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- Joined
- Feb 28, 2001
- Messages
- 9,457
- City
- Dayton Oregon
- Vehicle Year
- 1990, 1997
- Engine
- 2.3 (4 Cylinder)
- Transmission
- Manual
- Total Lift
- 6
- Tire Size
- 35"
You guys have seen me post on this thing, started out looking for a cheap daily driver/beater and found a '97 extended cab 5 speed 4 cylinder Ranger for $450 on facebook marketplace that had a white door on a red vehicle and a bent I beam. Got it in 2019, went to the junkyard half off weekend and got everything to fix it up for $130, sold the white door for $35 so fixed it for under $100 and an afternoon's work... First step was swapping the bent I beam:
You'll ask yourself how they bent the I beam, and the answer is dumb, they pulled it out of a ditch with a chain from the weak part of the beam... I asked, I was correct... Then it had some issues with a leak at the filler hose, so I ordered one but got the wrong one so I put some nylon pipe tape on it and it's worked for a while, it's on the list...
Then last year I got rear ended, only tailgate damage, this is how it ended up:
I used it to do some stuff for my shop over the last couple years:
Then a week ago I was unfortunate enough to rear end someone, which sucks and I still feel bad, they're covered with my insurance but I just have liability so I'm doing the repairs myself, here's the pics of the damage, the hood was popped at this point:
I'm still working on it but it did a number on small things, under $300 in parts so far though found a new grille assembly and bumper in a junkyard that were even the right color for $130 then I needed a radiator and two motor mounts (that's why there's oil under it... bent the oil filter on the frame bracket), the motor mounts were likely broke before but didn't notice since it doesn't have any torque...
There's a bunch of small stuff I didn't take pictures of, didn't save the pictures from the ad apparently either... it conveniently has 4.10 gears, as you see I've had a few different sets of tires on it... it says XLT on the side but it's seen a life and isn't original, last year I updated from a non tach to a tach cluster and from an AM/FM stereo to one with a tape player so I could get an aux cord... put new front speakers in since the originals died... I have plans to put a slider rear window in (had one when I got it but it was broken and only found a non slider when I was looking then) and have grabbed pop out rear windows which will be nice without A/C... Oh, and even after I've put 40k miles on it in the last couple years it still only has 190k and runs like a top, it's more than paid for itself over the last 3 years... I started daily driving it in the middle of December of 2019...
As dumb as it sounds now that I got in an accident, like 3 weeks ago I spent an afternoon bored and popped some dents out of some random areas, now it needs more
You'll ask yourself how they bent the I beam, and the answer is dumb, they pulled it out of a ditch with a chain from the weak part of the beam... I asked, I was correct... Then it had some issues with a leak at the filler hose, so I ordered one but got the wrong one so I put some nylon pipe tape on it and it's worked for a while, it's on the list...
Then last year I got rear ended, only tailgate damage, this is how it ended up:
I used it to do some stuff for my shop over the last couple years:
Then a week ago I was unfortunate enough to rear end someone, which sucks and I still feel bad, they're covered with my insurance but I just have liability so I'm doing the repairs myself, here's the pics of the damage, the hood was popped at this point:
I'm still working on it but it did a number on small things, under $300 in parts so far though found a new grille assembly and bumper in a junkyard that were even the right color for $130 then I needed a radiator and two motor mounts (that's why there's oil under it... bent the oil filter on the frame bracket), the motor mounts were likely broke before but didn't notice since it doesn't have any torque...
There's a bunch of small stuff I didn't take pictures of, didn't save the pictures from the ad apparently either... it conveniently has 4.10 gears, as you see I've had a few different sets of tires on it... it says XLT on the side but it's seen a life and isn't original, last year I updated from a non tach to a tach cluster and from an AM/FM stereo to one with a tape player so I could get an aux cord... put new front speakers in since the originals died... I have plans to put a slider rear window in (had one when I got it but it was broken and only found a non slider when I was looking then) and have grabbed pop out rear windows which will be nice without A/C... Oh, and even after I've put 40k miles on it in the last couple years it still only has 190k and runs like a top, it's more than paid for itself over the last 3 years... I started daily driving it in the middle of December of 2019...
As dumb as it sounds now that I got in an accident, like 3 weeks ago I spent an afternoon bored and popped some dents out of some random areas, now it needs more
