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

[superj]

I got the kit for the m50r1 in my edge. Cheaper than the fx4 shift arm

 

[Curious Hound]

Tore the front apart to replace ball joints. Found bad spindle bearings and seals. So I have to wait a few days for those to show up.

Also started looking and measuring to design a bracket to hold a tablet for navigation. More on that tomorrow.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So Wednesday evening I started pulling apart the gas tank in the Choptop. Tank was leaking and I bought a plastic one last year. Was just going to swap pumps but changed my mind when I saw what the old one looked like and just ordered new. Had to cut a bunch of bolts, which is sketchy next to a leaky tank. Whatever.

New pump and filter showed up Thursday morning. Threw the new tank together, finished dropping my old tank, got the new one in, swapped the filter, dumped a few gallons in and took it for a ride. Runs better than ever, guess the old pump was on its way out. Had it out again today and it got a full tank. Weird to have a gas gauge that works in it for the first time in like 15 years. The brass float pinholed and sank. I fixed it once and it was only a couple years before it happened again.

 

[JoshT]

Front suspension mostly disassembled for ball joint replacement. Lower control arms & torsion bars removed, and those assemblies disassembled. Will swap joints out on the shop press and reinstall tomorrow along with some other goodies. Probably could have had the joints done today ready for reinstall, but I forgot to rent the balljoint kit while I was at the store the first time. Oh well, good excuse to go back and visit the counter girl.

Also picked up some more parts for the engine rebuild. Now have waterpump, oil pump and head bolts. Need to find out from porter what gaskets he's matching to, and still waiting to hear from machine shop about the bottom end. Also got notice this early this morning that the first package of top end parts has shipped. That would include camshaft thankfully, so I'll be ready to start assembling the bottom end once I get it back.

 

[scotts90ranger]

After the power came back on about 7:30 (a tractor sheared a power pole off a few miles away at about 5pm) I took the camper off the F350 and got it emptied out some since my brother needs to borrow it and the big trailer to move some hay he baled to a customer of his...

Then I finished welding up the drivers side radius arm for the '90 then moved to the pivot bracket, those brackets are kinda abstract which is annoying to figure out but I have it figured out now... I need to make a few filler pieces for it and do some more welding but progress is made, looking good for being able to finish this weekend! I have a plan for the trans crossmember, don't think it'll be too bad but we'll see...

I have some pictures on the phone but not in the mood to transfer them to the puter tonight, we'll see about tomorrow night...

 

[sgtsandman]

I'm in the middle of rewiring the radios in the 2011. This involves removing the multiple power leads to the battery and running one larger one back to a fused power block that will be in the back of the cab. The wire routing is a bit more professional and neat than before and the in line fuses that came with the radios will still be there.

While the CB and the quadband radio were fine, as is, the GMRS radio was still using the cigarette lighter style power outlet and was picking up a lot of system noise from truck. Something that has been a known issue with Fords in general, though the 2019 SEEMS to be much better in that regard. So, Ford may have finally took steps to address the problems.

You should have seen the filter I had to make for the fuel pump to eliminate the RF it was generating!

In any case, this should eliminate, or at least greatly reduce, the RF noise issues, make the install cleaner, and leave room for expansion when I go to install a moble DMR radio and low band HF radio in the truck. The power block will also make the installation of those radios easier when the time comes.

 

[Curious Hound]

Got the tablet mount fabricated. I'll pull it out and paint it after I've used it some. It might need some modifications. I always seem to come up with "I should have..." more pictures in my build thread.

 

[JoshT]

Today I'm looking at my truck and doing this...

Issue after issue. All minor, but still aggravating. Start out the day continuing on lower ball joints. Got the only ones pressed out, then discover press too doesn't fit the new joints. These joints have a smaller diameter shoulder than old ones and feels like I'll rip the boot if I try to remove it. Got one installed, but boot tore on the other. There's $30 down the drain. I'd intentionally bought cheap joints because I half expect to kill them quick with extreme angles, but then I had to buy another locally. Fortunately that one better fit the install tools and got it back in.

FF to upper control arms. In addition to replacing the joints, I'm going to be flipping the arms to hopefully correct the joint angle a little. Well the arm won't come out because the bolts won't clear the shock tower and header on passenger side.

 

[JoshT]

Update from previous. Got another ball joint from Advance, really would have rather hit up O'Reilly, but the cute counter girl wasn't working today, so hard to justify going out of the weay and spending more. This one fit the rental tool properly and went right on in. Got bottom half of the front suspension reassembled and an initial pre-set for new ride height.

