87 Ranger Supercab XLT 4X4, aka: Chaffee

[Gunfighter97]

Brace yourselves, this is a long one. Skip to the end for summary.

Ooooooh where to even begin this. I've owned Chaffee for about three and a half years at this point. Escaped Cali for Idaho and it was the first thing I bought in order to keep my precious 65 International stepside 4x (aka Sherman) out of the salt. Our journey started at around Odo: 123k. Today the Odo reads just over 150k, the majority of that taking place in the first two years of ownership.
To make a long story short, Chaffee has carried me and itself through thick and thin since, often while literally skating on thin ice, while being fully reliable; sorta. Untill it wasnt. I've had several major breakdowns over the few years of ownership at inopportune times. And one or two at opportune times, one of which landed me in my now girlfriend's driveway with a loose front wheel hanging on for dear life by one lug nut.

Chaffee and I have a love hate relationship. Much like Shrek and Donkey. And what a Donkey this thing is. It, in all its raggety arsedness, has taken me through some good times, and a particularly low low that I wont go into detail about. Durring which low it decided to all but shed the entire front end. Uppon disassembly to repair a sigular blown front axle U-joint, I found every single U-joint in the truck to be inflexible by hand (particularly and especially the stub shaft u-joints), every bushing mere tattered shreds, one bad front wheel bearing seal hiding a bearing that was probably within a few miles of grenading and the springs resting 1-2" lower than normal. No idea how on earth I was able to steer much less commute over two hours a day through two different canyons, half the time in the snow. Not good.

Fast forward through that winter and my entire savings account while unemployed, I rebuilt nearly the entire D28, all the driveshafts, and all four corners of the suspension and brakes outside in the snow and with half of the tools I should've had.

Farther along, I met the love of my life, got a great job working with her, and was in a position to spruce Chaffe up some and make the interior more comfortable, to include a seat that doesnt dump you out the door when it opens. I gutted the interior down to sheet metal (less my drivers seat) and ordered the stuff to completely redo it. All the while relying on it to get me to work.

Right about the same time as I was about to order a set of Corbeu bucket seats, I decided to fix the chronic LOUD CAR syndrome and replace the rotted out exhaust from the manifolds back to try and preserve whats left of my hearing. Cut the cat and inter pipe off at the Y flange, then unbolted the Y. First three bolts, no problem. #4 snapped off in the manifold.

Buggers kindof hard to get to on the 2.9L. Ah well, I figured I'd order a gasket, pull the manifold and extract it on the bench. . .
Then I discovered my head was missing a significant hunk of metal around one flange. The last manifold bolt completely exposed all the way to the end of the thread, and welded in by rust alone. No way was that going to hold torque let alone seal back up if I removed it. But I could try. After some sketchy attempts to extract the down pipe bolt that involved open flame next to fuel lines I gave up. I carefully cracked all the bolts one by one on the manifold to try and prevent *SNAP*. . .

With a flush bolt stub left behind in the side of the broken head (que Clarkson's voice) "my fate was sealed." The engine needed to come out. It needed a clutch anyway, and keeping things like this in mind, I began to weigh my options.

My level of willingness to #1 dig the head out of the existing engine wasnt particularly high. The prospect of crossing my fingers that a used head would bolt on, seal, not eat head gaskets or cause other problems without any machining didn't sound very appealing. In fact is sounded like a lot of time and work that could be rendered irrelevant on chance. #2 A junkyard engine seemed equally unappealing. Another engine with who knows what wrong, and slathered in oil just like the one I removed, that like mine, probably needed main seals and regasketing.

I decided to #3 build a short block, but in reality, I'm doing some iteration of all three. More on this later

Now it's safe to say at this point that this trucks budget is WAAAAAY overboard. "Is it worth it?" you may ask. . .

So with that out of the way, here's what I've completed since I've owned it up to these recent big jobs:
-cleaned out the fresh air duct below the windshield for fear of rot (fear from my 65 IH that has rot there) and removed several huge wasp nests

-fixed the wiring for the PO installed radio that caused the pannel light fuse to blow when turned on, swapped the green back lights to LEDs, left the others incandescent.

