What did you do to your Ranger today? (Part Deux!)

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

If I remember right I used a weedeater string head spring, or one I randomly found on the ground at a junkyard that just happened to be right, I think I did do that but the string head spring was common (used to be on the shelf at Home Depot for like $3 if memory serves)

Thank you, I’ll get some measurements when I tear into it and start looking!

 

[Blmpkn]

The other day I ordered a bunch of mouse traps on Amazon and made some new mouse trap boards that fit on the floorboards of Explorers... so each of the two Explorers now has 36 mouse traps in them, 18 per board on the front floorboards... My normal boards have 20 traps but that's one trap too wide to fit on the floorboards decent... With the amount of mouse crap on the floor of each I'm hoping it will catch a few of the bastages... I'm getting REAL tired of pulling the blower motors out, it takes an hour each time and last time on the green one I didn't even drive it between occupants... picture later, my phone was running the stereo and not in my pocket

My buddy has had huge success keeping the mice out of his crap by spraying it down with some mint spray. Idk how much he spent on it but probably too much lol.

A spray bottle full of water with some peppermint/spearmint/mint mint essential oil dumped in with just a touch of dawn dish soap will work just as good.

Apparently the minty oil smell for their little lungs is almost the equivalent of mustard gas for ours.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

My buddy has had huge success keeping the mice out of his crap by spraying it down with some mint spray. Idk how much he spent on it but probably too much lol.

A spray bottle full of water with some peppermint/spearmint/mint mint essential oil dumped in with just a touch of dawn dish soap will work just as good.

Apparently the minty oil smell for their little lungs is almost the equivalent of mustard gas for ours.

I wonder if that works on pack rats too?

 

[sgtsandman]

I wonder if that works on pack rats too?

If you put the trap board in a pack, sure.

 

[scotts90ranger]

Here's the pics from the last few days... starting with the grossness of the underside of the '90 Ranger... then how the transmission looked once it was out, then after pressurewashing...

Then there's one of the trap boards I made yesterday, right around 24 hours and I got 4 mice between two Explorers, one in the green and 3 in the white... on the white one one floorboard got one and the other two...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Well, Sunday and Monday I worked a bit on a friend’s car, got it fixed back up for her. Hated taking time away from my Ranger, but now that I did get away for a couple days I’m glad I did. I was getting pretty worked up over the Ranger and a couple days away from it helped. Still have to figure out how best to deal with a few things, mostly the driveshaft being too long and the ABS not working.

That all said, I’m home again in time for my sinus infection to come roaring back. It started yesterday again.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So I wasn’t really up for much of anything today but I did go investigate a couple things. First up was the turn signals, I de-pinned a plug on the truck and one of the new plugs and found the pins are actually different, so unfortunately there’s going to be some cut and splice I’m afraid.

Next was popping the MAF connector off and investigating. Connector is a 6 pin and MAF is a 4 pin, so that’s obviously why it wasn’t seeing the IAT, since it wasn’t there, there was no pins to plug to. No worries. @holyford86 gave me the answer to this riddle already. Popped out the two outermost pins that weren’t connected to anything and they get plugged into a separate IAT sensor which since my intake tube was from an Explorer with a separate IAT, it’s all plug n play. Pins are the same. I didn’t really need a new sensor since I had one, but I needed a pigtail and the cheapest way to get a pigtail was with a new sensor for $30 from Autozone. Well, I really just needed the plug, but that would require a junkyard trip, so…

That was as far as I got and I was miserable the whole time which wasn’t long. Hopefully I’ll be feeling a little better tomorrow.

 

[JoshT]

I picked up parts I probably shouldn;t have bought. I had a week moment last week and ordered a set of knock-off Torque Monster headers for a future engine swap. I hear that the OG is back making the TMs, but the time it take for production and the lack of communication makes me not want to support him. The OBx/Maximizer headers are probably not as good of quality and they are definitely too expensive for chinese knockoffs, but the real thing is too expensive too so... At least with the knock offs I'm not left wondering when or if I'm going to get anything, or getting pissed off about a lack of communication.

It'll be a year+ before I need them in the Ranger, but I've got a P-head 5.0L sitting on a first gen Ranger frame. Weather and workload permitting I'll atleast pull them out of the box this weekend and see if they fit to the engine half way decent.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I have a set of OBX headers that I've had for several years hoping to get them on the '00 Explorer, they look pretty impressive, no telling how they fit yet though...

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I was looking at the OBX until I found a slightly used set of Torque Monster for the same price as OBX (they literally look like they were bolted to a motor on a test stand, run for a test, taken off and put in the box they came in). That was too good of a deal to pass up. Really curious to see how they perform but they sound really good as open headers. They really cram those things in there though, I had to put the engine in with only one side on and even that was a really snug fit. After it was all done, I found that if I would have just removed the plastic fender liners I would have had plenty of access to easily bolt them in once the engine was in.

 

[thorsranger91]

Replaced battery cables and converted to single wire starter traced a pesky no crank to a broken post on solenoid...

 

[thorsranger91]

Replaced battery cables and converted to single wire starter traced a pesky no crank to a broken post on solenoid...

Also replaced starter obviously but she lives again. This Truck is temperamental

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Well, still not feeling good, but dragged myself out there and got after the Ranger again. Poked at the wiring in the front a bit, I have an idea of how I’m gonna handle this I’m just not happy about how the factory built the harness right now. Also got the center support for the header panel finally all worked out so it can get permanently fixed in place now.

Figured I’d see about the rear axle and all, so I started swapping out the bolts in the leaf springs for the right ones and why does it look like can I see through this shackle… tap with a hammer and get a big hole. Well, I guess I make a phone call… got the new shackle, got everything together with the springs and started jacking up the axle…

Annndddd… apparently this isn’t going to work out neatly. I hit the bump stops about the time it started to actually take weight off the jack stands under the frame. So apparently I’m going to have to do longer shackles and maybe shim wedges between the spring and spring perch and hope that’s enough or I might have to figure something else out. Full weight on the springs (or nearly so) gets the wheel close to centered in the wheel arch so that’s one concern that’s not as bad as originally anticipated.

Also gave dad a hand with surgically removing the last of his core support with some sawzall trimming

 

[DaveH]

Sounds about right, lousy hacks. Not sure who put the stereo in my F-150 before I got it, but there was taps, crimp butt splices that were smashed with pliers, wire nuts, twist n tape, and my favorite, the flat blade connectors that they only had one side to so they shoved the wire in and smashed with pliers. Somewhere I have pics of the disaster. No wonder the radio never worked right.

When I was 16 with my first vehicle my idea of wiring was to shove the wire into the fuse clip 63 Galaxie........... lol

 

[Vindictus]

When I was 16 with my first vehicle my idea of wiring was to shove the wire into the fuse clip 63 Galaxie........... lol

You mean I've been doing it wrong all this time