'85 Ranger Restomod

[shane96ranger]

Is O'Reilly your only choice?

Sent while I should be doing something else

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Is O'Reilly your only choice?

Sent while I should be doing something else

Carquest or Napa, usually anything non OEM is two weeks out with $20+ freight (or something like that) from them. O'Really's has quite a bit of stuff in the warehouse like that which does me no good for working on it this weekend but I could probably get it for Monday.

 

[shane96ranger]

No Lowes or Sears? No good! Lowes has a Kobalt version of the Gearwrench. I have a Gearwrench that works great on header bolts.

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[85_Ranger4x4]

No Lowes or Sears? No good! Lowes has a Kobalt version of the Gearwrench. I have a Gearwrench that works great on header bolts.

I checked while I was in the big city today, I didn't see anything special at either Home Deopot or Sears.

I cannot get a box end wrench on it, the gearwrenches I know of are thicker yet than a box end wrench. The routing of the tubes puts them just that much too close to the bolts for a wrench or socket on them.

My biggest problem is that over the course of a year I forgot that little snag from when I put them on the first time with the bolts that flash rusted in two months. 6pt bolt heads are only a mild PITA, 12pt heads seem to be darn near impossible.

 

[dangerranger83]

If getting a wrench on a 12 bolt head is a problem, get the new wrenches that craftsman sells, the universal box design one. I have a set of love them, they bite hard and dont let go.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

If getting a wrench on a 12 bolt head is a problem, get the new wrenches that craftsman sells, the universal box design one. I have a set of love them, they bite hard and dont let go.

A box end will not physically go on the bolts in the problem areas.

 

[shane96ranger]

I checked while I was in the big city today, I didn't see anything special at either Home Deopot or Sears.

I cannot get a box end wrench on it, the gearwrenches I know of are thicker yet than a box end wrench. The routing of the tubes puts them just that much too close to the bolts for a wrench or socket on them.

My biggest problem is that over the course of a year I forgot that little snag from when I put them on the first time with the bolts that flash rusted in two months. 6pt bolt heads are only a mild PITA, 12pt heads seem to be darn near impossible.

Have you considered allen head bolts?

Sent while I should be doing something else

EDIT: Did you ever finish the tailgate you were painting? Maybe I missed it, but I never saw it if you completed it.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Have you considered allen head bolts?

Sent while I should be doing something else

EDIT: Did you ever finish the tailgate you were painting? Maybe I missed it, but I never saw it if you completed it.

Thought about it, I am leaning towards the regular hex ones.

I haven't gotten the tailgate done yet, my spring/summer has been a mess and it looks to only be getting worse from here.

 

[shane96ranger]

Sorry to hear that 85.

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[85_Ranger4x4]

Sorry to hear that 85.

Sent while I should be doing something else

Not really a problem in the big picture, just in reguards to truck playtime. Looking at buying 10 acres with a house/barn/garage so I will have many other projects to suck my time and money. On the plus side I will have a garage of my own with a concrete floor and electricity to pamper my Ranger in.

It has just been one thing after another that keeps pulling me off my Ranger lately...

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

I thought about who to order from over the weekend, went with Streetside... shucky darn if they didn't have them in Kansas City (it was a risk, they have stuff scattered all over the country it seems) so I got them the next business day... which was today. Going to try to get them on tommorow morning.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Headers are on, exhaust is hooked up dipstick is in (had to take the DS back off to put it in :blush)... now I gotta pick on the FEAD. Plumbing the power steering and hooking up the alternator.

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

PS pump is on, the pressure line (for a '92 Ranger) fit fine once I straightened out the curly cue end. The plugs are in, the steering shaft is back in. The alt. bracket is on and the alt is sitting on top as I try to find bolts for it.

The line does not come with the seal that goes on the end of the line, you must order that seperatly so if anybody else goes down this road keep that in mind.

I ran the line on the front side of the res so I would still have a hope of getting the enigne dipstick out, somehow I didn't catch a pic of it. The Explorers ran them behind the res. It is still a bummer getting the dipstick out though, that disappoints me.

Since it was wide open and I had good views I took some pics of the headers, I did add them to my post in the header thread in the V8 forum too.

Of course a couple snags have cropped up, mainly with the dizzy. With the res. line on it really limits its adjustment.

Here it is really close to TDC1.

I could zip a little nubbin off and really open it up, I am not sure where it would put me for timing though. I will probably do it so I don't have to try to cut it out in the truck later.

Yet another irritation, the heater hose outlet points right at the alternator bracket... looks like I will have to dig the pipes out of a truck in the JY and get the goofy looking hose to take it up to it. I might see if I can dig up my CV pipe and see if I can cut it back so I can get a hose going towards the heater core rather than into the firewall, it would be a lot easier than dismantling an EFI truck for a couple of pipes.

 

[dangerranger83]

How bad was it to take the front core support, fenders, etc... off? Run into any snags doing that? I'm thinking that with the tools I have and whatnot it would be easiest to put a 302 and trans together in that way.

Looks great, hope to see it running soon.

Sent from my SGH-T499 using Tapatalk 2

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

How bad was it to take the front core support, fenders, etc... off? Run into any snags doing that? I'm thinking that with the tools I have and whatnot it would be easiest to put a 302 and trans together in that way.

Looks great, hope to see it running soon.

Sent from my SGH-T499 using Tapatalk 2

It is a ton of spot welds, I just pulled the PS plastic inner fender out for the soft plug debicle awhile ago. It does really open things up, I left it out for the header and spark plugs. You can see the fender support in the very upper left of the header pic and the rad support still in front of the engine.