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Peppy, my little mule: A build thread


Mr. Tarkanian

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Ok guys, I guess it's time to start a build thread. I've been lurking on this forum for going on 10 years or so, and have never really contributed much. So here we go.

I plan on using this as basically a database for my pictures, progress, screw-ups and tricks I learn on the way. Hopefully it will help out in the future, both for myself and for others. Feel free to give constructive criticism and recommendations (but please remember, I'm NOT a mechanic, so take it easy!). I actually started this build around a year ago, and it has been slow-going. I work 55+ hours a week, and have a 3 week old son at home now, so things may be sporadic: please be patient. I'm also no photographer, with only a crappy phone-camera, but I'll do my best.

My dad gave me this bronco when I was 15 (wow, 11 years ago!!). I have been in love with it ever since. The past few years I've noticed it really going downhill, lots of rust, the interior is looking BAD (not to mention SMELLING bad). Most of my friends and family were urging me to sell it, or even scrap it. I got tired of the negativity, and set out to fix it up.


Here are some specs to start out with. It's an 89 XLT, 2.9, A4LD, Electric tcase, D28/7.5, front split bench, power windows/locks (don't work), cruise, AC (doesn't work). I'm really more interested in a having a reliable, capable daily driver that I can use around the farm and take on road trips, than I am in having a full-on rock crawler. Reliability and Fuel economy are paramount in this build, with capability and simplicity being very important as well. Overlanding has always been an interest of mine as well, and 4x4Junkie's BII is probably my favorite ever. If you read this Junkie, just know that your ride has really inspired most of my ideas! Here are some of my plans:

-Total body restore, rust repair, paint (ford midnight blue metallic)
-Ditch the defunct AC system. I want the truck to look like it never came with AC to start with.
-Convert to manual windows/locks
-5 speed conversion
-4.0L clutch
-D35 conversion
-explorer bucket seat swap
-Brake rebuild
-Detail clean the interior, pressure wash carpet, new headliner
-New sound system, most of my factory speakers are busted
-2-3 inch lift, nothing extreme
-30x9.5 all terrains, MAYBE 31x10.5's if I can get away with it
-tow hooks
-Trailer hitch/wiring
-4.10 gears (maybe a pipe dream)
-window tint
-probably more, but that's plenty for now


Image028.jpg
Image029.jpg
Not much to look at. The first order of business, my front drip rails were in pretty bad shape. Rusted completely through, no wonder my carpet stayed wet all the time!! So, I FULLY stripped the interior, everything except the dash. It took many hours of grinding, and lots of trail and error. I tried welding and brazing, neither worked well. I finally settled on fiberglass (tiger hair, for all you geezers out there :icon_twisted:). This wasn't the route I wanted to take, but it finally came out solid. Oh well. You can tell in the pics were I had been working on it. They came out pretty good. Keep in mind, this was a full year ago. I tinkered around with the drip rails, some of the body work, and the floorboards for a while, until last winter things jumped into overdrive. More to come.
 
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Mr. Tarkanian

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Trans1.jpgTrans2.jpg

BOOM!! The craigslist gods smiled on me. I found a 4x4 M5od trans from a 95 wrecked 95 explorer sport. I had to drive about 4 hours round trip (and take a quest into the hardcore crackhead ghetto town in Lexington KY). It was worth it, I got it for $150. These are pretty scarce in central Ky, I was even having trouble finding an FM146. This was a good find. I wasn't quite ready to start on this project, so I tucked it back in the garage for now.

At my local yard I stumbled across a non-AC heater box, something I had wanted for a very long time. I picked it up for $15. Here it is, next to the old, bulky AC box. Notice how much smaller and more trim the new box is? It creates TONS of room for changing the #3 spark plug.
New box.jpg

I figure now is the time to replace the factory heater core. It still put out good heat, and didn't leak, but I'd really HATE for it to go out as soon as I got it all back together. So there.

Core.jpg

Box.jpg
Old box out, ready to clean up and reassemble.

Box1.jpg Box2.jpg

Done and Done. It looks great, looks factory, and opened up a TON of room. I love it. This was SO worth the $15. This was a great "mod". Trust me, I love AC, I couldn't survive the KY summers without it. But this is going to be mostly a winter driver, plus I just didn't have the budget for a new AC system. I don't mind when a vehicle lacks amenities, but I HATE it when they come with amenities that no longer work. That irritates me.

