The prick previous owner thread.

[colby450xc]

I was lucky with my truck. The frame is a pile of rust waiting to fall apart from what it appears. The only thing I could complain about was a leaf spring shackle collapsing 2 weeks after I bought the truck...No big deal, its a common problem. After that I looked under my brothers ranger (his and his wives 3rd car) and both shackles were collapsed and he had no idea.

I dont understand the radio harness thing. Aftermarket conversion harnesses are less than $10 at Wal-Mart, and theyre color matched wires, it doesnt get any easier. Maybe its easy because I usually by from Crutchfield, their head units come with a harness, mounting assembly and instruction with no extra charge. Good folks

 

[--weezl--]

STAPLES in the radiator hoses inbetween the notches on the clamps. To hold it on???!

this is actually pretty common... i don't know how many upper rad hoses i've bought that had staples holding the label on...

 

[shane96ranger]

STAPLES in the radiator hoses inbetween the notches on the clamps. To hold it on???!

this is actually pretty common... i don't know how many upper rad hoses i've bought that had staples holding the label on...

Agreed. This used to be more common. I've bought several hoses with staples attaching tags over the years. Good thing those same asshats don't make condoms.

Sent from a Commodore 64 using a 300 baud modem

 

[mitch4x4]

The worst (with a ranger) would be when I went to leave the grocery store one day with my 91 ranger 2.9 auto, and then the gear shift went limp. So I opened the hood and come to find out the shifter linkage was broke and he used wire to rig it together.

The worst of all time would be when I bought a 89 Jeep(first mistake) Cherokee (second mistake) That had a 3 inch skyjacker lift in it. Well someone decided that using the shim provided to drop the transfer case down half a inch was not needed. So one trip to town and one emergency stop was enough to pop the drive shaft out and drive it into the floor.

 

[Twister]

When i bought my 87 B2, the owner assured me everything was great, took it for a test drive and everything seemed good. A week later, was taking some dumb chicken wire off the back of the grille and found a pack for some head gasket stop leak , 1 week later it starts loosing coolant and slime on oil fill cap, another week later i am left with chocolate milk .

 

[Twizzler09]

I've gotten pretty lucky with the two vehicles I've bought.

Ranger:
No real problems with the PO (was my stepdad) it had been pretty well taken care of, would still be on the road if the frame wasn't bent slightly. Thing *still* runs like a beast with nearly 228k miles on it.

F-150:
When I bought it, the lady told me it had been leaking brake fluid but she couldn't see where because she didn't hardly drive it. She only put ~4k miles on it over five years. Well, the truck had sat for numerous months without moving until I bought it, so naturally the front brakes hang up. Discovered while I was doing brakes, that the bleeder on the left front caliper was loose. Bingo! Problem solved. Hasn't leaked a drop since. Oh, I did have a problem where the brake lights quit working all at once. Turns out the wires on the brake switch had broke. No big deal, $5 switch and a few minutes later, problem solved.

 

[03ranger30]

The only complaint I have is that the PO cut the exhaust flange off after the cat and welded the pipe together. So in order to get a new exhaust put on correctly, I am going to have to get a new flange welded on, or get new cats, I am leaning towards the first option.

 

[slipshift]

I bought an old Explorer which the PO peened the top of the battery posts to tighten them up.

 

[wildbill23c]

Bought my 84 Bronco 2 but had to make payments on it over 3 months as I don't make enough money in a month to have been able to afford the $975 all at once. Anyhow during those 3 months of payments the previous owner and her son had a hayday with a lot of things.