-bypassed the clutch safety switch that never worked right, removed the PO's starter circuit bypass and switch

-replaced the broken Tachometer/lense

-Fat Fox TFI Module relocation kit (I'm rather proud of my install looking factory and semi hidden)

-H4 Headlights, new tail lights, Hella fog lights + hand made loom with a high beam cutoff relay to keep it legal on road

-roll up window seals, windshield, new gas struts for the bed cap

-radiator cap/upper/lower hoses

-plugs, wires, cap, rotor, stator, and at least 3 TFI modules before the Fat Fox kit

-front ball joints + adjustable upper bushings per request of my alignment guy (he's really good, truck still tracked straight as an arrow before I took the front end off)

-replaced the transfer case (rear bearing failure; someone sheared off the yoke nut on the old one and left it that way. I have a third good unit to rebuild for future install with a rebuilt tranny)

-rear axle end bearings, yukon shafts

-New master with new rubber hoses, calipers, wheel cylinders + fixed parking brake

-new cheap shocks

-new headlight switch

-pretty much every sensor on the entire engine

-alternator/belts

-some minor electrical repairs near the battery where things got eaten by the belt in the past and the PO repairs failed

-new fuel pumps(main lift and high pressure), new pressure regulator, and injector cleaning with new o-rings (they were all 90s vintage replacements, matching set of Japanese made injectors, forget the make)

-front drive and suspension overhaul including all new u-joints, diff seals, axle shafts wheel to wheel, wheel and stub shaft bearings, brakes, springs, and all new bushings (diff internals were fine)

-rear suspension overhaul, new springs, shackles, U-bolts and bushings/rear driveshaft u-joints and center bearing

The wish list:
-another fm145 tranny to rebuild and mate to my spare TC after its rebuilt/install as a unit

-nice sound system/amp for the gf (shes a musician)

-AC (more on that later )

-Heated seats

-Hella driving lights to match the fog lights + an override loom that disables the cutoff relays so everything can be on at once for winter offroad stuff

-fix body work/restore back to the original paint job w/a regular lanolin undercoating schedule

-blast and paint the frame/undercarridge

-clean and restore the rear aux fuel tank to operational condition

-posi rear diff

-new steering box + linkages + pump and hoses

-(when the D28 wears out again some day) dana 30 coil over front or dana 35 TTB + dana 44 rear swap + 1-2" lift over stock

-minor rust repair that I couldn't do properly (to my satisfaction) with the interior job(more on the interior later)

-custom two piece roof rack both for bed cap and no bed cap

-OE side mirrors

-a straight front bumper

-OE steel wheels w/center caps (more on that later)

-small winch maybe? Want to keep the OE bumper/air dam

-free flow exhaust

-fix the parking brake (again)

-replace the rotten tranny tunnel cover plate

-custom center console

-more vroom (more on that later)

-Bilstein shocks

-fuel gauge that reads full when full and empty when empty

-pulse width modulator to better dim the LED panel back lights

TLDR:
Will it be done soon? No
Has owning my first Ford been an unusually painful experience? You have no idea
Will I ever get back the last several hundred hours of my life that I've spent with this truck? No
Is it even worth it?

 

[Gunfighter97]

The Truck:
So, what are we working with?
Chaffee as purchased was basically (and still is) a bone stock, 87 Ranger 4x4 2.9L Supercab with the XLT package. What is the XLT package? I have no clue. It most certainly does not mean Extra Large Truck. Chaffee's OE equipment is best read with the helpful build sheet attached from Marti Auto Works.
I purchased this service just for the sake of having it, as my other two IH projects both have their line setting tickets, which shed some light about how the vehicle was initially set up. I figured this might make some things apparent that weren't so due to PO modifications. After reading through, I was actually kind of surprised that most of Chaffee's OE stuff is still there. I also found it hilariously ironic that it was produced a full month behind schedule, that tracks. And holly cow that paint/trim combo production stat!
Otherwise, pretty standard stuff.

The truck was pretty rust free when I bought it. The spots on the sides are where the cheap Maco's paint job and underlying OE paint has been recently failing in the last year and a half or so. I admittedly havent been as on the ball on taking care of that as I should've been, and I am currently wire wheeling the loose paint and rust off, treating with naval Jelly, sanding and patching over for now with a 2 in one spray paint thats a similar grey to the existing paint. When I got it, it actually looked pretty nice. Then:

Vs now:

The engine ran great at time of problems and it still runs, so I wont just throw this core away. I may have it decked and put new heads on at a later time, or build my own "performance" engine out of it if the refurb engine ever dies.

The short block I ordered was through Mabbco. While not cheap, I did have a very pleasant customer service experience for the order. They were very comunicative and originally I had ordered a long block with the heavy duty cylinder heads. They contacted me same day and found out the could not source them and allowed me to change my order to a short block, that I then added on to with refurbed rocker assemblies, oil pump, etc. I was able to source a pair of the heavy duty (square rocker pedistal) head castings, and am working on aquiring valves and what not to complete it. The heads are getting stainless exhaust valves, floated or (i hope) custom roller rockers and possibly opened up for larger, undercut, stainless intake valves. I'll be doing a port/polish/gasket match on the intake assembly and possibly over boring the throttle body myself. The short block has ARP trimmings, a mild RV cam to up low end grunt, and pretty much every other upgrade box checked. Regardless of their warranty policy, I'll be dismantling it and checking everything before I build it in order to review it here. When will it arrive? Hooo boy. . .

