I bought my first Ranger, a 1986 4x4 longbed, on December 23rd of 2003 for 150 bucks, it had 234,000 miles on it, no floors, and a piece of PVC pipe holding the radiator support together. I purchased it from the original owner and it was the first new truck he had ever bought, he is the father of a good friend of mine and I remember him picking him up from school in it on a regular basis. When I first bought it, it came with the 2.9, FM145, 1350 transfer case, Dana 28, 7.5 and 3.45 axle gears. I always had a knack for taking things apart and not putting them back together, so my family feared that it would be scattered all over the yard within weeks. I tuned it up, replaced the battery and patched up the rust the best that 17 year old me could do on a budget of almost nothing. About 6 months later I traded a non running dump truck I was given for a rust free cab, I swapped the cab over by myself, with a little bit of help from a few friends to lift the old cab off and put the new one on. I did ball joints, wheel bearings, brakes, and a couple other things over the next two years and it soldiered on as a yard truck during that time. Soon after graduating from high school and getting my first job, I put it on the road in August of 2006. I drove it, wheeled it, broke it, fixed it, and racked up a bunch of miles on the original 2.9. About a year after that, the original fm145 went bad and I swapped in an fm146 and drove it for another year until the original 2.9 was consuming more oil than gas, even though it never had a clatter unlike so many of them. At that point, a friend had purchased a 1991 ranger stx with a 2.9 and an m5od, it seemed to run well, so the engine and trans got swapped in, putting that engine in proved to be a waste of my time as it clattered and ate about as much oil as the old one did... Around that time I purchased and installed a skyjacker 6 inch lift and installed that, along with a 1995 Dana35, i purchased a 4.56 geared limited slip housing from a member on trs, and re-geared the 7.5 and installed a Detroit Locker. I drove that gutless wonder for about another year, with the 2.9 installed, crying about the abysmal 13mpg the tired old engine was getting. About April of 2011 the father of a good friend was retiring his 1993 explorer sport due to extensive rot, with only 95k on the 4.0 I purchased the engine from him, re-gasketed it from top to bottom, made a custom wiring harness on my living room floor and preformed a 4.0 swap in one day, with the help of friends, Mpg improved to almost 20 and it was so much more fun to drive. In under a year, the 7.5 decided that it had enough of my heavy foot, 33 inch tires, and more torque than it was designed to handle and chewed a bunch of ring gear teeth up, (this is one of only 3 times during my ownership that it left me stranded.) In went a 28 spline 8.8 with a Detroit Locker also installed, Then a set of 63 inch chevy leaves and a ruffstuff traction bar setup were installed. Other than some minor changes, it has soldiered on from that point, with few issues, (it melted a fusible link for the fuel pump circuit, and split a heater hose open). This truck was my only vehicle and daily driver until 2012, at which point I got a nearly free dodge neon to drive for the winter, then in 2015 I sold that and purchased a 1998 ranger with a 2.5, manual transmission, and every option except for air conditioning, it only had 48,000 miles on it at the time, and with some maintenance has proven to be an awesome truck which gets about 30mpg on the highway. The 1986 now has 385,000 miles on the frame and still sees about 8k miles a year, during the seasons without snow on the ground, i'll probably keep it until I'm dead, at this point, I have it filled with tools, an air compressor, and winch, it is my rolling shop. Inlearned so much from working on it that I was able to get a job as a fleet mechanic in 2009, I'm still doing the mechanic thing, to this day. I would never have been able to gain the knowledge I use every day if I had never purchased that truck. Working on it has helped me occupy my mind when I've had difficult times with my mental health, as of recently, there is so little that I have left that I could do to it that it makes me sad, I have improved and customized nearly everything about it, and many people have said that it is the embodiment of myself in truck form.