1. Alternator was replaced and not hooked up right.
2. Wiring was removed and/or hacked and spliced together
3. Head gaskets were blown
4. oil pan was bent
5. tires/wheels don't match
6. Hack job starter install
7. Stripped flywheel bolts to compensate for the half ass starter install they decided to try to install some sort of spacers on the flywheel bolts then proceed to either overtightening or undertightening the flywheel bolts which made the flywheel come lose.
8. Interior was completely gutted except for the seats, they ripped out the carpet/insulation
9. They removed the whole exhaust system and replaced with 2' of straight pipe and a muffler and a 1' pipe and down-spout.
10. They installed some sort of junk aftermarket air filter leaving the hose coming off the oil fill cap completely open
11. They had the hood off all of that winter and got water in the engine through the carburetor which was completely rusted to crap
12. They never bothered to care for the exterior as it is rusted very bad.
13. The wiring job in this truck is very scary trying to piece things together hasn't been fun.
14. The A/C system was literally just cut out, not disconnected and removed at the connections they just cut stuff out.
15. Driver's side floor pan needs to be welded back together at the seam.
16. Oil pressure, Coolant Temp, and Battery Amp meter in dash doesn't work, which leads me to the whole wiring fiasco.
17. Original stereo system was ripped out including the mounting bracket, and they just cut the end off the radio antenna rather than just simply unplugging it. At some point they must have had some sort of aftermarket stereo in it as I've found several hundred feet of stereo speaker wires throughout the vehicle.


Still finding surprises as time goes by. Overall it runs pretty good, just looks horrible, and lots of little things to get fixed as I find them.

 

[veefer800canuck]

Bar's Leaks in the cooling system, instead of actually replacing the leaky gasket at the rear of the intake manifold.

 

[--weezl--]

bar's leaks works great, i see no reason why that's a problem

 

[CurtisP87]

My B2s previous owner gave me a gem. Very well cared for, with solid aftermarket upgrades, nothing shoddy or makeshift. When I purchased it he gave me a 3 ring binder 2" thick with info and research he had compiled over the 18 years he had owned it. Ironically, it broke down while driving it home, almost had me killed on the highway . He made the 45 min drive to my house twice to help me diagnose and fix the problem, which was a bad computer.
High five to the good POs, who are out there

 

[wildbill23c]

My B2s previous owner gave me a gem. Very well cared for, with solid aftermarket upgrades, nothing shoddy or makeshift. When I purchased it he gave me a 3 ring binder 2" thick with info and research he had compiled over the 18 years he had owned it. Ironically, it broke down while driving it home, almost had me killed on the highway . He made the 45 min drive to my house twice to help me diagnose and fix the problem, which was a bad computer.
High five to the good POs, who are out there

Lucky you, sounds like the PO of your B2 was a very good person. Given the age the b2's are getting a breakdown isn't something I would call uncommon LOL. Glad your PO actually took the time to do the research and do everything correctly and nice of them to give you the binder of information as well as that may help you down the road. Very nice of them to actually come to your house to help diagnose your breakdown as well, that's something that isn't very common, usually someone sells a vehicle and its all on you at that point to figure out what is wrong.

 

[90longbed]

on mine the jack and lugwrench were just tossed behind the seat instead of held down in the proper place, plus the was a jack crank handle that didnt go to the truck...... there was a wire hanging under the dash by the fusebox that had a male spade connector on it.... I followed the wire and it went back up behind the radio somewhere( poss had an amp and speakers behind the seat maybe?) they had the mount for the rear view mirror glued to the windshield on the wrong side, so you couldnt put a mirror on it ( the mirror was MIA when I got it) also the drivers side taillight only had 1 screw holding it on the truck....the tailgate part of the drop in bedliner was missing..... not to mention the body damage and the rust from a life in a coastal town...... main reason I bought this truck is because it runs and drives really good.... I only had $1400 to work with and most of the other rangers I saw for sale were in worse shape than this one... the 2 main things on my to do list at the moment are to fix the fuel gauge which is most likely the sending unit and the windshield washers dont work

 

[veefer800canuck]

bar's leaks works great, i see no reason why that's a problem

Remind me not to buy a used truck from you.

Failed gasket = replace with new, if you wanna do things right.

Dumping goop into your radiator is a farmer fix.

If you're lucky, it won't clog up your heater core.