The $600 1988 Ranger project. A semi-serious race truck build.

[BBR]

IDK what shenanigans USPS is up to, but my shackles finally made it to Amarillo from California, and then did a big u-turn and now they are back in California.....

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

IDK what shenanigans USPS is up to, but my shackles finally made it to Amarillo from California, and then did a big u-turn and now they are back in California.....

I've watched them do that several times. Sitting at a warehouse within miles, and then ship it half way cross-country!

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

On the flipside I have had them say something goofy like that... and then it gets delivered the same day.

 

[BBR]

I'm going to need to make some sort of header for this sucker and I already told you I have flanges.

Why Ford chose oval ports is beyond me. It makes it difficult to make headers. So what's a guy to do? You bust out the 3d printer and make a die that's what.

I drew this up in AutoCAD and printed it with 100% infill. It took 19 hours to print. Haha.

I took a piece of 2" pipe, poked it in the hydraulic press and squished it into an oval. A darn good oval I might add. The die didn't even flinch.

 

[bba952]

I'm going to need to make some sort of header for this sucker and I already told you I have flanges.

Why Ford chose oval ports is beyond me. It makes it difficult to make headers. So what's a guy to do? You bust out the 3d printer and make a die that's what.

I drew this up in AutoCAD and printed it with 100% infill. It took 19 hours to print. Haha.

I took a piece of 2" pipe, poked it in the hydraulic press and squished it into an oval. A darn good oval I might add. The die didn't even flinch.

View attachment 136621View attachment 136622

using a 1mm nozzle will speed up that print time a lot

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Not owning a 3d printer, I would make that from MDF or if I can find some, high density fiberboard.

 

[BBR]

Since I am waiting on parts, I decided to go ahead and build the notches.

 

[BBR]

Shackle update: they made it back to Amarillo, then USPS tried to deliver when my business was closed and they marked the package as "refused".

So frustrating. Meanwhile, the shock brackets I ordered on the same day are terminally lost at the Ama Distribution Center...

At least the notches turned out nice. These will bridge the weirdo depressed area in the frame.

 

[BBR]

Fitted the notches to the frame today.

 

[BBR]

Ready to clean up and weld.

 

[BBR]

Oh hey, I found my old user name yesterday. BigBlockRanger. haha. I thought I used a different one back then. The email associated with that one is loooong gone though.

I decided I wanted to learn to tig weld. So a while back I picked up a welder at HFT and yesterday I bought a cart for it. One step closer to really screwing stuff up.

 

[BBR]

Mostly welded in. I am going to have to drop the gas tank to get to some of it.

Not bad for an old blind land surveyor. Haha.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Looks good to me, I'm curious about that TIG welder, I have one of the Titanium Unlimited 200's and it has scratch start TIG capability that I've used but being stuck with DC is somewhat limited and without a foot pedal and scratch start well I got good at sharpening tungsten the couple hours I dabbled with some stainless...

 

[BBR]

I can't wait to give it a whirl. I have a Titanium 170 mig and it has been fantastic, but I wanted to be able to weld aluminum stuff like injector bungs or intake piping. It's going to take a bit of practice before I'm ready to weld on anything expensive though. Haha.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Yeah, I think you can run a spool gun on the 170 (I have one of those too... couldn't pass it up for $125, I've beat the heck out of it, welds great), I have one but it wouldn't be ideal for that use, TIG would be better... I plan to make stainless intercooler plumbing for my F350 so my setup will work good enough for that...