Control.jpg

I picked this up on ebay, a NON AC heater control pod. I cleaned it up, lubed it, and painted the metal. It looks great. Sorry, I don't have a pic of it installed :/ But this finished deleting my AC, now the truck looks as if it came from the factory with heat only. Was that even possible with the XLT option?

More to come.
 

Mr. Tarkanian

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The next project I decided to tackle was a fuel pump access plate. I love fuel injection, but had an in-tank pump go south on me out on the road one day and had to be towed home. Since then I've always wanted a hatch, so that I could drop a pump in the tank from the top. So I broke out the air hammer.

Image001.jpg
Marked it off in paint. My lines are never straight.

Fueldoor1.jpg
Made the cut. Whew, this was a nail biter. The edges were ground flat after this pic.

Fueldoor4.jpg
I put door trim around the edges, to help avoid cut up hands in the event of a pump meltdown somewhere out in the boonies. I made a gasket/seal out of grey RTV.

Fueldoor5.jpg
Made a plate out of some scrap metal my Pa had laying around. In fact, he has been a big help through the whole process. But anyway, I also put trim over the outside of the plate, admittedly more for aesthetic purposes than anything else. Bolted it down with 6 self tapping screws. You may also note that the surrounding floorboard and the plate itself are coated in bedliner. More on that soon. Done and Done.

I'm signing off for now. More to come.
 
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alwaysFlOoReD

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Looking good!
 

Mr. Tarkanian

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During the fuel pump plate adventure, I figured it was a good time to go ahead and coat the floorboards. The entire floor area was stripped, every bracket and bolt removed, and treated with a wire cup brush. You can also see one of my new, all manual doors in the background.
Before:
Fueldoor2.jpg

After:
Floor.jpg Floor2.jpg
Floor5.jpg Floor6.jpg
Looks MUCH better. All the rust was ground out, and there actually were NO holes rusted through. Grinding out some of the old floor sealer/insulation/whatever was a nasty job. I put a coat of Flex-Seal in the front boards, to help keep noise and heat down, then topped it all off with Dupli-Color spray on bedliner. That stuff works great, but it's all in the prep. Clean, clean, clean!! It turned out so good that I was tempted to leave the carpet out altogether. But we'll see. I ran new speaker wire while the side panels were off, put the insulation back in, and then cleaned and added the panels. The rear carpet section was also pressure washed and mocked in.

As you probably noticed, the doors and rear hatch are MIA. I pulled them off to work on some of the rust below the hatch and on the quarter panels. Since the doors were coming off, I went ahead and pulled out all the PW/PDL wiring. They unsnapped from the main harness up by the headlights, and pulled out from behind the fenders without a fuss. I was surprised how easy that was.
LastMove.jpg
Here you can (just barely) see the patches beneath the hatch. They were welded up and fiberglassed, came out pretty nice.

Pep.jpg
Oops, here is an older picture I missed. Some of the bodywork is started. I know what you're thinking: What a pile. Am I right?

Now it was time to get serious. I had been dreading the clutch pedal swap for many years now, and figured it was time to nut-up or shut-up. So, to kinda get a feel for it BEFORE I hit the junkyard, I pulled out my auto brake pedal:
Pedal.jpg
Out. It wasn't too bad. Now I knew what I was looking at, it was off to the 'yard to source a new set of pedals. I had read from previous threads that the pedals changed around 88, so I played it safe and found a 91 ranger ext. cab. This would be a major source of my parts. While I was there, I looked for 5 speeds, just for giggles. Out of the whole scrap yard, I was only able to find ONE FM146, and NO m5od. Sure glad I made that trip to Lexington! It took around an hour and a half or so to get the pedals out, only minimal swearing, a few cuts and bruises, and some very dirty clothes. The brake pedal was easy, it is wiggling that clutch pedal out past the wiring harness that was the b*tch. But here we go:
Pedals1.jpg
Within a couple of days I had them cleaned up, painted, put a very light coat of grease on the bushings, and dove in. I apologize for not having any DURING pictures of the pedal swap, but anyone who has done it can attest that while you're down there, humped up like a mad cat, struggling to get it all together, the last thing on your mind is pictures!
NewPEDAL2.jpg
Boom. Finally in. They fit and work great (so far). I made sure to put in ALL the bushings and clips, I didn't want to have to re-visit this part of my build anytime soon. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be actually. Patience is KEY. So, this was the most dreaded part of my build, and it is Done and Done :yahoo:

Sorry for the shoddy pictures. More to come.
 
