Jballard81's 1994 super cab 4.0 4x4 Restore

[Terrys87]

Junk yards around here dont keep anything to long. When I come across a truck I try to get what I can off of it. Keeping shop cleaned and organized is a never ending deal for me. I got some catching up to do with your build.

 

[mtnrgr]

Wonderful finding of the grille in great condition. That piece behind the grille is a deflector to direct air into the radiator. Only certain 93-94 rangers had them. Ford's redesign of the grille in 95-97 eliminated that piece. Truck looks good with the chrome grille.

 

[jballard81]

Working on the AC today and while fighting with the quick connections I noticed my fan was cracked up pretty badly

It's about this bad between each blade...

Should I try to find a metal replacement? Probably would be wise to replace the fan clutch as well while I'm at it right?

 

[rumblecloud]

Yessing. Not a hard job, considering what you've already done.

 

[jballard81]

Some AC progress pics:

The evaporator is the only component I'm not replacing. She's a bit burnt from the leaf fire.

Also found and patched some burn holes in the housing

Had to melt expel the stuck orfice tube. Here's where it hit the ceiling of my garage

 

[jballard81]

It's getting worse before it gets better apparently...

I wasn't able to sneak the condenser out from behind the radiator. It may be possible, but I figured I might as well make it easier and take the opportunity to flush the radiator.

Lower transmission cooler line was seized to the nut. This goes to the auxiliary cooler in the front.

Slightly better pic:

Not sure if that's a stock line, gotta check rockauto.

Not pictured - more coolant and transmission fluid than I really felt like cleaning up tonight. Also, dropped a 5/8 wrench and heard it ping loud on the concrete where it disappeared into the void. I spent at least 15 minutes looking for it with no luck...

At least the evaporator, blower motor and new dryer are back in!

Figured it was the right time to call it for the night

 

[RobbieD]

Pulling the radiator is worth it, as you can get a much better flush. Bummer about the line getting toasted, though.

If your tool budget allows, a set of flair fitting wrenches are well worth having.

 

[jballard81]

Pulling the radiator is worth it, as you can get a much better flush. Bummer about the line getting toasted, though.

If your tool budget allows, a set of flair fitting wrenches are well worth having.

I actually bought some flare nut wrenches in prep for brake work. I didn't even think to use one for this application. Doh!

Will definitely remember next time around.

 

[RobbieD]

The good thing about having a set, like on that frozen radiator ATF line, is you can set up two wrenches to do the "squeeze" (i.e.- squeeze the wrenches) to break the fitting loose, and there's no danger of rounding a flair nut or twisting something.

You've really done well with that old truck.

 

[jballard81]

Bought some 3/8 line and the cheapest flare tool ($12) I could find on Amazon.
Read the reviews and found a gem: *the wingnuts give up easy, to account for that, use a vise grip to help them*

This was a super helpful tidbit.

One practice run then went for it and I'm calling it acceptable

 

[rumblecloud]

Looks pretty good from where I'm sitting. I bought a couple double flair tools till I found the right one. I little practice and I was able to do the rear brake lines. If that's your first one...you're good to go .

 

[Terrys87]

It is getting air conditioning season. I am getting ready to order a dryer for mine and try to get mine working. I suffered last year without it. Going to try and avoid that again. The debris that does build up inside the evaprorator can cause issuse. Glad it was not any worese for you then it was.

 

[jballard81]

Very grateful for the information found here: https://www.therangerstation.com/tech/resurrecting-your-ford-ranger-air-conditioning/#gsc.tab=0

That was my main source of info. I ended up replacing everything in the AC system except for the evaporator core. That I flushed out and cleaned up the outside.

$300 worth of parts from RockAuto
$150 worth for incidentals and tools

My 15+ year old harbor freight manifold set did a good enough job I guess. It held vacuum over night so that was the important part.

Very glad to have AC in the truck! I flushed the radiator out while I had it out and noticed with the AC that the system runs a little hotter than without which makes sense. Still in the normal range, waiting for it to cool down and I will check the coolant level.

Wasn't the most terrible job, but a lot of different components removed at the same time so I had to improve on my hardware storage system midway through the project.

Only ended up with 2 tiny extra screws

 

[Terrys87]

Great to dee you got your ac working. I see a lot of trucks that factories send extra screws with. lol

 

[jballard81]

First attempt at body work and paint. Just slowly getting it going. Found that my hood support had separated from the sheet metal which was probably why the last body work failed:

I saw that 3M window weld would be a good option to fix it, so being the penultimate cheap ass that I am I bought the cheaper alternative which didn't harden enough .

'fixed' it with expanding foam. Then hid my shame behind the hood liner. Took the bounce out of the hood skin so I'm calling it good enough. I have no doubt that my paint work will eventually need to be re-done anyway at some point in the future.

Main damage on hood:

Looks like the entire hood was skim coated so I'll just add some new filler and move along.

Rest of the hood was knocked down using 180 and small imperfections filled with icing. Needs to be sanded again to see how the filler looks.

Probably should primer the entire hood and then block it out to see how bad of a job I've done . Or I could just primer the filler and spray.

We'll see how it goes.