Project "Snail's Pace": 1986 Ranger Rebuild

[JoshT]

Been a while so I guess it's time for an update. Not a lot for real progress, but quite a bit of visual progress.

Got the rust holes patched. As mentioned above, I used fiberglass for the repair. I know its not as good as new metal but it's the best I can do for now. I used a marine grade epoxy resin to it should be sealed better and a lot stronger than the stuff you buy at the parts house. Just gotta go back and apply more rust bullet and that'll be done. Someday I'd like to put in new metal, but this should get me by until then.

Now for the visual progress. Remember those beams I bought from Ranger SVT, well they're now under the front of the truck. Painted them and parts that wouldn't be accessible after install. Just semi-gloss black Rustoleum Professionals from a spray can. I know it's cheap but this ain't gonna be a show truck, and its easy to get and should be easy to touch-up. Got the stock springs in for now, want to see how it sits with the V8 before putting in the drop springs. Still got to do s little more before I can put it back on the ground. The steering box is off the frame so I can paint the area where it mounts. Once I get that done I'll be able to re-install it, put the steering linkage back in, and put the front end back on the ground. Then I''ll be able to start swapping the back ends out.

Still working on figuring out the wiring, I'm beginning to think it's more work than I want to tackle. Once I've got the rear axle swapped done I'll start pulling the explorer apart and seeing what it'll take to get it working. I may end up bailing on installing everything from the Explorer and trim it down to just the engine harness. If I do that I'll probably use a painless harness or the like. Won't get some of the features I wanted, but hey it didn't have them before right.

Now for the few pics I've got.





Tomorrow I will try to get the steering box back in and truck back on the ground.

 

[JoshT]

Front end is back on ground. Need to move the truck to a more level spot in the yard, nearly wasn't able to get it back off the jack stands. Think I used dad's jack to put them under there and mine doesn't lift quite as high.

Going to go ahead and pull the bed where its at, that'll give me better access to work on the rear.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Subscribed,

Richard

 

[JoshT]

Well College last semester tried to kick my butt good, three classes on top of working full time is all I ever want to take in one semester from now on. I managed to pull it off with all A’s but it required not getting anything done on the truck until the semester was over.

The front end has been mostly finished for a few months, still have to tighten up bolts, do shocks, swaybar, brakes, but they are not necessary right now. With that done it's time to move onto the back end. Decided a while back that at this point the bed would be removed for better access. It was the end of December when I started on that, just took a while because of the holidays and hunting season. Started out pulling the bumper, which took a while because the bolts were stuck good. Bumper was in good shape for being 26 years old but I won’t be using it, planning to install a roll pan with hidden hitch. The I started on prepping the bed for removal, all went good until the forward and middle blots on the passenger side. The middle one was easily handled with plenty of PB Blaster and vice grips, but the bolt and nut are toast. The forward one on the other hand took a while because I had to grind the head off. Then had to wait on an extra pair of hands to lift the bed. Finally got the bed set off on Monday (January 17th, MLK Day), and proceeded to work on the rear suspension.





Got most of the bolts loose but had two stuck ones, so sprayed them down with PB Blaster and let it soak. Then it was raining for the rest of the week. Finally last Sunday I got tired of waiting for it to stop, so in between showers I went out and jacked up the the Explorer so the next clear day I'd be able to get back to work on it. That was where I encountered the only real pain that I've experienced so far in this project. My jack and jack stands wouldn't get the Explorer high enough to fully unload the springs, ended up having to pull the tires instead.

Finally yesterday we had a nice day; sunny, dry and about 70 degrees. As soon as I got home from work I went to town on the project. Got the back end of the ranger up. Finished pulling the suspension bolts, and started pulling the drive shaft bolts, but broke a socket so had to go into town and find a 12mm 12 point wrench to use. Then rolled the old axle out from under the Ranger. The Explorer axle was a whole nother story. Because the wheels were off had to keep a jack under the pumpkin to get tension off the bolts, which only got in the way. Then trying to pull the shock sout of the way the upper mount studs were loose and nuts wouldn't come off. Finally got everything loose and it sitting on the ground with no way to get it out from under the explorer. Had planned to roll it out with the weight on my floor jack, but of course with my dirt floor that wouldn't work. Ended up having to strap it to the back of my 99 and drag it out, then was able to put the tires back on and roll it around. At the end of the day the Explorer axle was loosely bolted under the Ranger, with weight back on the wheels. IMO very productive day, possibly the most productive since I started.





