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'85 Ranger Restomod


They were both working fine not that long ago so I am hoping it is all related to the socket.
 
Grabbed a light socket over my lunch hour. Had a meeting until 7:30, went to test fit it and it doesn’t lock in the housing, it just spins. Look at package and it says “fits GM”. Go figure it won’t fit a Ford. 10:1 they won’t have the right one in stock so I lose another day.

EDIT 5/11/18:

Mucked around, keep getting the wrong one. Looked it up myself (Dorman 85872) and they could find a BWD PT5778 which they had no way to get in.

th


Returned my GM POS and gave O'Reilly's the Dorman # and they are supposedly going to get one this after noon.

Also of note my little helper, Bullitt is in tough shape. He is on kidney dialysis and isn't doing good. :fie:



Bullitt update: 05/12/18

They got some food down him last night. Peeing ok. Just takes time to find out how it is going to go. We visited him this morning, he wagged his tail a little bit and perked up some when I squeaked his favorite toy (his first one when we first got him and the only one he has never destroyed) Kinda sucks, he ended up at the office 40 miles from home for xrays so it is a bit of a haul to see him.

 
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Mojo for Bullitt. Hope he pulls through and gets back home soon.
 
That T-case is looking really sharp. Good job man :icon_thumby:
 
Mojo for Bullitt. Hope he pulls through and gets back home soon.

Bullitt didn't make it, he was doing better on Sunday and started having seizures and passed away on Monday. I wish I knew what happened because it really sucks, he was just over a year old. Bouncing 6' in the air on Sunday, no wind in his sails on Wednesday and gone on the next Monday. :bawling:

Our other dog is really clingy now, we let him sniff Bullitt before we buried him so he could kinda know where his big little bro went. He was shaking as he did it which was a tearjerker. :sad:

The house is way too quiet without the big dork wanting to play.

That T-case is looking really sharp. Good job man :icon_thumby:

Thanks!

Kinda scared to take it under the knife the way this year is going. I am pretty sure about the time I get past the point of no return either my F-150 or the wife's Edge is going to lay down and we will be wishing for a third vehicle. :annoyed:

Still fighting wiring. I fixed the socket which while it was a problem it wasn't THE problem. I have no ground going to the back, it must be able to backfeed somehow and get enough of a ground to blink dimly for the brake lights/blinkers but nothing else works.. I bypassed it with a jumper to ground and everything worked perfectly. Stuck between pulling out the harness from the DS fender to the back bumper and going thru it or just running a new wire. Aside from what I can't see behind the fuel tank the harness looks perfect, I can't see any injury. :annoyed:
 
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Man cool build and nice truck. I actually read the whole thing. My grandpa had a really nice ‘86 super cab when I was a kid. 1st gens will forever be my favorite because of that truck.


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Sorry to hear about your doggo, i saw you post about it on facebook. Kind of a similar thing happened to my neighbors dog. Was fine the whole day, then started acting funny at like 1:30 in the morning. He called his son to come take her to the vet with him. She was gone by the time they got there, was really sad. She couldn't have been more than 4 or 5.

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Sorry about Bullitt. Losing pets suck...plain and simple. I know you did all you could. He was lucky to have you.
 
Man cool build and nice truck. I actually read the whole thing. My grandpa had a really nice ‘86 super cab when I was a kid. 1st gens will forever be my favorite because of that truck.


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I was like that had to suck to read with most of the pictures gone... then I saw on a different forum photobucket turned remote hosting back on... and sure enough they did. :yahoo:

Thanks for the compliments, I am rather partial to the first gens. Not like I have had this one for almost 18 years or anything. They don't have the most robust powertrain but later stuff for the most part bolts in and I prefer the style and functionality of them inside and out better than the later ones.

Actually my grandmother unknowingly got it started when she got me a Nylint first gen Ranger with a livestock trailer for Christmas in the early 90's. I bought a nicer one (with much fewer miles) and painted it like my truck for my grooms cake last fall.

Sorry to hear about your doggo, i saw you post about it on facebook. Kind of a similar thing happened to my neighbors dog. Was fine the whole day, then started acting funny at like 1:30 in the morning. He called his son to come take her to the vet with him. She was gone by the time they got there, was really sad. She couldn't have been more than 4 or 5.

