kishy's 1985 Ranger

[gadget73]

groove worn in the backing plate and hanging the shoe up? Often you can gently hit that with a grinder to get rid of the step so it works again. Not perfect, but better than nothing. replacement plates are the better solution

[kishy]

groove worn in the backing plate and hanging the shoe up? Often you can gently hit that with a grinder to get rid of the step so it works again. Not perfect, but better than nothing. replacement plates are the better solution

Yes. I had noticed it the first time I did the drums, then noticed its functional impact last time I did the drums, and now most recently I've seen it seems to be actually preventing the thing working properly.

The new ones at that price were an anomaly...new open box, half the price of any new sealed box offering out there. The fact they are still offered at all is very handy

Mine are very crusty so I'll be glad to have rust free backing plates.

This prompted me to look into availability of new backing plates for the Panthers, but unfortunately, it seems that our box Panthers are used as donors for wider drum upgrades on 60s-70s Ford products, so everyone who has the backing plates knows what they are and wants proper money for them, and there are no super old stock great deals to be had.

[kishy]

2020-01-17 through 20 inclusive:

new drum backing plates (painted)
new rear wheel bearings
new rear seals
new wheel cylinders, painted
diff cover needle scaled, glass blasted, primed and painted
reman brake booster (primed and painted). discovered reman put it together upside down, but it works, so no issue.
new brake master cylinder (90-94, enables delete of valve on frame rail, painted)
deleted valve on frame rail
all new brake hard lines (NiCopp)
new KYB Excel-G shocks all around (given a quick splash of Tremclad to keep them nice longer)

also painted a variety of parts for upcoming projects, like tie rod ends, adjusting sleeves, radius arm brackets

Got everything adjusted, filled and bled. Found excellent pedal feel and what feels like the correct brake bias, with the booster vac leak gone, so I checked all the boxes I was going for. The truck drives fantastic on the new shocks.

Pics: https://imgur.com/a/DtopEbs

Today, as mentioned in the junkyard thread, I picked up an aluminum contractor cap for the Ranger.

Pics: https://imgur.com/a/x1FKRQG

Need to fix some damage to the skin on the driver side, some hinge alignment issues, some latch hardware, put some lighting in it...other little things. But for $65 it's all I could have asked for and resolves a few issues the old cap had:
-the front window of the fiberglass cap is not the correct piece. it's just a piece of acrylic poorly cut to size which is also broken, and screwed in place.
-there are a couple water entry points that have proven resistant to being plugged
-the cap is incorrect for a Ranger and therefore had both length and width fitment issues
-fitment issues caused the cap to both interfere with the tailgate, as well as prevent the cap from locking the tailgate
-locking mechanism corroded and failing to work properly

[gadget73]

fitting cap fits.

Caps are useful, but I won't pretend I'm in love with the look. Good if you need the traction and dry semi-secure storage and transport for things that won't fit in the front seat.

[Giraffe]

I really like that little truck. Were you able to do anything about that super clean cab you mentioned in the junkyard thread?

[kishy]

The cap is not pretty, but I think particularly on the long box, it looks "right" to have a cap on it, and for the cap to be white. Something just works about it.

The fact it has the ladder rack is kind of cool. It does have cross bracing at a couple points, not just the two ends, which makes it a really big and therefore really versatile roof rack. Not that I couldn't carry things on the old one...that's how I got a Panther hood home one time, ratchet strapped down onto the top of the cap.

I suppose ideally I would have a van, perhaps an Aerostar cargo van with barn doors...but those are harder to come by and the Ranger has grown on me a lot.

The clean cab got crushed. It was going to cost about a thousand USD and between that and the headaches of needing to take ownership of the VIN (you call it title, we call it ownership) it was just not looking like a sensible project. Mine will be fine for a while but eventually it won't be, at which point it might become structurally framed with wood and spray foam...but we'll see. It's also worth noting that because this vehicle is intended to be a sacrifice to the salt, it being perfect would be a waste.

[Tiggie]

Salt sacrifice rides are tough cookies for enthusiasts. You spend time improving this and that, knowing that it will eventually be for naught. Secretly inside hoping that the salt sacrifice ride will not actually sacrifice, but live on forever protecting the other rides in the fleet...

That’s how it is for me anyway...

[GM_Guy]

The cap is not pretty, but I think particularly on the long box, it looks "right" to have a cap on it, and for the cap to be white. Something just works about it.

The fact it has the ladder rack is kind of cool. It does have cross bracing at a couple points, not just the two ends, which makes it a really big and therefore really versatile roof rack. Not that I couldn't carry things on the old one...that's how I got a Panther hood home one time, ratchet strapped down onto the top of the cap.

The good thing with that is that cap will support weight. The one on my truck I'm going to have to bolt it to the bed rails at the tailgate end since it is starting to spread out.

The clean cab got crushed. It was going to cost about a thousand USD and between that and the headaches of needing to take ownership of the VIN (you call it title, we call it ownership) it was just not looking like a sensible project. Mine will be fine for a while but eventually it won't be, at which point it might become structurally framed with wood and spray foam...but we'll see. It's also worth noting that because this vehicle is intended to be a sacrifice to the salt, it being perfect would be a waste.

Crossing the border with it as a purchase from a salvage yard shouldn't be an issue. If you have zero plans of selling your ranger, there are ways around the vin, legally, swapping the dashboard (where vin is attached) from old to new is acceptable, as thats the loophole jeep guys who switch to a fiberglass tub use. That said, cutting, weld a patch on the dash... nudge nudge wink wink keeps the hassle out of it.