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Mr. Tarkanian

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Like I mentioned, I took quite a few pieces off that scrapyard ranger. It had a set of rust-free all manual doors, so I picked those up for $50. The truck was a 2.9/Fm146, and I figured it had a Dana28, but I checked it anyway:
D35.jpg
Dana35. 3.73 gears, complete from spindle to spindle. It was exactly what I needed. The 'yard owner priced it for $75, or $100 removed. I bought it:
Axle1.jpg
Boom. Dana 35 in the shop. It looks like a turd, but it will clean up nicely. It came with EVERYTHING, crossmember, coilsprings, even parts of the steering linkage. I wasn't quite ready for it yet, so I tucked it back in the corner to keep the M5od company. The brake dust-shields are rotted and falling apart, I'm going to just ditch them. Does anyone else run the front end without the shields?

So, this would be a good time to start the manual trans swap, eh?
More to come.
 

Mr. Tarkanian

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Jacked.jpg
Put her up on stands. It's really starting to look bare. I'm wondering if I have bitten off more than I can chew. But its too late to turn back now.


Slushbox.jpg
I think that is pretty much a REQUIRED picture during a transmission swap thread, isn't it? After some wrestling, sweating, a little bit of cursing, and getting drenched in a sticky, dark colored tar substance that I think was once ATF, it came out. The transfer case was drained and put on the work bench for new seals, and the flexplate was pulled off and trashed. No more slushbox. Next order of business was to add the clutch and flywheel. First I replaced the rear main seal and the rear freeze plug:
Block.jpg

That was fairly easy. I paid more to get the PTFE seal, I did NOT want to cheap-out this part of the build. Then it was time to bolt on the flywheel:
Flywheel.jpg

This is a brand new NAPA 4.0L flywheel, I got it for cheaper than what it would have cost to buy a used flywheel and have it resurfaced. I believe most all of the early 90's used the same flywheel, so that was simple enough. The bolts were torqued in with red Loctite. I also wiped down the facing with paint thinner, to clean off any grease that may have got smeared on. This was the first time I had ever installed a clutch:
Clutch1.jpg

Success. That was pretty easy. I got a new NAPA unit for a mid 90's explorer 4.0L. Everything was torqued to spec and loc-tited (is that a word?). I had to add the block-plate afterwards (what a pain). Don't pull an idiot move like me, put the plate on BEFORE the flywheel!!!!!

Now, it is on to prepping the trans. More to come.
 
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Mr. Tarkanian

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I pulled the top cover off the trans, and was pleased to find virtually no metal dust, fluid filled within spec, and all in all a pretty clean environment:
Trans3.jpg

So, I continued to pull off the front bearing cover, and the rear tailshaft adapter (I'm not sure the proper nomenclature, but you get the idea).
Trans4.jpg


While it was apart, I hosed the ENTIRE thing with brake cleaner. It came out clean as an operating room. I let it dry overnight, then put the front cover and tailhousing back on, sealing them with grey RTV. I added new seals, front and rear, which came from Cobra Transmission online. That is an AWESOME place to do business with, by the way. I also put the metal plugs in the rear of the top cover. It was filled to spec with AMSOIL synthetic ATF, and the top cover bolted down. It was ready to go in.

More to come.
 
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Mr. Tarkanian

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The trans went in without an issue, and holy cow it weighed a lot less than that A4ld. We (Dad and I) got it shoved into the tunnel, bolted the bellhousing to the block, then put in the crossmember. Next up was the Tcase, so it was given the same treatment as the trans: Disassembly, flush, reseal, refill:

ChainIN.jpg
My hands were FILTHY and I didn't get many pictures, but here is one of the reassembly. Everything was sealed up with grey RTV, and a complete seal kit, once again from Cobra Transmission. Their prices are fantastic, and the shipping is fast as well (I am NOT affiliated, just a happy customer). It got wire-brushed, and painted:

EcaseDONE.jpg
I took the motor apart, cleaned everything and put in fresh grease, and resealed it with RTV. It also got some paint, a little bling for my undercarriage :D This motor is actually from a BW1354, I broke my factory one getting it off. Idiot move.

The Tcase went in without issue. Driveshafts bolted in perfect, the lengths were spot on. It was filled with Amsoil synthetic ATF. I also ran a new vent hose up to the rails. Should the vent hose have some type of check valve or breather or something to keep dust from going down in it?


Done and done. More to come.
 
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wildbill23c

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Looks great, but my 84 B2 keeps inching its way closer to the scrap yard on a daily basis. I will keep it on the road as long as I can but the day the transmission or engine dies its done.
 

alwaysFlOoReD

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I think if the outlet of the vent line is pointed down you should be OK. however you could put in an inline gas filter, one of the clear ones so you can check occasionally. Again, point the opening down to prevent water intrusion.

