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

[Rick W]

And afterthought, but my cousin and her husband visited relatives in Poland the week before, and they were over the Atlantic when this all happened. They diverted all those planes to Gander, Newfoundland, Canada, and they were there for eight days. They stayed in a couple’s house with a couple other couples, nobody knew each other when it started, and they’re still friends to this day.

 

[JohnnyO]

Changed the oil and filter.

 

[BIGTIRE]

I took it out for a 30 mile cruise with the intent of just checking all the gauges, temperatures and pressures and seeing what's up with the new ride. Everything looks good from what I'm seeing. I'll post the gauges tomorrow. Plus...it was a shit-ton-o-fun

 

[scotts90ranger]

Did a tractor pull in the explorer on Saturday, good ol time, actually the wife went first then my friends daughter in their hooptie jeep then me... I got first, jeep second and I don't remember where the Frontier, square body chevy or the wife fit in after that but I know who does the books so I can find out. Bent the drop hitch I had in upside down to get the height right at the maximum...

 

[scotts90ranger]

Ok, the stats are on the website, turns out my Explorer got first and last lol. I beat my buddies Jeep by 23' and beat the wife by just shy of 53' so there's a big difference in how you launch apparently...

 

[Roert42]

Okay, here goes.

Do you know why Italians don’t like to ride in a helicopter?


The front goes wop wop wop and the back goes ginnee ginnee ginnee…

Hey, I’m Polish, I earned the right

All in fun, the cute little brunette is as Italian as the day is long, and I love it!

What sound does an Italian car make when it gets a flat tire?








wop wop wop wop wop wop wop...................

 

[Roert42]

I finally figured out when I had been having issues with the abs for the past 6 years. I would get dropped pulses on the front left WSS when driving. I thought there was an issue with the wheel bearing causing the clearances to bee too large.

Turns out the tone ring was just poorly designed on the rotor that was installed. The hole spacing was not evenly spaced.


I ended up replacing the front brakes, rotors, wheel bearings.

 

[ekrampitzjr]

Changed the passenger's-side timing-chain tensioner. Easy-peasy after removing the inner fender liner. I have a 27 mm 75° offset box-end wrench on order that I suspect will be just the tool needed to get the driver's-side tensioner without removing the temperature sensor. I can grind the wrench to fit if needed.

I primed the tensioner before installation and used the ignition-cutout protocol when starting (floor the accelerator pedal while turning the ignition key) until the oil light went out. Took only a few seconds before the light went out.

The Ranger will turn over 200,000 miles (320 000 km) this week.

 

[ekrampitzjr]

Forgot to mention that on Saturday I removed the rusted passenger's-side running board and its brackets. Chrome-plated running boards were installed as a factory option when the truck was built.

This one was rusted so badly that I would soon have been concerned about it failing when someone stepped on it to enter the truck. The driver's side so far is showing little rust by comparison, so I'm leaving it on for now. The chrome-plated boards are rust-prone even in areas that don't use a lot of salt in the winter as I've seen several other Rangers with these rusted.

When I looked at the brackets a few years ago, I had the impression that Ford had attached them using some of the critical body bolts. Turned out this wasn't true, and the brackets used dedicated bolts that did not affect anything else when removed.

The brackets needed to be removed because they project from the side and could conceivably injure someone who walks too close to the truck. The rear bracket was a pain to remove because the bolt threads had been coated with blue thread-locker, and for two of the four bolts there was no room for an impact driver. Ford had done its common practice of using too long a bolt, which meant several more complete turns of the socket wrench with a lot of hand force to remove the two problem bolts.

The front bracket was easy with an impact driver because just two nuts held it. I reinstalled the nuts on the studs, which are attached to the same piece of metal that is trapped in a channel and cannot be removed without major surgery to the truck. Reinstalling allowed immobilizing that piece of metal to prevent a rattle.

Even if I had wanted to keep running boards, no aftermarket one in searches uses the factory brackets. Aftermarket ones all use proprietary brackets that have to be installed by drilling holes. A few years ago Ford still had available the replacement factory chrome board, but the end caps were not available and dealers wanted $1,000 for the board alone. Now stock has been depleted and the board discontinued.

The board was rusted junk, but I have kept the brackets anyway just in case. If any of you want the two right-side brackets, let me know and I'll send them for the cost of postage/shipping. My Ranger is a four-door SuperCab, and IIRC the rear bracket is different from the one for the two-door SuperCab.

 

[mtnrgr]

Drove it for a bit today to get it out for a stretch.

Recently received the oem camshaft synchronizer and oem camshaft sensor. This truck has 91,000 miles on it now, and needed to have these for when I do need them replaced. These are obsolete thru ford, and no where has oem ones available. I searched on ebay and found a seller with 2 nos oem cam synchronizers..I bought one. Searched for a oem sensor, and found nothing. Then I researched what other ford engines used the 3 plug sensor. Behold the 97-02 f150s used them. I found a nos oem one for a 2001 f150. I now have oem parts for my 97 3.0 5spd ranger. I've read thru the years aftermarket ones are garbage..even more now these days those parts are garbage. I will keep the originals going for as long as they will last.