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

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Yesterday I hosed the salt spray off the Choptop plus dad’s Ranger and mom’s Explorer. Over 40 degrees for the first time in over a month. Choptop looked more white than blue. I also got the snow off the green Ranger.

Today I discovered that mom’s Explorer has a fuel leak somewhere. Joy.

 

[RobWigglezz]

Yesterday I hosed the salt spray off the Choptop plus dad’s Ranger and mom’s Explorer. Over 40 degrees for the first time in over a month. Choptop looked more white than blue. I also got the snow off the green Ranger.

Today I discovered that mom’s Explorer has a fuel leak somewhere. Joy.

I couldn't wait to get that crap off my Ranger also. Do you do any undercoating before winter? I use about 4 cans of fluid film on everything.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I couldn't wait to get that crap off my Ranger also. Do you do any undercoating before winter? I use about 4 cans of fluid film on everything.

I usually try to hose things off good during the winter if I get a chance and I try to give it a good wash in the spring.

For undercoat, I’ve used Fluid Film and I’ve used an oil spray. Frame in the green Ranger is almost completely painted in a mix of used oils and grease. Mix a little used ATF and used motor oil with fresh grease until you get a paintable mix. It’s a more recent experiment. There’s also a couple places around here that you can get FF/oil/whatever sprayed on. Don’t ever use the rubberized or asphalt type undercoat, rust spreads like wildfire when it gets under that crap.

 

[Li'l Work Truck]

Thanks. It still seems everything I look at in that 86 to 89 time frame has totally different color codes, which is doubly annoying when everything you read says the color coat on everything was always the same for Ford. I dug in the dashboard and took pictures of what’s in there now. Another problem I’m going to have is those wires all barely pull out to the face of the dashboard. It’s going to be a pain in the butt to splice them.

View attachment 139122
View attachment 139123View attachment 139124View attachment 139125

Both plugs are 8 pin, and they are different shape than the Lincoln plugs. I’m assuming the four wire is the input: always power, ignition power, lights on, and something else. Like also have the antenna and some other things, six and seven wires, with the eight wire speaker plug.

I’m assuming the eight wire are two wires each to the four speakers. That should be easy enough to trace down if I can’t match colors.

I’m still looking for input if anybody’s got some. Edit: I think I’m going to use saddle crimp taps so I could save the existing plugs should I ever come up with a correct radio.

I wonder if those radios are line out only, and if a line amp would do the trick.