My 84 5.0 Ranger

[vaprobe87]

Just joined the site a few days ago. This is my 1984 Ranger. I needs a little work but I think it will be a fun little project. It is a 4x4 auto and someone has put in a throttle body injected 5.0.

I have already done some work on it to get it better. It had some leaky valve cover gaskets so me and a friend pulled the valve covers and cleaned them and painted them and reinstalled them with new gaskets. I took some time and cleaned up the wiring harness and eliminated a lot of un-needed wires and rerouted the harness and some vaccum lines to clean everything up. We found that the heater core was leaking so it was bypassed for now untill i can get that changed.

Sorry for the crappy quality but these are the only pictures I have of it right now but will get some better pictures of it soon. These were taken about 10 minutes after I got it home for the first time.

 

[swynx]

So what are the plans? Lots and lots of DIY info in the tech section... P.s. You can get lost in there and the trs mag

 

[vaprobe87]

For now I am just going to get everything working they way it should and just drive it. I drove it to work yesterday and found a few things I need to work on. The transmission pan is leaking so I will be changing the filter and gasket soon.

I also noticed that after about 25 miles the truck started getting a bad vibration. I thought it was a belt broke in a tire untill I stopped to check and noticed the passenger side front brakes were hot. When I drove it home later that day it started to do the same thing except the drivers side front did it this time. Any idea what might be causing that?

 

[swynx]

Touch the hub and see if it's hot. Wheel bearings will heat up the hub if there going out. If there bad enough you can sometimes push/pull on the tire to check them. And it'll make noise, eventually start pulling to that side, wear the tire funny. Idk why it would alternate sides. But it only does it after the problem part gets warmed up and increases in size.

Hopefully somebody else will chime in but I say wheel bearing... For now.

 

[vaprobe87]

I jacked the truck up yesterday and pulled the driver side wheel after I got home to check the brakes and did not notice any movement in the tire that I can remember. I will check that again tomorrow morning though to see if there is any movement. I have had wheel bearings go out on other cars and they all made a bunch of noise almost like big tires going down the road but that is not the case with the Ranger. It's quite as can be rolling down the road but I cant remember if made any noise while it was having the vibration or not.

 

[swynx]

I've had wheel bearings silently go out. Iether that or my cars are loud lol. Check all the suspension components, maybe some thing is loose. When I have problems like this I take it to les Schwab's and have it inspected for free

 

[vaprobe87]

I jacked the truck back up this morning and tried as hard as I could to get the tire to move and it was solid as a rock. I pulled the drivers side tire off and removed the claiper to inspect it and the rubber boot around the piston is a dry rotted and is just crumbling to the touch. I tried to push the piston back in pieces of the piston started to break off and it would not go back in so I think I found the problem LOL. I have a messed up lug nut on the passenger side so as soon as i get it off I will check that side out but expect it to be pretty much the same.

I figure as old as it is they need to be replaced anyway so I'm going to just go ahead and replace both calipers and pads. The rotors still look really good so they should be fine for now.

Here are a few more pics I snapped of it this morning.

 

[jhammel85]

I like the look of it. With the original paint, rust and all...And the wheels! It's good patina.

The swap looks like it was done pretty nicely. Which is kind of a rarity sometimes...

Good luck with it!

 

[vaprobe87]

I like the look of it. With the original paint, rust and all...And the wheels! It's good patina.

The swap looks like it was done pretty nicely. Which is kind of a rarity sometimes...

Good luck with it!

Thanks!!! I finally got the messed up lug nut off and got the brakes changed. I changed both front calipers and the pads and the problem seems to be fixed. It went about 60 miles today and the wheels didnt get hot and it didnt have any vibration so the issue seems to be cleared up.

I used the money that I got back for the core on the calipers and bought a 2 5/8s inch tach and mounted it on the steering column between the speedometer and the other gauges.

The engine turns about 2900 RPM at 70MPH so that's not too bad for short drives on the highway I guess.

 

[bobbywalter]

i hope its not a 255.


any close ups of the frame and header interface areas?


looks like on of the original jobs from tp in mt clements to me. they cut 3/4 upper rail and reworked the couplers straight originally on oem headers. most used cast manifolds though.

 

[vaprobe87]

I can get some better pictures of everything. I was told by the previous owner that is supposed to be from a Licoln Mark VIII but he wasn't the one who did the swap. Its throttle body injected and the valve covers said "84 Mark series 302" on them before I pulled them off and cleaned and painted them. Looks like it was written on there from junk yard or something.

 

[bobbywalter]

its a mark 6 setup or a t bird. the late 85 had a lay over plenum and sefi like a mustang with the throttle body on the passenger side, most of the rest were on the drivers side. they run a vm type processor....yours is a reg cfi and those were on actual 302 in lincolns along with 255. usually have to pull the head to know for sure.

but i can generally tell just by driving it.

 

[vaprobe87]

its a mark 6 setup or a t bird. the late 85 had a lay over plenum and sefi like a mustang with the throttle body on the passenger side, most of the rest were on the drivers side. they run a vm type processor....yours is a reg cfi and those were on actual 302 in lincolns along with 255. usually have to pull the head to know for sure.

but i can generally tell just by driving it.

You mentioned "tp in mt clements"..... was that some kind of aftermarket conversion done for V8's in these trucks? If so do you have any more info or maybe pictures of one?

 

[bobbywalter]

total performance.


they do all kinds of stuff...or did maybe is a better term.




i never took pics of hardly anything at all back then. i only was concerned with beer supply. that was pre internet and cell phones.


they had a regular program for many years doing v8 ranger swaps. there has to be shit tons of pictures on the web.