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

[Rick W]

65 more miles till 30k. I keep thinking I will look down and its past but the miles are slowly crawling by since I no longer drive to work or really go anywhere.


I was just telling my wife I feel like we dont need our spare car anymore since we are both retired. We are just paying for insurance for it to sit. We put less then 5k miles a year on it the past 5 years but she says we should keep it in case the ranger or wrangler break down. We really dont even need 2 cars

I’m trying to wrap my head around getting rid of my 96 F250. It’s diesel, four-wheel-drive, automatic, and it’s absolutely cherry. It’s got about 130,000 miles on it now, and most of its life it was in a garage. I don’t think I’ve driven in 10,000 miles since I got hurt in 2014, with less miles each year. I’ve been keeping it because I love it, and because there’s nothing like that F250 four-wheel-drive 7.3 diesel on the rare occasions I have to do something heavy duty.

The problem is, it’s not in the garage anymore, and the last few times I went to use it, with months in between, I had a problem that was almost certainly because it was just sitting around outside. We don’t have the salt like up north, but we do get dripping dew from the humidity and temperature changes through most of the year.

I haven’t been thinking of getting rid of it until lately, but with what I’m doing on my property, it’s been left parked in front of my house and anybody going by knows that nobody’s using it, so I’ve had a steady stream of guys who come off the street who want to buy it. Of course they’re not offering any kind of serious money. Then I had two different guys who made me very serious offers creeping up on $20,000. That will make you think, and I’ve also realized, I can rent a truck for pennies if I need to do something heavy duty

Before anybody says “I’ll take it!” if I do get rid of it, it will go to my son for his business. The problem there is he’s a 1000 miles away, so once it goes, while it will still be good for the family, it’s not like I could borrow it on the weekend.

I don’t have to worry about money, but it’s always a pain in the ass when you go to use it and it’s not running right. And then why have it?

 

[Rick W]

I finally put the driver side tie rod end on the Missing Linc. It fits a lot better than the passenger side end I ordered by accident. It was only a couple dollars more to get the pair, so now the ones on the truck are in good shape, and I have two spare passenger side ends. That’s how you build a shed of miracles. It was also running a little rough with a high idle, but that was just a vacuum line that had come loose.

Driving at night was becoming an issue because I still had the 1980s 4 x 6 square headlights in it. Someone told me since they are filament bulbs, the filament just burns off overtime, and they get dimmer. I was thinking it was something with the wiring. I got a 4-pack of high low LED headlights for about 30 bucks and I put them in.

HOLY CRAP those things are bright!!! Of course all you guys east of the Mississippi probably knew that from when I turned it on a couple days ago. But I don’t like the way they look in the Lincoln Grill, so I’m already planning on getting the glass housing, and converting them to the bulbs like the F250 users.

I’ve had a hard time adjusting them, until I realized that those LED lights don’t sit in the stainless bezel flush. It seems like three corners drop down, but one corner doesn’t drop down, so all four are pointing in different directions. I fiddled with it, but I’m going to have to take them apart and probably grind down those stainless bezels a little bit. The problem with that is the way I did that whole Lincoln grill, you have to take the Lincoln grill apart to get at them. So I’ll probably order the glass housings without the bulbs, and then round up some bulbs and sockets from the scrapyard. Project for another day.

The weather has finally broken down here, so I can ride around in that jewel with the windows down in comfort. Lincoln’s favorite. I hope to get the new air-conditioning parts in over the winter, so it’s cold next summer. Another project for another day.

But it’s running better than ever, and I can actually see where I’m going now.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I finally put the driver side tie rod end on the Missing Linc. It fits a lot better than the passenger side end I ordered by accident. It was only a couple dollars more to get the pair, so now the ones on the truck are in good shape, and I have two spare passenger side ends. That’s how you build a shed of miracles. It was also running a little rough with a high idle, but that was just a vacuum line that had come loose.

Driving at night was becoming an issue because I still had the 1980s 4 x 6 square headlights in it. Someone told me since they are filament bulbs, the filament just burns off overtime, and they get dimmer. I was thinking it was something with the wiring. I got a 4-pack of high low LED headlights for about 30 bucks and I put them in.

View attachment 149428

HOLY CRAP those things are bright!!! Of course all you guys east of the Mississippi probably knew that from when I turned it on a couple days ago. But I don’t like the way they look in the Lincoln Grill, so I’m already planning on getting the glass housing, and converting them to the bulbs like the F250 users.

I’ve had a hard time adjusting them, until I realized that those LED lights don’t sit in the stainless bezel flush. It seems like three corners drop down, but one corner doesn’t drop down, so all four are pointing in different directions. I fiddled with it, but I’m going to have to take them apart and probably grind down those stainless bezels a little bit. The problem with that is the way I did that whole Lincoln grill, you have to take the Lincoln grill apart to get at them. So I’ll probably order the glass housings without the bulbs, and then round up some bulbs and sockets from the scrapyard. Project for another day.

The weather has finally broken down here, so I can ride around in that jewel with the windows down in comfort. Lincoln’s favorite. I hope to get the new air-conditioning parts in over the winter, so it’s cold next summer. Another project for another day.

But it’s running better than ever, and I can actually see where I’m going now.

Seeing is good.