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

[lil_Blue_Ford]

@JoshT , I have the TorqueMonster headers. Think I left the passenger header loosely on there until I got the mount bolted together. It was a bunch of mucking about to get it done, there’s really not much room.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Tried getting it back together and running.. didn't work out.

View attachment 113656

Two snapped off bolts in the alternator bracket at the tips of my fingers used to affix a piece of the lower water pump hose. Tried welding ALL the nuts to what's left of the bolts with ZERO luck -__-

Now to decide if I wanna buy & try some EZ-outs.. or give em a hoggin' with a drill and re-tap.. ugh.

I’ve had better luck cleaning off the head of the bolt hood and dump a lot of heat into it with the welder and just build up a bead big enough to grab with vice grips or something. Pain to do like that, but it seems to work better than trying to weld a nut on

 

[Ramcharger90]

Way to much heat for this over the weekend.
I should have just got some adhesion promoter and cleared it..

 

[Rick W]

Well, we have officially changed over to Super Pro since our last ET saw us being .015 too quick for the "no roll bar" rule and the Pro class ET break so we had to install one and fortunately an S-10 main hoop a buddy sold me fit pretty good.. For those of you that haven't seen my posts about this little truck here's the current state of the build. It's an 11:1 zero deck 355ci Chev with Holley pump/750 DP carb/Strip Dominator intake, ported Bowtie angle plug heads, ancient Crane solid lifter(.520/.540 and 248/258@.050), has maybe 470hp, TH350 w/transbrake, FTI convertor, Moser 8.8 rear, 4.88 gear. 9X30 slicks, CalTrac bars and 9 way adjustable shocks. MSD 6AL, crank trigger, starter saver and two step. ancient Accel distributor, Dedenbear delay box.

View attachment 113655

Blew out the entire drivetrain from crankshaft to rearend during our one and only pass in 2023 and we're only just now getting to make our first run at S/Pro on the July 19/20/21 weekend.

That really is an amazing build. Do you have any links to videos running down the strip?

I have no idea of what you’re talking about with the mechanical details, but it’s obvious that you know what you are doing and you do it very well.

Since you’re looking for hundredths and thousandths of a second, you might want to consider Rustoleum for the outside. It’s my understanding it has a better coefficient of friction/slip factor through the air.

(I might be mistaken on that last point.)

 

[Rick W]

View attachment 113667

View attachment 113668

Way to much heat for this over the weekend.
I should have just got some adhesion promoter and cleared it..

Dare I ask?

 

[Ramcharger90]

Dare I ask?

What

 

[JoshT]

What

He probably wants to know if it is Rust-Oleum.

 

[holyford86]

Yesterday and today my friend and I changed all of my clutch hydraulics and transmission as my truck was rapidly progressing towards undrivable with a failing clutch master cylinder and the transmission has been slowly eating itself since I ran it at limiter under full boost in reverse while buried in clay.

We also changed the pilot bearing as it had been pushed out of the flywheel and damaged the last time the trans was installed (I've got no one to blame but myself, haha.) And the badly leaking rear main seal. Clutch and flywheel looked just fine other than one tiny hot spot on the flywheel maybe the diameter of a pencil.

The transmission we installed was one I had assembled about a decade ago from a low mileage 3.0 gearset and a 4.0 case, I had been running one of the quite rare 2.9 m5od transmissions and like the lower gears, so that was my reasoning. It's weird driving the truck with no gear whine as well, I'm not quite used to it just yet. It shifts beautifully and I think I figured out the trick to relatively quick clutch bleeding too.

 

[ericbphoto]

Yesterday and today my friend and I changed all of my clutch hydraulics and transmission as my truck was rapidly progressing towards undrivable with a failing clutch master cylinder and the transmission has been slowly eating itself since I ran it at limiter under full boost in reverse while buried in clay.

We also changed the pilot bearing as it had been pushed out of the flywheel and damaged the last time the trans was installed (I've got no one to blame but myself, haha.) And the badly leaking rear main seal. Clutch and flywheel looked just fine other than one tiny hot spot on the flywheel maybe the diameter of a pencil.

The transmission we installed was one I had assembled about a decade ago from a low mileage 3.0 gearset and a 4.0 case, I had been running one of the quite rare 2.9 m5od transmissions and like the lower gears, so that was my reasoning. It's weird driving the truck with no gear whine as well, I'm not quite used to it just yet. It shifts beautifully and I think I figured out the trick to relatively quick clutch bleeding too.

Wow! Sounds like a lot of success!

 

[austink]

Gave it a good wash!

 

[holyford86]

Wow! Sounds like a lot of success!

Seemingly, yes, now the alternator has decided it doesn't want to charge but only sometimes, it's also newish but not a parts store reman, it was built by a reputable local rebuilder, I'll test it all out tomorrow and see what's missing and repair it, I'm betting it's a wiring issue but who knows

 

[Ramcharger90]

He probably wants to know if it is Rust-Oleum.

Of course, it's in a primer. And I got turbo cans to paint it. Last year of life before it get turned into a parts truck and I look for a similar one. Frame is bent and failing.

 

[JoshT]

Of course, it's in a primer.

Frame is bent and failing.

You just made @Rick W a happy guy. He'll probably tell you that some Rust-Oleum will fix that frame right up too.

 

[Rick W]

You just made @Rick W a happy guy. He'll probably tell you that some Rust-Oleum will fix that frame right up too.

Noooo, Use E6000 to glue a 2x4 in the frame. THEN Rustoleum to make it last!

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So mom’s Explorer is now back together. Rear pinion seal changed and new U-joints in the driveshaft. Had to torch the crosses out of the old joints and hammer the caps out hot. Fun times.

Tomorrow should resume the dump truck overhaul work. Thursday and Friday be helping my buddy Paul on his Ranger since his van decided to blow up.