[kishy]

Man, I need a LSD for this. Ranger, Bronco II, Aerostar, and some Mustangs can give me it when equipped appropriately. Truck has a 7.5 and I see no reason to go 8.8 with just a 2.3 in front of it. I'm also content with the gears it has, although technically I could afford to lose some top speed because it is capable of reaching ludicrous speed as it is. https://www.therangerstation.com/how...ag-door-codes/

[DerekTheGreat]

Wouldn't a rear end from a donor Ranger just swap in with perhaps a special U-joint? I put the GM locker rear end in Ashley's truck this past summer. Was just $99 and a weekend of labor + the evening of labor at the yard to get it out. You've taken transmissions out so you've got this in the bag.

[kishy]

Wouldn't a rear end from a donor Ranger just swap in with perhaps a special U-joint? I put the GM locker rear end in Ashley's truck this past summer. Was just $99 and a weekend of labor + the evening of labor at the yard to get it out. You've taken transmissions out so you've got this in the bag.

You are correct, however my 7.5 is known to be good, and the axle has new bearings. In either case, I need to replace the pinion seal (not putting a new axle housing in without doing that), so I guess it comes down to what PG would charge for the carrier. It isn't listed on the price list so I suppose it comes down to who cashes me out.

Interesting thing. The Ranger 8.8 uses bigger bearings than does the Panther 8.8. The Panther 8.8 axle uses the same bearings as the Ranger 7.5.

[DerekTheGreat]

That is an interesting thing.

I forgot to mention that I sold Ashley's old leaky (pinion seal) GM 10 bolt with it's doo-doo 3.08 gearing for $50. Awesome deal IMO. She gained a dual wheel peel and a hotter axle (3.42) for not a whole lot of scratch. Then I went and fumbled the brake job by NOT replacing the wheel cylinders back there and guess what hung up on me? Yep. Destroyed the backing plate as a result. Derek didn't want to deal with it (beyond sourcing a used backing plate from PG) so it got farmed out and I had everything replaced at that time, well seal wise. So that was a bit spendy but cost us less than having a trak-lok "professionally" installed in my Town Car.

So rant summary is: Sell your good 7.5 when you're done! We got our axle at that yard in Ponticrack. Plenty of trucks over there, it's overwhelming really.

[kishy]

Those with a good memory for unimportant details may remember I bought a set of doors in the junkyard with the intent of taking their vent windows, back in October. I took the whole doors because I didn't have adequate tools to take the glass out, and even if I could have managed to, I wasn't sure how much hardware differed between doors with and doors without.

I also purchased new dew wipes and window channels (sold as molded application-specific parts for this) because I figured I'd either damage or want to replace those on the truck.

Tonight, decided to tackle this as I've gotten tired of seeing the extra doors hanging around.













Success, I'd say. The weatherstrip items were 100% necessary so it's good I had them. Those rivets kind of suck to deal with. Here's hoping threadlocked double-nutted bolts will do the job adequately.

Removing all potentially useful hardware from the extra doors then they'll go in the scrap heap. They have no value as auto parts, just scrap metal.

This makes my only vehicle without vent windows the '91, and I intend to eventually do it to that as well...someday.

[gadget73]

I remember being involved with doing this on a Vic, and it was similarly irritating but not exactly hard. I don't remember if screws or rivets were used to re-install the glass. I've since bought one of those big rivet guns specifically for doing door lock solenoids and other such things.

[kishy]

Moar threadbumps.

After putting LEDs in the wagon, I moved on to the Ranger. I had swapped the Ranger bulb sockets to 3157 some time ago, so I'm using 3157 replacements in this instead of 1157 as would be factory. They perform like the wagon (perhaps better due to better condition housings), very decent, pleased with results. Video will be in the trailer thread.

The trailer is what prompted me to buy LEDs at all, because I didn't want any incandescent bulbs on the trailer (current draw reasons). The trailer also required a license plate lamp housing/lens. The plan became: buy new ones for the Ranger itself, move one of the take-offs to the trailer, then the other take-off goes in the box of spares.

However, while working on it, I disturbed the wiring to the license plate lights, and they stopped working. After some inspection I found the 'black death' had worsened in the already-twice-repaired wiring for these lamps so I decided to redo them entirely. Found sockets in my stash of bits, used new wire and went to town. Functional result has been achieved. The Ultinon 194 LEDs are very effective in them as well.









Annoyingly the Dorman license plate lights are absolutely the correct piece but the opening for the socket to go in is sized/keyed wrong, requiring a little hackery on the rubbery sockets to make them fit. Not the end of the world but very irritating as it's supposed to be an application-specific part.

There is an interesting phenomenon with the Ranger versus LED lighting. With the key in run and all lighting turned off, there is a small amount of voltage leak into the brake light circuit. If the signal is turned on, the leak goes away for that side, so the voltage leak is being inserted after the ignition switch, before the turn signal switch (or maybe integral to the turn signal switch). It's a strange problem for sure because the brake light circuit itself is unaffected by the key: brake lights always work. Therefore the problem is not the brake light switch itself, as if it was, the leak would exist all the time. The result is that the full brightness mode of the LED brake lights will be lit extremely dimly (too dim to see during the day, but can be seen at night) when the key is on and lights are off.