My Project

[ClodSlayer]

Speaker box that i finally built....

 

[ClodSlayer]

Sorry I haven't posted anything lately, but it's been kinda busy. I have, however, had a bit of time to work on my truck and this is the result! Idles rather roughly, and smokes abit, but not nearly as much as before!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPWk0Liohbs&feature=plcp

 

[ClodSlayer]

Sorry it's been so long guys! The little ranger's been running pretty great! Got that rough idle all smoothed out, and after a little bit of use, the rings unstuck and the blowby smoke out the tailpipe stopped. I even got the little 4 cyl up to 95- uh, a safe, responsible highway speed with a nice tailwind! But after a few months of use, the take offs were becoming more and more rough, to the point where the doors burst open because the truck was shaking so bad. So out came the drive train!

The culprit:


Figured that since everything was out, it was time for a good do-over of everything!

Getting the mitsubishi fm145 shined up:


The new slave cylinder:



The trans-axle in the sink:



Noticed a good bit of leakage, so Imma re-do the rear seal and the oil pan gasket as well:



The monstrosity I have rigged up to lift the engine enough to get at the oil pan gasket, in the absence of an engine hoist, this was the best I could do:


So that's pretty much that, sorry again for the lack of posts on this thread, but there's not much to take pictures of when everything is running good! Plus, I'm too broke to do any large scale renovations... Oh yeah! I also got some new tires, Cooper Discovery AT3's, they seem decent so far, but I didn't get the chance to get them in any good mud before the clutch went.
Cheers!
-Nick

 

[ClodSlayer]

So we got the oil pan gasket done today! I can see why lifting the engine clear out is the preferred method... However, in the absence of a cherry picker, we made do with just lifting it enough to snake the old gasket out and snake the new one in.

"Lifted" engine:


How much space I had to work with to get the new gasket in (cleaning out that groove was a bear):

Got the rear main seal done as well, hope to start re-assembling the drive train soon! Now that all the seals and stuff are in, it should be pretty much a tinker-toy job... given that nothing goes wrong. (with an old truck, something probably will)

Also thinking of painting the undercarriage of my truck a nice red color since it's already up and there's so much room under there now. I think that would look pretty sweet.
-Nick

 

[ClodSlayer]

No pics today guys, got the fly wheel on fine, but then ran into a brick wall when I couldn't get the clutch to fit for the life of me! With a little help from the employees at the local Advance auto parts, I eventually figured out that this particular motor actually came from an '83 mustang? Don't ask me how it got in there, no idea.
-Nick
Edit: Looking up the 83 mustang, I see the 2.3L was turbo charged... maybe it's not from a mustang maybe it is. But if it is, the guy before hand left out the turbo when swapping the motor and I wish he hadn't, a little extra juice would be nice

 

[FordRanger1991]

Good work man! I always enjoy just fixing random things on my ranger. It is always so satisfying knowing they are fixed. But glad to see this thing getting polished up!

 

[ClodSlayer]

I always enjoy just fixing random things on my ranger.

You have inspired me dear sir! Whilst waiting for the new clutch to ship to the local Advance Auto parts, I spent a good two hours behind the dash cussing at the wiring and finding a host of blown fuses and poorly spliced wires. After all that, I had the radio hooked up to four three way speakers (two in the dash, two behind seats) and I got the four lights uptop hooked to switches I drilled into the trim.

Found out something else today as well: Apparently when someone changed the clutch beforehand, they neglected to put in the pilot bearing. So now the inside of the crankshaft is all chewed up and theres no machined surface for the new bearing to sit in. I resolved this by buying a bushing of the same size and just pounding it in there as straight as I could with a hammer (feel better about smacking on a bushing than on a bearing, bushings seem a bit tougher). Hope this works, I'll keep ya'll updated as things progress.
-Nick