That's all for this update. Back in school today which sucks, once again nice weather I could be working on the truck, and I'm sitting in class. Tomorrow it's supposed to be raining again.

Now to figure out how to mount the shocks. Either I can run them behind the axle with my stock tank or in front with a custom tank, either way I have to build a cross member for the upper mount points to use stock length Ranger shocks. I like the idea of a custom tank, better weight distribution, probably easier to adapt to the explorer fuel system, but not too crazy about the price. Custom tank would also be needed if I decide to go to a 4 link in the future, that said I don’t know if I could use my BII sway bar with the shocks mounted in front. On the other hand I want to do a hidden hitch behind the roll plan and I don't know if a custom tank will fit with that, in which case I'd be better off with the stock tank and rear mounted springs.

I’m also pretty sure I’ve decided on the paint colors I’ll be using. Think it’ll be Kona Blue and Ignot Silver from the current Mustangs. I’ll be sticking with a two tone scheme similar to what my 84 was.

 

[RangerSVT]

Nice update. Wondered why I haven't seen this build lately....Keep it up

SVT

 

[JTBeast3000]

nice build man. which college do you go to?

 

[JoshT]

Nice update. Wondered why I haven't seen this build lately....Keep it up

SVT

Mostly school and the car. Took 3-4 months to get the thing back on the road after the wreck, simply put that shop will never see my business again. The it was School taking all my free time, wasn't difficult work just a lot of it for working full time to. Then it was the car again, thanks to a pot hole taking out two tires and the wheels that went with them. Damn stock tires with cheap azz side walls. Ended up being cheaper to buy a set of aftermerket wheels than to replace the two stockers. That took a couple weekends of over time to cover.

nice build man. which college do you go to?

Thanks. Middle Georgia Technical College, the local tech school, working on an AAS in Information Technology. Only taking night classes, but hope to be finished by the end of this year. Don't know why I'm rushing myself, when I finish here I'll probably be moving on to the State College down the road to work on a BS in IT & Business.

 

[JoshT]

Well throw one more in the pile of pros for a custom tank. Gotta replace it anyway. Wasn't raining yet when I got home this afternoon so I started on pulling it so I could drain what's probably 10 year old gas, and have room to lay some paint on the frame when the time comes. Get te straps off, it tips over and old fuel starts pouring out of pin holes along the top of the seam. If I gotta buy one anyway might as well make it a custom one for behind the axle. Any tips on how to design this? I'll probably end up making the design and having it built, not sure I trust learning to weld on something like that.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Figure out what space you have and buy a fuel cell. They are pretty cheap if you shop around.

 

[JoshT]

Not a lot got done this weekend. Basically its the same as the pics above but with everything behind the cab being semi gloss black. Also finished the interior floor, it is now fully coated with rust bullet, may add one more coat tomorrow but the two that's on there now should really be good enough. I think my next step is to start working on the bottom of the cab. I need to find an old Queen mattress that someone is throwing away to have some cushion to lay the cab back onto. I want to clean the bottom of the cab then undercoat it. Thinking about using either Raptor Liner or Al's Liner, which are DIY spray in bed liners. The Raptor runs about $100 for the kit (includes the spray gun) and refills are $24/bottle for the base (4 per kit) and $28/liter of hardener (1 liter per kit). The Al's kit is about $100 and the gun is about $50, no "refills" just mix up what you need and when you run out buy another kit. Both will cover an 8 foot truck bed with one kit, so I figure that will be enough to undercoat the cab and line my short bed after the truck gets painted. Both are also available tintable, to when I do the bed I can color match it to the body. I have to do some more research on the two to see which I want to use. Leaning towards Al's liner because I'be heard a few more good things about it, but haven't read anything bad about either (except coming from a line-x dealer, who was pushing line-x while denying that he worked for them).

I think I've come to a decision about my fuel tank. Pretty sure I'm going to run a BII tank behind the axle. Won't be draggin anything and will have plenty of ground clearance. It'll be pretty easy to hook up with a filler, just move it back on the bed to where the aux tank filler would be on a dual tank ranger, and should be able to use the Ranger's stock filler neck. I can also get a brand new one for about a hundred and make the Explorer's sender work in it.

