My backyard build (56K warning)

[dude772]

Holy crap ballistic ships FAST! I got my order in on Wednesday, took 2 days to get to me! That was awesome! Also picked up my urithane and primer. The plan for tomorrow is to seal up the cab, fasten the coils to the axle. And maybe I will try to get this thing running nicely.

I picked up a bolt-in style rear window. I was going to have my friend who does glass to order me one up for $180. But I checked kijiji.ca first. Found a NOS factory(as far as i can tell) never installed rear window 40 min away for $50. Had him take a few measurements for me to make sure it would fit. Picked it up wednesday night and test fitted it. PERFECT! Now I have the satisfaction knowing someone wont be able to break into my truck easily. Window also has a much better designed latch on it for the sliding window.

If anyone wants the old sliding window its yours for the cost of shipping, frame is kind of tweeked from storage, but the glass is good and untinted.


New installed, you can see how the gasket from the origonal covered alot more body than the new one

And the old one sitting on the box for the tonneau cover

Up for grabs for whoever wants it. If someone can make use of it. Maybe a trade for a grey supercab headliner?

 

[RedneckSTX]

Looking real good man, can't wait to see the finished product, keep up the good work.

 

[dude772]

This weekends update.

Got the cab sealed up. all the rear windows are installed. And the shitty old seam sealer is removed from the drip rails because it was all cracked and rusted/ rotten underneith.

Seam sealer was replaced with Some nice urithane sealer. Its more flexable, and can be put on over 3 times thicker. It doesn't call for a primer on the can, but I used it anyway just because.

I had pictures of after I layed a few coats of primer over the sealer and bare spots but I dont know what happend to them. Oh well.

After all that was done, came the huge task of moving shit out of my way to get the truck out of the shop. For anyone whos not familiar with how messy the shop is, browse threw a few old posts. Theres zero room to move, let alone pull the truck out. None of the front bumper had any view of an opening.

After a couple hours

And when I called it quits for the day

The orange bolt shelf was to the left approximately 4 feet, theres a light spot on the ground where it was. And there was tones of crap behind it where it is now. Including another 5.0L engine

Still need to toss in some rear axle seals and gear oil and put a cover on the front axle and install the remaining driveshaft bolts before it goes out, but Im close.

 

[dude772]

MORE HEADERS!!!

YAY! I finally got my new headers. The UPS guy tried to drop them off monday, but i wasn't going to pay for almost $70 in brokerage fees, so I called the UPS 1-800 number, bitched to them for about 5 minutes, they said that I can have them ship the package to windsor to declare it myself. I told them to go ahead and ship it to windsor, because im not paying that much in brokerage. They arrived in windsor yesterday, they called me and told me the amout for C.O.D which still included the brokerage fee, i told the rep that the last person told me i could send them there... blah blah blah. She said she would look into it and call head office. And surprisingly they showed up again today with a C.O.D of just the taxes.

But then i find out the driver only accepts checks. So away he goes with my headers AGAIN! . So i call the 800 number again give them the visa number over the phone to pay for the C.O.D taxes because the driver cant do it, which is bull shit. Anyway. Driver comes back at bout 4:00 and drops it off no problem.

Removed the old header from the drivers side, pain in the ass since with the james duff headers, they decide to put the mounting holes so close the the tubes that the hex on the bolts they supply hit the tube! only way to install and or remove is a wrench!

Trial fit the new header, PERFECT! fits in there and no pinion problems. Only thing to worry about is clearance on the steering shaft. But, I have a plan. Tomorrow at work im going to use my swing press (heavy hammer)to gentley form the header so that there will be plenty of clearance for the steering shaft.

It fits as it is now, but i want just a little extra. If i had these headers in the first place i would have been able to locate the engine slightly to the passengers side more for clearance, but shit happens and i learn.

I DEFINITLY recomend the Advance Adapters headers! Excellent fit and looks great. The only complaint about the product i have is that the tubes going into the main tube/collector protrude into the main pipe quite a bit and look as if they would be a restriction somewhat for a performance type engine. Im going to try and grind some away. But I dont see it as an issue for me.

 

[dude772]

Forgot my phone on my desk when I left for work today. So no pictures for the update. I made some clearance in the drivers header. But I decided against the hammer approach. Instead I used my air hammer with special chisel bits that I bought for forming metal after I made the g/f a stainless steel rose for valentines. One large diameter convex round chisel, the other is a 3/4 diameter punch thats been ground into a convex. They are so I could make more of these roses without destorying my arm or more anvils.


Anyway! I used these bits to flatten out the outside of the collector pipe near the second cylinder. Then i used the larger chisel to feather the flat spot down the pipe so its no so strange looking. I will take pictures when I'm mounting them tomorrow. I also ground down the welds for the tubes, the weld was protruding into the tube such that it seemed to be quite a restriction. So I made it look much more open. Nothing i could do about the tubes protruding into the collector pipe tho, oh well. If it comes down to the point where i put high flow heads on and a better intake, i'm sure i will have enough money then to have the headers fabricated again to be a better flow design. But I dont see that happening. They are Great as far as im concerned.

