My Rust-Free, $600 Ranger Project

[idriveafordranger94]

And so the story begins-my first "fixer-upper"

I found this truck on Craigslist sometime in January located in Toledo (about 3 hrs away) and my grandpa and I decided to take a look. We arrived and the truck was about a quarter mile down the driveway with about 2 feet of snow everywhere around it. We were surprised how clean it was; no rust visible!!

The guy explained the truck's story to us. It had been family owned since it was new in 1994 and had been very well taken care of but had lots of damage due to a teenage driver! He told us that the engine sounds like it had thrown a rod. I started it up and it sounded like he was right. I shut it off and looked under the hood. My grandpa nudged me and pointed down to the serpentine belt, which was missing a 1" chunk of belt. Ha! The guy walked away and let us look at the truck for a while. We were pretty sure that was the "rod knocking" noise that we heard. We bought the truck and somehow got it out of the 2 feet of snow lol. As soon as we saw the first auto parts place appear, we turned in. Purchased a new serp. belt and threw it on. Man did it run good!

Long story short - a rust free, $600 Ranger that runs and drives! YES!!!

There were some cosmetic isses however- the ugly, rusted rims, the giant gash and dent in the passenger's side door, the quarter inch thick bondo job on the rear bedside, the chunk of fiberglass missing from the header panel....yeah, the list goes on and on...

I kept the truck at my uncle's house for the winter and most of the summer until late August. Here is the truck as it was before I started.

 

[idriveafordranger94]

I woke up early that morning for work, walked out the door and I saw this:

The work of a bunch of girls lol

And of course my mom snapped a couple of pics after I had left for work!

Later that day, after getting off work and cleaning up my truck lol, I cleaned up the rims, washed and waxed my new Ranger.

I took the tires off and decided to sand blast and paint them.

BEFORE

AFTER

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

looks good, is the red one your daily driver? i had those same rims on my truck that were rusted just as badly and then i repainted them and they looked great, just like yours! after about 3 years of sitting they rusted up and i said to hell with it and bought some new cragar soft 8s. trucks lookin good though, hows the interior?

 

[idriveafordranger94]

Yeah the red one is my DD...love it to death lol. I was really happy w/ the way they turned out. It only costed me about $30 for paint. The interior was pretty nasty. The dirty thumb outline that appears when you close the door about a thousand times w/ dirty hands lol, the arm rest had dirt engraved into it, the carpet was trashed, etc but after about 3-4 hrs of work it was looking pretty good. I'll get some pics here soon.

Your thread is awesome; I come back to it daily to see if you have updated!

 

[MaGiKaLsHoTs]

thats a good deal for 600.. i found a 94 ext cab 3.0 5spd ranger here in vermont for 100 no rust anywhere.. runs and drive only thing wrong was the bed was shit.. but nice find by the looks of that it looks like its in even better shape than mine lol

 

[idriveafordranger94]

Here are some of the damage pics, I am not responsible for any of the bondo or painting! hahah

Here is the damage to the passenger's side door. I popped the top dent out a little bit.

"New" door from a Ranger at Pull-A-Part. The clearcoat is fading and there is a small dent but it's getting painted soon anyway.

Damage to the header panel and fender.

Here is the "new" fender from Pull-A-Part. Its a little rusty, (just surface rust and a small pin hole) but again, it's getting painted.

Header Panel I got from Pull-A-Part. Dang they pissed me off so bad. I found a really nice Ranger w/ hardly any rust to pull the header panel off of. It took me about an hour or so. I walked up to the counter to pay and told the lady it was a small header panel. She said "okay" and walked to the back room w/ it in her hands. She came back out and said the boss told her it was a large header panel (the small header panel was around $30 and the large was around $55). I was really pissed when she told me that because there were sooo many big trucks and SUVs that had "big" header panels, the Ranger's was tiny compared to them!! ughh! lol So anyway, here is my $55 find.

Prev. owner attempted to fix a few spots....

We are starting to prep for paint today and I can't waitttt!!!

I'll take some pics while we work!

 

[idriveafordranger94]

Update!

We started work on the fender that I got from Pull-A-Part. Not much got done today; we had some customer work that needed to be completed. Well, here's what we got done.

I grinded down all of the rust and loose paint with a 36 grit grinding pad and cut out all of the rust. The panel was in a lot worse shape than we thought =(

Grinded some more

....And some more

And I painted the grill. Doesn't look too bad

Tomorrow we are doing some fiberglass work. I'll take some pics.

 

[idriveafordranger94]

Today we did some fiberglass work.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

damn that fiberglass shit looks messy, but at least you can guarantee it wont rust out there again! i love the junk yard, sometimes you get sweet deals on parts that you other wise wouldnt be able to find anywhere and other times you get hosed, its just the nature of the beast. things seem to be coming along nicely, ill keep checking up on it.

 

[RobbieD]

From what you've done so far, I think that you'll have a real nice truck when you're done with it.

Good score, and good job on it!

Looking forward to seeing the pictures when you're finished.

 

[idriveafordranger94]

Thanks. I'm just restoring it to factory looks and then I'm going to sell it. I'm looking to buy a pretty clean 89 Bronco right now for my winter truck.

 

[TS6034]

You got a sweet find on that truck! I once bought a ford with a "seized" engine for cheap. Turned out the a/c pump seized!

 

[Iron Ranger]

Don't know how long that fiberglass filler is going to last, because that rust looks pretty severe. There wasn't any other fenders laying around?

My autobody guy showed me how he checks for "rust damage". He takes a tack hammer and pops all around the affected area. Where ever the hammer doesn't go throught the metal is where the metal is still good.

He did this on my ranger, and 1x6 spots on the wheel wells turned out to be 4x10 spots. Traced out the new sheet metal and welded it back in.

Nice find for $600 though.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

now youre talking, get yourself a nice BII. youve already got a real nice DD so now you need a winter rig/ trail toy. i really want a bronco II, but ive got so many projects i just dont see it happening any time soon.

 

[idriveafordranger94]

There were about 10 Rangers at the salvage yard to choose from but I think I was drawn to this one because it was the same color. I probably should have looked around a little more for one in better condition, but this gives me a good opportunity to practice my fiberglassing and body working skills. That's a good idea, I'll have to try that when I go looking for body panels next time!