 

[JoshT]

**Sorry this post is a little long winded, it's typed now though not going to change it. Feel free to skip over the words and just click on the pics.**

I just picked up these wheels up from 98 Orange Crush over on RPS. With the backspacing on them I don't think I'll have too much problem with tire clearance. Haven't pulled them out of the car yet, so stealing this pic from the for sale thread over there.

Since the last big post a little more progress has been made. As mentioned before I decided that before I started putting this thing back together I was going to undercoat the cab with bed liner material. With that goal in mind I started removing cab mount bolts week before last. Finally found two twin mattresses towards the end of the week, so that Friday (2/10) I had dad's help and we tilted the cab back onto the frame using the mattresses as cushion.

Beginning of the first RBV funny car.

Ordered the materials needed for undercoating last weekend. Decided to go with Al’s Liner because I won’t use the full kit for this, and if I decided to make my next project (Bed of the 99?) color matched I can do it with the same kit. Due to some more important family issues that’s all I did over the weekend. Last Wednesday afternoon, I took off work early because the weather was perfect for doing the prep work on the cab. Thursday and Friday were already scheduled to be off, and since rain was called for Thursday I just swapped days. Sometimes, not often, but sometimes I love my job. Figured out after raising the cab that I needed something to support the cab corners or they would just sink into the mattress which was going to mess up cleaning and spraying the liner, so I picked up a couple boards on the way home. Got the boards in place and proceeded to pressure wash and scrub the hell out of it. When finished I was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the floor.





The liner material and spray gun came in during the week, and since the weather was bout as perfect as it could be I started on my prep work and lined the bottom of the cab by the end of the day. I learned two things during prepping the cab. First is if someone’s sprayed the auto zone canned underliner crap, Goo Gone professional strength cuts right through the stuff. Second Al’s liner recommends using their nylon abrasive cup brush, 36-150 grit sand paper, or sand blasting. I had a 60 grit flapper wheel for my 4.5” grinder that I thought would work just as well, I was way wrong about that, had to finish up by hand sanding. Next time I’ll either have the project sand blasted or buy their cup brush, depending on the size of the project. Unfortunately I don’t have any in process pics. Weather man was calling for rain all weekend, and I was trying to get finished with everything before the sun went down.

Mixing and spraying Al’s line couldn’t be easier. The hardest part is getting the gun set up right, more on that later. Everything I read about this stuff is that you finished texture is determined by the pressure and airflow through the gun, and that it would require a test spray to get the texture you want. IMO for someone new to this stuff they don’t stress or clarify that enough. The kit comes with a gallon of material, which is supposed to be enough to do one thin coat on an 8 foot truck bed. After spraying this material I believe that is accurate for someone experienced with using this liner, but not for the novice like me. Given the amount of coverage supposedly provided by this liner I decide to mix and spray one quart at a time. I started spraying on the driver side of the cab, had my pressure set way too high and my air volume was much too low, so I ended up wasting a lot of material by spraying it on too thick. So I mixed up my second batch cut my pressure in half and started on the passenger side, after finishing it was much better end result than the first quart. By that time it was getting too dark to really see what I was doing, so I called it a night. Looked it over the next morning and I have some small “pin holes” in the passenger side so I’m going to mix up one more quart and spray another layer on that half Monday. I think I could have had a nice layer on the bottom of the truck with 2 quarts if I had known what I was doing to start with, but for someone that’s never used it before figure on wasting a quart to figure out what you are doing. Here’s the liner as of Friday night, I’ll get a better pic Monday in the sun after I finish the final layer.





Now for setting up the gun, this is the hardest part of using the liner, but also the most important. They say the settings on the gun control the texture of the liner, this is very true, though I haven’t played with all of the settings yet. I’m not too worried about texture with this being on bottom of the cab, but those same settings are also what caused me to waste a lot of material starting out. Volume and pressure are very crucial to this, you want a lower pressure (minimum of 20 PSI) with a high volume. Starting out I didn’t understand the relation, having never been around any type of spray gun. What I did understand before I started though is that I would need a pressure regulator for the gun. With this in mind I went down to Tractor supply and bought a pressure regulator to go on the gun so I could set my pressure and flow right there without having to run back to the main regulator, which for me was on the compressor about 60 foot away. After using it I can definitely say that this is a must. What I didn’t realize when I went out and bought that regulator was that as long as this type of gun is plugged into an airline air flows through it, the trigger only controls the amount of material pulled from the hopper as the air passes by. Well I only have a $150 harbor freight compressor with a 20 gallon tank, didn’t want to run it too much (never used if for this type of work before) so my only way to turn the gun off was by the same regulator. This caused me to have to readjust my pressure every time, might not be a problem for a regulator with a large dial, but this one was small so I had to spray to fine tune it which wasted more material. Next time I’ll also have a shut off valve attached to the gun so I can set my pressure and leave it there. So if you are planning to use Al’s Liner with their gun, might not be a bad idea to pick up a pressure regulator and shutoff valve to go on it before you ever get started.