Untill tomorrow. thats my update.

 

[dude772]

Axle seals installed, new headers modified and installed, proper spark plugs and new fuel filter installed, the plugs that were in there were just whatever i had laying around that would fit in there that was close to what i needed. I picked some of the Ford spark plugs up from work, cost me almost 2 bucks a plug, almost wasn't worth screwing around.

Discovered which camshaft i installed in the engine. I thought i put in the non-ho cam. apparently i put in the H.O cam. Who woulda thunk it. So now its running smoothly on 8 cylinders instead of 4 or 3.5. Starts within half a crank, so I am pleased about that. I set the rear pinion angle to where it looks good by eye, which is close enough for me. I broke the limited slip spring for the diff trying to put it in, so I'm just going to omit it untill I get the proper gears that i want.

Found my tool bag that had my driveshaft bolts in it. Put those in and finished installing the driveshaft. Next is front pinion angle, shocks and mounts. Maybe a hood.

Ordered a new T.V. cable, as in throttle valve, not boob tube. Should be in Tuesday.

Pictures of the modified header.

 

[dude772]

And for the last update for the week. Just pictures.

 

[DRIFTGOD187]

lookin good

 

[alabama0redneck]

looks good thats about how i want my truck to look nice build man

 

[mjonesjr]

I couldn't have waited almost 2 years.

Looks good.

 

[dude772]

I couldn't have waited almost 2 years.

Looks good.

Not almost, over.

 

[TheCiscoKid]

Great looking truck. Glad to see you got it done, gives me hope! What are your plans now? Paint? Or just wheel the tar outta it?

 

[dude772]

Not done yet, just moveable.

Broke the steering box bolts last night pulling the truck into the shop at work. one of the bolts was gnarly lookin from rust, the other was loose, and one was missing. So that let to SNAP! Couldn't do anything last night because it was too close to closing time, had to get up at 5am today at work by 6(we open at 8) and put it together this morning, then after we closed at 5 I worked on mounting the drivers side front shock. All was going well untill we ran out of mig gas for the welder.

Went to install the T.V cable... They ordered me a shifter cable instead! bastards!

Then I thought i would swap in my fancy stemless valves for the tires. They are awesome! Never going to be offroad, get to close to a stump, tree, or rock and tear off a valve.

You can just make it out at the 4 o'clock position on the wheel. I only have a phone camera, excuse the quality.

 

[dude772]

Had to work today. And since I now have my ranger stored at work so that i can more easily work on it and such, between jobs and at lunch i puttered away at it a little.

Cleaned the body on it, Cut away the engine cross member where the TTB suspension bolted on. And for anyone who wants to try and correct TTB feel free to start at the begining .

And my Throttle valve cable finally came in, they ordered me the wrong part last time. Seems to work, the transmission T.V lever seems to have a full range of motion, but seems to not want to fully spring back, I will double check with the trans guy, I'm probably going to add an external return spring to the lever.

Its just the regular Ranger A4LD trans tv cable, but the lever on the trans is modified to work with it.

then at mid-day, some 17 year old lookin guy was in the shop checking it out with his dad, they were all over it loving it. Apparently the dad has a 1990 4x4 and the 17 year old has a 93 5.0 2wd with a fully boxed frame.

they were asking all kinds of questions about it all. They both seemed to be shocked at just how much work has gone into it. I was glad that people other than myself like what i've sent years building.


first clean in years

Bye bye useless steel!

May reuse small sections to support my shock mounts.

 

[dude772]

Still pluggin away, trying to get it road worthy. I've been working till 9pm after hours working on this turd. I've gotten the shock mounts for the front done and then redone because i had a brainfart and put them where the tires want to be. I had to torch the tabs off and re mount them. I had to re-do the rear pinion angle, somewhere along the line of moving it around the axle has twisted. once i got it in place this time i taced the perches in place.

But what i didn't realize was that there was still penetrating fluid on the axle where i wanted to weld. so as soon as i touched the wire to the axle, POOF ball of fire in my face! That was kindda funny. Then today the Warn hubs and spindle nuts showed up.

So i figured it would be a good time to replace the front rotors, wheel bearings, grease seals and install the front axle shafts, and do the shaft U-joints.

But I cant have these nice shiney new lockers on nasty crusty looking wheel hubs. So I had to clean those up and paint them. Started by tossing them in the varsal tank to get the greasr off, then hose it down, sand with 60 grit, die grinder with a sanding disc, acid bath, hose it again and dry then paint. turned out mint!

Installing the hubs was pretty straight forward, i could have gone without the spindle nut kit, but the origonals look like lots of people have used a screw driver to take them off in the past.

A few other things i got done were the coil spring retainers on the axle. Cut the head off of a 1/2 bolt and weld it to the spring bracket on the axle. paint the instrument cluster trim that covers half the dash. Got new bolts for the body to the frame and installed those.

Blah, still lots to go it seems.