did before I popped the center panel back in was to swap the Radio head. It had an AM/FM CD, but the CD didn’t work. I picked up an AM/FM CD with a cassette probably a year ago for 50 bucks with all the speakers. My radio was black to match the surrounding panel, and the new one is that silverish/Argent color, but I don’t think anyone would ever notice if I didn’t point it out.

Then Carrie helped me check out if the CD was working, and a variety of 60s rock groups helped me check out the cassette. 100%! For the second time I was happy the seats were out, because I was so excited about having tunes, I did a happy dance right in the middle of the cab! A little hard on my head.

Only afterthought is I forgot to check if the running lights on the radio are working when you turn the headlights on. That will have to remain a mystery for tonight.

 

[RobbieD]

I was kind of amazed that in my bucket of a bazillion Ford screws, I didn’t have enough of the 7 mm to replace the ones that were missing. All the same locations on my Town Cars have a Phillips head, otherwise the same. I have a half a bazillion of them, so I threw caution to the wind, and I swapped them all to Phillips. They were easier to put in and worked out fine.

Now you did it . . .

you, Sir, have Voided Your Warranty.

 

[Rick W]

Now you did it . . .

you, Sir, have Voided Your Warranty.

Damn! And I only have 314,000 miles. I screwed up…

 

[Rick W]

Radio question:

Are the markings/buttons on those ‘97 radios supposed to light up when the truck lights or ignition is on?

Display screen works fine, but all the buttons are dark.

If they are supposed to light up, what should I check or look for?

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

When you said happy dance the first thing to pop into my head was Snoopy!