kishy's 1985 Ranger

[kishy]

is the core plumbing on this one different than a typical car engine, or no? I'd expect decent heat if the engine gets hot enough to open the thermostat, which it sounds like it does if the rad hose is hot. Unless it just doesn't get good flow through the core for whatever reason.

The same. It didn't come to me with a water outlet, so I got a junkyard one, and the heater core supply comes off the side of that adjacent to the thermostat.

The inlet from the heater core was present when I got the engine. It tees off a pipe that goes to the inlet to the water pump.

[gadget73]

could just be the way they plumb it you don't get good flow through the core. I'm not going to pretend to know enough about that engine design to know for sure. A friend of mine had a Capri a long while ago with a 2.3 and I don't remember it having particularly lousy heat, but it doesn't typically get below the 20s here either. Its also been more than 20 years since he had that car.

I wonder if the tee should have a slight restriction on one side of it to force flow through the core instead of around it. Sometimes vacuum plumbing is done that way with tees or connectors that have a particular orifice size. Maybe if you ever get truly bored, see if that part changed at some point over the years to one that has a flow restrictor.

[DerekTheGreat]

The heat in my '94 Lima powered Ranger was decent as I drove along. However, in stop and go driving, it would cool off substantially. Or while waiting for someone in their driveway or parked out front of some place for five minutes or more. Try putting cardboard in front of the radiator or portions of it, it'll help.

[GM_Guy]

Nothing unusual about how the heater hoses are routed. How easy is it to get the blower out? I find it curious that airflow gets significantly restricted when you set it to recirc. If you have not looked, see if somebody in the trucks past life taped off the recirc intake thinking it was a hole. Have you ever had the plenum out? Heater core sealed to the box with some foam tape? (I left that out of the mgm when I pulled the core, caused a massive cold car, redid it and foam taped around any gaps around the core and got more heat than I knew what to do with).

Alex.

[kishy]

It is entirely possible the foam is degraded or absent. Heater core was replaced right before I bought it, and if fan speed is on the lowest setting, the vent temperatures are properly hot, and the faster I set the fan, the cooler the air. I was working on the assumption that the faster air speed was removing the heat from the coolant too effectively for the amount of heat present to begin with, however, if the air seal around the core isn't there, the air might just be going around the core (where it will get warm but not hot because it's not there long enough).

I'll see how easily I can get eyes in there. There is heater core access without removing the dash but since I want to inspect the hinges and remove any trapped leaves, perhaps I should go a little more in depth.

I haven't figured out where the air intake even is for recirc mode.

As an example...with grille blocked 100% tonight, temperature 17F plus a nasty windchill, the gauge will creep up on 180 but not any higher (but 180 will give good hot heat). However the heat is still weak. So indeed it's looking more like a problem inside the plenum, either with doors, intake path, heater core...

[GM_Guy]

Looks like its easy to see above the passenger feet;

And seriously jealous of that easy r&r core!

Alex.

[DerekTheGreat]

...if fan speed is on the lowest setting, the vent temperatures are properly hot, and the faster I set the fan, the cooler the air. I was working on the assumption that the faster air speed was removing the heat from the coolant too effectively for the amount of heat present to begin with...

Your issues aside, you are correct lol. This is why I typically run the blower on anything but high in whatever I'm driving, unless I'm trying to defog the windshield.

Looks like its easy to see above the passenger feet;

And seriously jealous of that easy r&r core!

Alex.

1987-1996 F series trucks are just as easy, if not easier to do. Remove the glove box door and you can change one in less than 30 minutes. This is coming from a guy who easily spends 3x the amount of time to do something compared to the next guy.

[kishy]

Heater core is not obstructed by leaves, and air plenum design is such that no foam is needed, air cannot move past it. There are foam pieces at the top and bottom but the sides don't use any.

Upon closer inspection, some disassembly, and some head-scratching, I realized that there is no recirculate function. The lever labeled "outside air" is in fact the "air on/off" flap, and if it is closed, there is no air source for the blower to suck in. So that would be why 1. the air speed drops considerably when it is closed and 2. the blower vacuum seems to be able to pull it open on higher speeds.

I found the (plastic) wall behind the flap that faces the interior and drilled a bunch of holes, so now when the air flap is closed, it does actually recirculate air from the passenger footwell. It basically works like a Panther recirc door now instead of a Ranger dumbass outside air flap. On higher fan speeds it still pulls the flap open partially but that's fine, at least recirculation can actually happen now. Test drive yielded excellent heat with the door in the recirc position so it seems likely that all my heat issues just come back to it being well below freezing outside, probably plus a coolant flow factor, e.g. super cold air comes in, almost all of the available heat currently in the heater core is transferred to the air, leaving no more available, and coolant flow is maybe too slow to sustain the heater core temperature.

