'85 Ranger Restomod

[85_Ranger4x4]

After driving cross country twice with the tach at like four grand I finally broke down and got the Dakota Digital tach adaptor.

Gotta love how easy the interiors blow apart on these things.

It’s a little high yet but I can still fine tune it some, much better!

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Had the morning to myself so for the first time in forever I just played with my truck. No rush, no "gotta get it done" just a good honest morning of tinkering.

I was not sold on the tach fine tuning so I put the timing light on it and checked it. It reads a little low at idle, and like 400rpm high at 2500rpm... so there isn't much I can do about it.

While there I noticed the battery connections were pretty groady so I took that all apart and cleaned them up.



Dad swears by these felt washers so so I stuck them on to help seal around the posts. I probably outta look into an AGM the next time this thing needs a battery...





I need to clean it up a little and bundle the wires up but I am now rocking two 12 slot accessory fuse panels. I also need to beef up the main leads and redo my charging wiring... but for now I am not really drawing all that much anyway. The chaos caused by the stupid relay wiring is killing me...



All clean:



All buttoned up:



And then it was... slider time













I am going to make these bolt on but if I wanted to weld directly to the frame it would have been pretty cut and dry, how I had them sitting just how I thought they should look the tube just sat between the slider and the frame on its own.



They are 67" Trail Gear sliders recommended per @Shran, they look very nicely made. Might be a tad short for my application (intended for a standard cab longbox Toyota pickup) but for me looking for branch flip up protection and a place to tie down my camper I think they will be great. Much cheaper than regular camper tie downs (that don't even exist for a Ranger) lol. Stupid things are like $400 for the front brackets for my F-150.

 

[BlackBII]

Those sliders look legit! Bolting them on is the way to go; more work but it'll be good when/if you need to remove them.

Truck is looking good man

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Soooo....





Ummmmm....



This happened today...



It has never been opened, just playing with it on the couch it is freaking awesome.

 

[Shran]

I would have loved to mount my sliders at an angle like that but the Explorer frame is tucked up into the floor much more than the Ranger frame is and things just got weird. Ended up liking how mine were flat though because I can stand on them while I'm digging through my roof boxes.

Battery looks good, I've got AGMs in my crawler and the Explorer. Zero corrosion on the posts is real nice.

Keep us posted on the GPS. Everybody has something different - I just have Avenza Maps on my phone, my other "overlanding" buddies have that or Gaia or OnX.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I would have loved to mount my sliders at an angle like that but the Explorer frame is tucked up into the floor much more than the Ranger frame is and things just got weird. Ended up liking how mine were flat though because I can stand on them while I'm digging through my roof boxes.

Battery looks good, I've got AGMs in my crawler and the Explorer. Zero corrosion on the posts is real nice.

Keep us posted on the GPS. Everybody has something different - I just have Avenza Maps on my phone, my other "overlanding" buddies have that or Gaia or OnX.

The bodylift helps too.

One of my regular youtube channels reviewed the overlander awhile ago, I checked it out because it was cool, did a LOL at the price and moved on. I was thinking about getting a cheap alphabet soup tablet... but for half price this was hard to walk away from. By the time you get a $100 brand X tablet with a mount and buy some sort of a map subscription like Ghia or whatever, for the money the price isn't that far apart and this isn't an alphabet soup tablet with a subscription at the end of the day either.

I stuck it in my F-150 and "used it" on my way to work this morning. After I got here I sat there for awhile and got bummed because it didn't shut off when I shut the truck off like my little one in my Ranger. Then I remembered I added a socket to the Ranger that is hot with the key so the GPS would turn off with the key.

Looking more online today I can link my phone to it for handsfree operation and it works with cameras like for a backup camera. Supports up to four at a time. So that could be nice with the camper...

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

So, I went on a road trip today...

The search for solid cab corners continues...