 

[JoshT]

Forgot to mention previously before we moved the cab I was looking at the truck thinking about what I wanted it to look like when finished. 5" was just going to be too much of a drop in the rear for what I wanted, so I picked up a pair of 2" Chevy drop shackes from the parts store. They take a little modification but they work, I had to grind down the sleeve in the bushing on the hangar end to get them to fit. Once I know how I want it to sit I'll probably pick up a set of the DJM shackles, for this truck and put those in my 99 (want to do a torsion crank and run 33s, might need small lift in the rear as well). The plus side to the shackles I got are that they were half the price I could find the DJM shackles for, granted they don't have poly bushings but if I end up running them on the 99 nothing else on it is poly anyway.

Now the plans for this week: remove transmission, exhaust, body mount bushings, and anything else not needed for reassembly; clean the foward half of the frame; spray some more rustoleum. Should be an easy go of things, having the cab sitting the way it is gives a lot of room to work. Just wish I had gotten the cab set back a little further on the frame so the rear mounts wouldn't be under a mattress.







On other note I've been thinking about the problem I had with airflow in that liner gun and t got me to thinking. I have a suction type sand blaster that gave me nothing but trouble, I wander if it had the same problem as that spray gun. I think I'll pick up another of those regulators and see what it does. If I can get that to work half way decent it'd make real easy work of cleaning up the frame. Hell I'll have to see if I've even still got it, last I tried to use it was two years ago.

 

[JoshT]

Quick update before I go to class.

Slightly better pic of the new wheels and tires.



Undercoating is done.



Like the texture. Think I'll use this in the bed of both my trucks, just apply it a little thicker (and maybe color matched).



Got the rest of the old exhaust, and the transmission removed. Paint probably won't last for long but it looks much better in the pics with the frame being a solid color.



Ready to set cab back down on frame, as soon as I figure out how to remove those body mount bushings.


Thinking about just taking a sabre saw to those bushings, but I don't know for sure if I'll need the sleeves. I'm putting energy suspension polyurethane bushings and they have a metal sleeve made into them so do I even need the factory sleeves? Dad seems to think not, he's been woring on vehicles (and nearly everything else) for over 30 years so I'm inclined to go with that. Just not sure cause the hole in the bushings is awful big for just a bolt.

 

[JoshT]

Due to nasty weather around here didn't get to work on the truck much for the last week. Ended up taking a saber saw to the offending body mount sleeves. Figured out that my poly bushings do need the sleeve to center the bolt and keep everything aligned, but the way I'm cutting the sleeves I'll be able to re-use them. But the cab is now set back down on the frame.



Some of my mounting hardware and the two front sleeves were rough enough that I decided not to reuse them. Ordered what I needed from LMC Truck yesterday, hopefully it'll be in by the weekend.

In the mean time I'm working on the next step, which is removing the wiring harness from the Explorer to prep it for the swap. Unfortunately I'm stuck on the first step of that which is removing the center console, got all the bolts looks and the thing half disassembled and it won't come loose from the bracket on the floor. The only possible plans I had for the center console were to install it in my 99, but I'd prefer a ranger console. So if it doesn't come on out tomorrow it's getting cut, it's not in that great of shape anyway so no real loss there.

On other note I mounted one of those Mach 1 wheels on the back axle, and sighting down the cab it appears to have perfect back spacing. This is a welcome surprise, with the Explorer under the first gen I thought I might have to pull the bed sides a little for any wheel. Can't wait until it's time to put the bed back on and see how they really fit, of course that would also mean it's ready to put back on the road which will be even better.

 

[jhammel85]

Good work so far! Subscribed