Enter the junkyard engine, in all its $#!+ covered, slimey glory:

This engine rotates, and according to Snek-cam, intell on the bores checks out ok. He even claims the water jacketing looks rust free. I think he also may need his robot eye checked. This engine is complete, so I will pull the pan, check for metalic debris and look at bearings; try and clean up the intake a bit and wire up a statter for a compression test. If all checks out I'll drop it in to see if it starts. When I ripped it free of its former host(an 88 ranger supercab), I almost certainly distorted the clutch plate. Sadly it looked near new judging by thickness, but oh well. So I'll have to replace that. Mileage was unknown as the gauges were all gone. the OE EGR delete plate was still there, but the brain box was already gone; I may have to try and reprogram this one somehow to delete the EGR, or just keep it in place.

Electrically, the truck needs a couple small repairs here and there that I will do while its appart. Mechanically appart from the engine, as stated, suspension is all new, front end is all new. The TC was from a wrecked truck with lower mileage. Rear end needs replaced. It likes to eat passenger side shaft end bearings as one blew out and ate the race in the actual housing before I owned it, as well as the old shaft which is how I discovered it when the bearing failed again. Its 3.45 gears give pretty good economy at about 21.5-22 MPG corrected for milage distance on larger tires (the speedo gear is the correct one for the ratio).
The tranny isnt supper smooth shifting but works fine. I did discover the shifter tower had come loose and was leaking badly. Oil level was about 1/3 but carried on without issue despite the issues people seem to have with these gear boxes. I know its going to have issues at some point, hence I want to be ready with a spare. Other mechanical problems mentioned; nothing I can't handle.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

The easiest way to delete EGR on the 86/87 trucks was to get an 88-90 computer for the 2.9 since it was legal for those years and they are newer model years of the same thing. There’s no easy way currently to get it programmed out be the government cracked down on tuners removing it.

Also, might I recommend an 8.8” out of an Explorer, preferably a 95-01, they are 31 spline with disk brakes. Plenty strong for running a D-30 or D-35 front. Same bolt pattern too. You have to weld the spring perches and shock mounts. If you don’t want to do that, a Ranger 8.8” is a bolt-in swap. 27 spline, IIRC.

 

[Gunfighter97]

I'll have to keep an eye open for one of those rear ends! And thats what I thought I recalled about non EGR computers 88 and on when I noticed the block off plate. I may try and reprogram them myself, as I still have my original brain box and also purchased a new one for the 87. Im not a fan of my engine $#!++ing where it eats, but then again, I dont know enough about emissions systems to know if it makes a huge difference or not.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I'll have to keep an eye open for one of those rear ends! And thats what I thought I recalled about non EGR computers 88 and on when I noticed the block off plate. I may try and reprogram them myself, as I still have my original brain box and also purchased a new one for the 87. Im not a fan of my engine $#!++ing where it eats, but then again, I dont know enough about emissions systems to know if it makes a huge difference or not.

The 2.9 was found to be able to meet emissions without the EGR from 88 through the end of the 2.9 in the Ranger. The early emissions equipment was also more prone to problems over more modern stuff (pretty much anything 96 and newer).

The one thing that was done in 88 in addition to the removal of the EGR was a smaller throttle body on the 2.9 and somewhere around 1990 the 2.9 went to MAF instead of the Speed Density system for improved fuel management.

If my wallet can support it, when I get back to working on my 88, I’d like to go to a MegaSquirt/MicroSquirt or similar system and get away from the outdated computer system. I already have all of the stuff to do a MAF conversion on the 2.9 if I don’t go to a modern computer system. I also have one of the older throttle bodies

 

[Gunfighter97]

Sounds like good fun! I did notice the different throttle body on the 88 engine. I'm not after performance in any competitive form, just trying to add passing power at high altitude where I live. The EGR valve code/the valve itself sticking is the most recurring issue I've had with this truck, so if I can eliminate it and any other adverse affects long or short term, might as well. Nobody gives a hoot here about emissions. I'm even playing nice and have the 89 exhaust system with the higher efficiency cat. To be honest, I know very little about EFI. Everything I regularly play with is more closely related to a vintage or even antique tractor engine.