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Alrighty, it is a darn good looking box. I have been looking for 15 years and haven't found one remotely close to as good as this one... which is why I jumped on it. It even came with the F O R D tailgate too which is also in good shape

But it isn't perfect. The story is he got it for his kid's truck eons ago, it was just starting to rust above the PS wheel arch so he spot welded on a new bedside. Kid lost interest, they parted the truck but somehow got stuck with the bed so they stuck it out on their farm/private junkyard but not before it got dropped on the front passenger side rocker which put a crease in the bedside. So that needs fixed. The conciseness between them was that it has been sitting 15+ years which I suppose why it is in such good shape, it hasn't seen salt for a long time.





It doesn't look that bad in real life but I will need to do something before I paint it. It also has a ding above the PS tail light... on the fence on that one if it is worth messing with or not.

I also need to look into any kind of rust preventative stuff to put inside the fenders, the replacement bedside has some surface rust on the back side in places. Still 110% solid but something I want to work on.

I got home in the dark, all I have for pics that I took are what I posted earlier with the trailer, I screenshotted these off the ad and from when I was messaging the seller.



This strip is pretty much gone on mine, I can watch my PS fender flop in the wind because it has no support in the center.







So I need to get the rocker straightened out, clean and prime the bed floor, clean and prime the front bulkhead and put my spare tailgate handle in the tailgate so I can open/remove it easily. Trying to work out the logistics of how I can set this thing up so I can move it easily and how to basically restore the truck now that it is feasible. I really want to bedline the floor of this thing so stuff sitting in the back doesn't mess up primer... but I don't want to do that until I paint the rest of it.

Right now I think I need to get the base cab done first. I need cab corners for it but get that finished and painted. Then paint the bed. Then I can fuss over doors and fenders and whatever and hang things on the truck as I get them done. But oh wait, I should drop the fuel tank and do the frame while the bed is off... I am going in 50 different directions right now

 

[BlackBII]

Hey that bed appears to be in good shape! Nice find. The beds on these trucks are always dented and rusted all to hell because they were used as work trucks for the past 30 years. It's tough trying to decide which to do first. Having a nicely painted frame to bolt everything onto is the 'right' way to do it, but then your truck is out of commission for a while. I did mine in two halves; back when the bed was off, front when the cab was off.

Keep up the good work man!

 

[BlackBII]

I saw these the other day looking for parts for my truck

1985 Ford Ranger Cab Corners | Mill Supply, Inc.

1985 Ford Ranger Cab Corners available at low prices! We have a huge selection of high quality rust repair and auto body panels including rockers, cab corners, wheel arches, fenders, and more! Get your 1985 Ford Ranger Cab Corners today! Most orders shipped same day!

www.millsupply.com

 

[racsan]

that looks very good. Id recommend POR-15. Its not cheap but is effective. Ive done the rear frame of a 2005 superduty, the rear frame of my ‘94 and a entire ‘46 2N ford. all 3 of those have been holding up pretty well

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I saw these the other day looking for parts for my truck

1985 Ford Ranger Cab Corners | Mill Supply, Inc.

1985 Ford Ranger Cab Corners available at low prices! We have a huge selection of high quality rust repair and auto body panels including rockers, cab corners, wheel arches, fenders, and more! Get your 1985 Ford Ranger Cab Corners today! Most orders shipped same day!

www.millsupply.com

I need everything but that.

The back side of mine doesn't look great and I have holes behind the bottom corner of the doors. Bonus is with the doors shut it looks fine lol.

 

[Shran]

Dang dude!!! That's awesome, nice score. So much easier than welding in patch panels!

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I have it stashed in the barn for now.



I have been researching autobody stuff and have found these things so far, I am going to stick here so I can find them and if they do anybody else any good that is great too.

JoAnn Bortles, Author at Chevy Hardcore

www.chevyhardcore.com

This was pretty interesting to see too:

 

[ford4wd08]

Look up paint society on youtube as well. They do some decent videos and reviews of various guns.