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The vet thought he got into something which he very well could have. We have found nothing that he did though and he wasn't one to chew on things that were not his, it was one thing I didn't want him doing from the get go. You hear things about labs eating shoes, the tv remote, the couch... I didn't want any of that.

I did get a new bag of dog food that Friday. Our other dog wouldn't eat it, Bullitt of course had no qualms and ate it Friday night and Saturday x2 and got sick on Sunday. Roush (the other dog, notice a trend? :D) still will not touch it. Roush will happily steal food from wherever he can; the barn cats, my brother's dog, my inlaws dogs... he isn't picky. The bag I bought was the same brand and flavor we have had for at least 6 months. I call that mighty suspicious...

Sorry about Bullitt. Losing pets suck...plain and simple. I know you did all you could. He was lucky to have you.

My wife broke down last night over him again, I actually told her the reverse, we were lucky to know him. :sad:
 
Sorry to hear about the pup. We are definitely lucky to know them. :sad:

How easy was the 205 rebuild? I have one I need to go through. The one in my '86 gets stuck in either 4 high or 4 low and sounds awful. Was a junkyard piece though so I'm sure it's just worn out. I have the rebuild book and it looks pretty easy - I've rebuilt M5OD's and 1354's before so I can't imagine it's too bad.
 
205's come apart pretty easy. Rather fun to work on really.

EDIT:

Picked on my wiring some more, trying to get the harness out and it is fighting. Behind the fuel tank it is routed between a crossmember and the frame rail... the big wad of wiring that is formed by the tail light wiring, dome light wiring and fuel tank sender won't fit.

Go figure, I just got gas the day before this debacle started so the tank is nearly full. I would really rather not deal with dropping the tank AGAIN (just did that a year ago)

I am going to hit it again in the daylight and see if I can loosen it at the front and pull it to the rear, it is a tight bugger in that area though.

I did check and from C118 (last connector before it goes into the firewall to ground on dash beside fuse panel) I have a good ground so it is somewhere between C118 and C302 (at bumper) I must have a bad spot... I guess. Still no sign of damage.
 
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Well I got the front of the harness pulled out of the engine bay so I could actually access both ends of the harness at the same time which made things easier.



I followed the ground wire from the back to the front, found where it spliced (factory) and tied into other things (probably the fuel sender, seat belt switch and maybe dome light)... and it went to an unused connector that has been friendless and rolling around on my frame rail in the engine bay. :icon_confused:



As you can see it hasn't been used for some time, it is still covered with 2.8 drippings. I don't know how the lights ever worked, I don't know if Farmer Fran made his own ground somewhere behind the fuel tank and it finally rotted off or I have a short somewhere or really what is going on. I put it to ground and the lights work fine. If it is a short it is weird the ground wire happened to short perfectly for so many years for the lights to work perfectly until now.

I will pick on the tail light wiring to make sure it is ok but aside from what I can't see behind the fuel tank I don't see a thing wrong with the wiring from the engine bay to the back of the truck.

I found this, anyone know if the one on the right is for the backup lights for an older manual trans?



Left is for my M5R2, I am thinking while I have it all out on the floor I might as well get that wired up so I can finally have backup lights when I get the other trans in.
 
Ok, doing more research the '85 had two connectors running to the back, the later trucks (like my '88 dash harness donor) had one bigger one. So I went to the JY and snagged the bigger one to combine the two '85 connectors into one (actually the same connector I used to run my added wiring around the front of the truck)



I have more pins on order but I did seal all the open red butt connectors the PO had in his adapter harness. I want to incorporate the VSS wire into the big connector as well (the single loose one with a GM weatherpack connector) The loose wire with a red butt connector is where I need to put power to for the backup lights to work, I just stuck the butt connector on it and left it as a placeholder. I am also going to shorten this harness considerably, it could be half as long and still work fine. I am about two inches short of just being able to delete the thing.

Harness is all buttoned up with cloth electrical tape as per original, even taped the part number tag back on for originality (since you know, nothing is original on this thing every little bit helps :icon_thumby:)



Let there be light!





(top one is just brake lights and is much brighter but my phone made it look the same as the tail lights)
 
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Wiring is such fun!
 

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