The prick previous owner thread.

[rangerbum]

Hey guys, I've been tinkering as always, and realised something dumb. Every rig I've ever bought had at least one thing that made me want to hit the previous owner in the nads.

My ranger back when I got it had 4 different brands of spark plug wires, none of them specific to rangers, and all way too long. Wtf.

My bII I just discovered when I went to put a radio in that the P.O took out ALL the stock wires and wired up a haggard slop of what appears to be a harness to a Dual brand connector, that hasn't been made since the 90s according to the P/N plugged into google. I also counted a total of 4 connected wires, and 21 solid white wires strewn in each direction, not connected to anything, but tangled with everything. I don't get it.

What's made you want to high five your rigs previous owner in the face with a hammer?

 

[cody93]

just the radio wiring harnesses for me...

 

[Mark_88]

LOL...how about a speed control box on a 1988 Ranger with a 2.0 5 speed...wtf...for how long could the guy actually maintain any kind of speed with a 2.0 5 speed??? Unless the truck was originally driven in the Prairies where there are no hills for hundreds of miles...it just didn't make any sense to me...

I won't get into the vacuum line routing mess that I found under the hood because it's been too long since I found it...but the P.O. was a friend from work who let the truck sit more than he drove it...because it either wouldn't start or wouldn't run right...

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

Ranger:

Had a funny miss on the test drive, chalked it up to needing a tune up. Somebody got royally confused and just had the poor 2.8 hardwired to run and it ran pig rich. Vacuum lines tucked in all nice and neat had bolts (must have been planing on a lot of vacuum because most were grade 8 )

"great on gas" was a selling feature, double digits was fairly lucky but then he had a gas F-350 for his other truck so maybe to him that was good.

"goes right through mud" It was fairly impressive for the car tires that it had but nothing compared to it now.

"rebuilt 60k miles ago" at 125 that should have been a red flag, the smokestream after the first oil change was a blue flag (must have been loaded with stop smoke/leak)

12 years later a big hunk of bondo is about to fall off the rear lower rocker.

The old girl had a long storied history when I got it and it has gotten a lot more interesting since. I still have to fight not to kick in the PO's teeth when I seem him around town...

2002 F-150:

The only complaint I have had is aparently somebody had a problem with their trailer wiring and put a scotch lock onto the main RH tail light wire to run their trailer lights, it must have kept blowing the regular trailer light fuse on the truck (seperate circuit from the truck lighting) 3 years old with 25k miles when I got it just out of warrenty and that was their brainy idea for a fix.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Oh the stories I have.....

My 88 had some crazy hacked-up wiring...

My 89 Eddie Bauer BII had hacked up wiring (sold the truck after fixing it, stupid move)....

My choptop had some really uber crazy hacked up wiring among other things

My F-150 had hacked-up wiring and some hidden issues....

The plow I bought for my F-150 cost me more in parts to fix than I paid for the plow (so much for a "ready to bolt on and run" setup with "extra parts").....

I'll get into details later....

 

[luke]

The guy I got my Mustang from swapped out the original 302 for a 351 Cleveland... But he kept the 302 wiring harness, he had to bend the headers so much so they could fit, that I doubt they get very good flow, and he kept the original radiator, so the hose locations are way off,... so I'm going to swap a stroked 302 back in it.

 

[pontiacfieroguy]

lets see, butchered the dash to fit a double din cd player and cut the wires going to the door so the speakers don't work, put a header on it then cut off the cat and straight piped it til about a foot behind the cab then put a fart can on it that just ends in the middle of the bed under the truck, multiple places where wiring is cut and plugs cut off, over a foot of wiring that he stripped the insulation off of and cut in half then had it staying together by twisting two individual strands, mismatched tires one as narrow as 205 one as wide as 235, put the oil filter on with a wrench and tightened it so hard the side of it was crushed, put new brake shoes on only one side and replaced that brake line but didn't bleed the brakes but did round off the bleeder valve so now I have to take it all apart just to replace the wheel cylinder, replaced the flywheel but not the 30k mile clutch, used phillips head screws to attach the rain guards and the goofy visor thing, but in his credit five minutes after leaving his house the trans popped out of gear and wouldn't go back in and he paid his mechanic buddy to come out in the pouring rain and figure out what was wrong( extremely low on fluid) and he did give me twenty bucks in gas since I drove 65 miles each way to trade him.

 

[Il Brutto]

I was told I could drive the truck home 60 miles by the previous owner. After I trailered it home, I found out the entire brake and cooling systems needed replaced. I'm not sure if the guy was trying to strand me or kill me.

 

[shane96ranger]

My biggest pet peeve from PO's is cigarette burns. Got a couple in my Mustang still on the headliner and visor. Also, the stereo harness was all hacked up when I got it. Dude also put a burn mark in the center console with s soldering iron.

Sent from a Commodore 64 using a 300 baud modem

 

[wr250rdr]

Why has everyone hacked the stereo harness? Had the same issue with my tuck plus a hack job on the door to mount 6x9s. Are the adaptor harnesses not widely available other then online?

 

[luke]

Why has everyone hacked the stereo harness?...

I don't know, I guess everyone thinks they can do car audio, that's one of the problems I had with my ranger as well.

 

[adsm08]

My BII had (and still has) several sided lug nuts. I'm ok with that, but they were all mixed up between the wheels too.

The previous owner of my truck decided that the lug nuts were worn out after rarely rotating the tires, and then went and bought the cheapest junk he could find for replacements. But I have high-fived him in the face with a racquet ball before.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Why has everyone hacked the stereo harness? Had the same issue with my tuck plus a hack job on the door to mount 6x9s. Are the adaptor harnesses not widely available other then online?

I would suspect that the vast majority of people are scared of electrical wiring and don't have a friggin clue how to do it properly. So they butcher it.

But I have also seen stuff that came out of "car audio" shops (mostly the big box stores that put in stereos like Best Try) that is an absolute abortion. They don't have a clue how to do it correctly and they're not paid enough to care.

I don't know, I guess everyone thinks they can do car audio, that's one of the problems I had with my ranger as well.

That too. Especially when they try to find a qualified installer and find that to have someone who knows what they're doing put it in, it'll cost them $50 or so, then they figure that it can't be that hard to do.... snip, snip, twist, tape....

 

[Ranger Sport Honduras]

My bro's 00 Ranger had almost all the warning bulbs taken off the dash, no ABS, airbags, no check engine bulbs. The guy that sold it stated it was in mint condition and had no codes or anything...
The airbag module and fuses were disconnected too, since it kept beeping because of a burnt light on the airbag switch, took me less than 5 monutes to take it apart, replace the bulb with a led and put it back on. I spent more time taking the gauges out to put all the bulbs back on...


As for not using harness connectors. I dont use them because they are not available down here LOL. but every wiring Ive made has labels for each stuff not just a mess of wires

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

When I finally got around to pulling the radio in my F-150 to try to find out if I could fix the problem of it randomly freezing or turning off.... this is what I found....

Yes, a work of art.... wire nuts for house wiring, the wires that had spade/bullet connectors got a wire jammed in them and "crimped" with pair of pliers.....

Fixed. But I think something inside the radio got fried because it still would act a little funky at times. But that worked until I got new speakers and a new radio.

I also got to replace the clutch at 71,000 miles since it was fried to a crisp in that truck. In fact, since I got it with 69k miles on it (it now has just over 100k), I've practically rebuilt it. Replaced both fuel tanks, all the suspension stuff (springs, shocks, brackets, bushings) all four balljoints, U-joints, front hubs, rear axle, front pumpkin, and a ton of other stuff.