Richard
 

Mr. Tarkanian

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I think if the outlet of the vent line is pointed down you should be OK. however you could put in an inline gas filter, one of the clear ones so you can check occasionally. Again, point the opening down to prevent water intrusion.

Richard
I really like that idea, thanks. I will be making that addition soon.
 

Mr. Tarkanian

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With everything in and hooked up, it was time to plumb the clutch. I simply got a pre-filled, pre-bled assembly from NAPA for a 95 explorer. I wasn't SURE that it would fit, but I wanted to try and keep all my components roughly the same year.

Line.jpg
In my personal experience, this was the hardest part of the build so far. I ended up dropping the brake booster so I could fasten it to the firewall. Then had to snake the line itself down over the frame and snap it into the Slave. But, it was totally worth it, as there was minimal bleeding involved. Pretty much a plug and play. I got the wiring harness from that old blue ranger from the scrapyard, cleaned it up and plugged it all in. My reverse lights work, piece of cake!!

Drove!.jpg
So I took her out for a little spin. It did great!! The transmission was smooth and the shifts were crisp and well defined. The clutch engages a bit low in the pedal travel, but I'm hoping it will wear in nicely. This was the first time it had moved under it's own power for several months. I can't believe how easy it was to add the safety switch on the pedal, the wiring was already there, I just snapped it all together.

The electric transfer case had me scratching my head for a while. It would shift into 4HI fine, but when I went to 4LOW, it would just blink. I tried everything, adjusting the motor, cleaning the switch, checking the shift computer, everything. It turns out (after much research and frustration) when I swapped in the manual trans wiring harness, the computer itself was lacking a ground for the 4x4 system. There is a wire (red/white stripe, I believe) on the factory harness, up near the coolant reservoir, that must be grounded in order to complete the system. I should have taken pictures here, but it slipped my mind. If anyone ever encounters this problem, PM me and I'll explain it better.

I'm sure there is something I'm forgetting, and more stuff I will need to wrap up, but as of right now, the M5od swap is marked off the list. Done and Done!
 

Mr. Tarkanian

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Now, we are getting into more-recent times. This was just a week or 2 ago. I went to a different scrapyard looking for some front buckets, and found a great score. A full set of buckets from a 90 XLT BII, the "striped" style that was found mostly in 1st gen explorers. I picked them up for $75 and brought them home. They aren't perfect, but miles ahead of my factory seats. Here is a teaser:
Image031.jpg

So, I guess I needed to get my arse in gear and get my carpet put back in. It was soaked in superclean, scrubbed, and pressure washed and sun-dried for a couple days. It doesn't look NEW, but at least it doesn't smell bad anymore. I went to put the thin metal carpet-retainer plate thing back in the rear, but had to cut it so it would clear the access plate I made:
Cut.jpg

I got the rear-heat tunnel thing laid back in, the seat belts bolted in, and laid the carpet in. I had to cut a hole in it for the shifter (I really hated doing that), but it all laid in fine.
CarpetIN.jpg Carp2.jpg

You'll notice that the doors are back on. My dad used to run a bodyshop with my grandpa, and he is still pretty good with a paint gun. He painted the backsides of the doors, cleaned up the manual regulators, greased everything up, painted the door jambs and hinges, put new springs and rollers in the hinges, transferred the weatherstripping from my old doors, and finally bolted them on. Whew, he's been as busy with this build as I have. I added speakers and ran new speaker wire (remember, I deleted that ENTIRE harness when I deleted my PW) through the door jambs up through the dash. I think the speakers may be busted, but I put them in for now anyway:
Cranks.jpg

I re-used my original door panels, but the carpeted section in the middle had the big square hole cut for the PW/PDL switches (you can see what I'm talking about in the carpet picture). I popped those sections out of the scrapyard panels that came with my Crank window doors, had them reupholstered, and glued them back in:
Image034.jpg

Here they are, all finished up. They close and open like new, my pa really knows what he's doing. In the background you can see my pile-o-crap lawnmower I've been struggling with. Sheesh, it never ends. The door/manual window swap is (other than the exterior paint) Done and Done.

More to come.
 
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rangerin

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Nice man, coming along great!

I'm gonna be doing the 4x4 mod5 swap soon (maybe next year) on my ranger. Kinda hard to do that to a DD/only vehicle.
 

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