If I were to take a guess, A/C equipped models probably have a recirculate vent in exactly the spot I drilled the holes.

[gadget73]

When all else fails, modify it so it doesn't suck.

[DerekTheGreat]

When all else fails, modify it so it doesn't suck.

"She's gone from suck to blow!"

[kishy]

Story time, kids. Gather 'round.

Going back a bit...prior to the engine swap I had noticed a symptom where the radio would continue to function after turning the truck off. I attributed this to a bad ignition switch and replaced it during the engine swap. Bear in mind the truck was not wired for a radio, so I made my own constant and switched power sources. Constant comes through the firewall from a retrofit fuse panel I installed in 2015 and switched comes from an unused position in the interior fuse panel that is hot with key in run or acc.

For the last several months the truck has had battery drain issues. Very minor, so when the thing is driven regularly, you never really see it. But since I now have a take-home company car I've been driving the truck maybe only 2 days a week, and the battery issue has become more prominent, where it'll be flat dead on a weekly basis.

The alternator I put in during the engine swap did genuinely fail (suspect bad diode based on how it behaved). Since that type of alternator failure can also drain your battery, I assumed it was going to fix my problem. I have since found that it did not.

Today, measured current draw off a fully charged spare battery. 0.61A. That's...uh...high.
Disconnected charge cable and regulator, no change, that rules out the alternator.
Yanked all the main power distribution fuses in the engine bay fuse panel (which includes the computer), it went down to about 0.4...still high.
Revisited the wiring I did in 2015 to add some circuits for aux lighting, 12V sockets, and the radio. Found it. A relay was passing current from the 12V supply terminal, to the positive relay coil terminal, effectively back-feeding power into the accessory circuit when the key is off. The body of the relay was warm. The current draw appears to have been the radio since it was getting not only its constant feed, but also its switched feed (it only has a "soft off").

I feel reasonably accomplished. Of course, I didn't re-measure after I got everything put back together, so maybe I'll find another surprise soon, but that seems to have done it for now.

---

I decided the Ranger is going to have a proper hitch. It isn't a good tow vehicle by any standard, but I do have half of a Ranger with a tongue attached, and small utility trailers are nice to have access to, as well as hitch-mount bike carriers. So I went looking for a hitch.

RockAuto, Amazon, some other vendors, then it dawned on me...U-Haul. Most of their hitches are Curt units just with U-Haul's logo on them; there's nothing wrong with them at all. My local corporate location had one, so no shipping, just $150 Canadian plus tax and it was mine. Install looks dead simple as all holes needed already exist in my frame. And yes, the frame is solid enough. While I was at it, I picked up a Class II (better than nothing) for the Lincoln, so it can be equipped with the same amenities...bike carrier being a primary goal there. Same thing, $150 plus tax, and they had it on-hand. Both hitches were tagged "do not reorder", which is maybe unsurprising considering both applications are now long-discontinued vehicles.

Finally had enough of my tachometer just sitting on the dash, rolling around. Made a little bracket out of galvanized plumbing strap (the lesser-known handyman's secret weapon) and got that sorted out. Also finally stuck the little adhesive pads in place to get the dash cam USB power cable out of the way. Little things, but they matter.

[94Magna_Tom]

Nice days accomplishments. How does U-Haul sell hitches? Do they sell everything they rent, or do they just have certain items (old beat) for sale? Let's see the trailer hitches when you get a chance!

[87gtVIC]

They relay was defective?

[kishy]

Nice days accomplishments. How does U-Haul sell hitches? Do they sell everything they rent, or do they just have certain items (old beat) for sale? Let's see the trailer hitches when you get a chance!

U-Haul sells (and normally installs) hitches. They were willing to sell them to me minus installation ($70 Canadian), and because they were in stock locally, no shipping charge to send them directly to my house (also $70 Canadian). There's a link to a pic of them in the bed of the truck, click on the text 'Class II' in my last reply.

They relay was defective?

It wasn't, but it became so. I installed it in a manner and location that caused it to get rain water inside it. Solution was eliminating it, as the load it was switching is a secondary fuse panel I've never even used yet, so the relay won't be missed lol.

[BigMerc96]

Nice days accomplishments. How does U-Haul sell hitches? Do they sell everything they rent, or do they just have certain items (old beat) for sale? Let's see the trailer hitches when you get a chance!

You can walk into almost any UHaul and buy a hitch. They install them at a lot of locations, so they have a full selection of them and they do usually come from Curt. Whenever looking for a hitch, its worth it to at least give them a call, their prices usually aren't all that bad and they can get them ordered and in stock pretty quickly. Their installations do very widely on location, I've seen UHaul installs that looked factory (my Dad's old Econoline), and I've seen some where the wiring they did makes you go "WTF?" (neighbor's truck). But as far as the hitches themselves, they are perfectly fine.