Moved onto upper arms where I hit another obstacle of my own making. Unfortunately this one won't be overcome for a couple of months. Turns out that doing the V8 swap with OBX headers made the passenger side upper control arm bolts non removable. Might not be an issue for stock bolts, and wouldn;t be an issue for a lot of camber adjuster bolts. The camber adjuster bolts I have had the washer under the head pressed on and it hits the chock tower and header before clearing the control arm. Since I have arms with replaceable joints it wouldn't be much of an issue, except that part of the goal for upper control arms was to flip and swap side-to-side them for better ball joint angles. Might not work but 2wd lowering guys do it successfully, so worth a shot IMO. Kind of need to be able to pull it off the frame for that.

So slapped everything back together and will retackle the uppers in a month or two when the new engine goes in. Did get the truck closer to how I want it sitting, but some more tweaking will be needed. Haven't moved the truck since coming off jackstands, but it's about 16" from center wheel to top of arch. I need to roll it around and see where its sitting, but I was aiming for 16.5", so probably need to go back up a bit. Also not sure I'm going to be able to get camber good enough, so may endup having to go back up a little until some custom parts are available.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Got the radius arms and brackets finished today and painted! Finally! Those abstract brackets were a pain to figure out using chunks of the stock crossmember... ended up with the mount points flopped side to side and will use the original frame mount points to mount the transmission crossmember, might make it a pain to remove the transmission but I'm sure it can be worked around... So many little intricate pieces of metal all chamfered and welded, I welded the heck out of everything, that Titanium Unlimited 200 welder earned its keep on this project, some of the welds were real nice, not sure if it's the welder or weldor... whatever, it looks nicer than if I used the stick welder . If anyone is wondering I did put a plug weld in the front end of the radius arm too...

Tomorrow I'll get those pieces installed and buttoned up then get to the transmission crossmember, after that I'll need to address the steering angles since pushing the axle forward made the drivers side link hit the pivot at the pitman arm worse than it already did so I need to bend the passenger side link (or more accurately unbend, the stock bend is too much)

 

[901wd#2]

Pulled the m5 out of the retired brolite cause neighbor needs a trans, half the fluid that came out of It was water, still spins hopefully it’s not ruined.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Got a good amount done today, got the last abstract piece made, the transmission crossmember... a bit interesting connecting the dots since I'm not great with tubing and don't have anything great to do reasonable measurements and was winging the whole thing...

First pic is just to tease you rust belt guys, that's the original 1989 radius arm crossmember formed nut dealie, I took a standard wire brush to it and it's still got the stock black oxide coating...

Second pic is the transmission crossmember after paint, third is under the thing with the suspension all bolted up, still need to drill 4 holes in the frame for the brackets (one in front and one behind on the bottom rail)... then change the drivers side U joint and work on the steering linkage and alignment...

 

[scotts90ranger]

Changed the oil on the '97 tonight finally, waited a little long but not bad at just over 4k... bit dark but this one doesn't leak so it had plenty

Then looked at the '90, pulled the outer wheel bearing and some of the rollers are showing different colors (wearing through the hardening not heat) so time for new bearings. Also measured my current shocks for length and I think they're as good as I'm going to get, they allow for 5" of shock up travel before bottoming out and 4" of down travel which translates to around 6.5" up travel and 5.3" down travel at the tire or thereabouts, gotta move my upper mount up! Parts are ordered, will have to wait until next week... I actually got Timken bearings and seals this time, I think I cheaped out last time

 

[ben_2_go]

Replaced the starter today on my ranger. I had asked some questions in a 3.0 thread about better than most aftermarket as ford no longer rebuilds or sells starters for 3.0. I searched endless online, etc..until I found a seller on ebay with a remanufactured starter from ford who got it from a dealer close out. It was actually listed for a 92-97 3.0 Aerostar. I spoke with ford in Michigan as dealers don't know much anymore. Ford verified it will work for my 3.0 ranger as there are no differences for automatic transmission starter vs manual transmission starter for the 3.0.

Here is the box and installed..great to see rebuilt in usa on the box, not something you see anymore these days.

Rebuilt in the US with Chinesium parts.

 

[scotts90ranger]

After work I stopped off at the inlaws and cut down a dead tree in their front yard (little guy, maybe 10' tall and 8" at the base), cut that up and put it in the '97 and was done in 15 minutes, drove to a tractor pull meeting then went to a friends house and got my harbor freight trailer that's been at a different friends house since like '20, put the ol thing to work! The old Linxx or however you spell it chainsaw did ok, the chain is sharpened a bit crooked but it worked out