jhammel85
Guest
Finally starting a build thread as the truck is finally starting to wind down on it's daily driver duty. I bought this truck as a project / daily driver and after about 5 years and 80k, it's paid me back ten fold. It's part of the family now. It's been a reliable daily driver, it's helped at least 8 families move, it's gotten us through floods, snow and it's become my son's favorite thing in the world.
I've owned this truck since December of 2009 and it's been my main mode of transportation and now has about 200k on it. Not too much trouble just typical old truck stuff. These first few posts will bring you up to speed where I am now.
I bought it in Bear DE after someone apparently traded it in to a small, father/son dealership. I would of loved to see it before they did the body work, if you want to call it that. It definitely wasn't a looker. The truck lived it's life around New Castle DE before I owned it and brought it over to Jersey. Clean car fax even though it has an odd break in the late nineties. I think it sat for a while and probably had a trans issues. from what I've read on the trans tag and the governor, The trans is an '85. Knowing the previous owner, it was a junkyard trans due to the fact that I've found tons and tons of junk yard receipts for parts on this truck dating back a while. I found them under the seat.
Here are some pictures from when I first got it:
Anyway, I bought it for $1,200 like this with fresh paint (and terrible bondo / body work). It was solid and tight for what it was. 136k on the clock and everything worked. All I had to deal with at first were some stupid previous owner fixes. I've had everything from burn wires with aligator clips clipping into a burned and melted coil when I got it to strange spacers here and there, tape, Fuel filters falling off due to lack of clips and just duct tape, staples in a radiator hose to hold the clamp on, No brake shoe hardware on the passenger side rear drum, broken bolts and just overall terrible, terrible fixes that I've had to deal with. Poor truck....
First thing I did was pull out the dead A/C. It wasn't working at all and one line had a hole in it. In retrospect, I should of kept it in and replaced a few things. Then I grabbed a '92 bumper for it. I also replaced the TFI when it gave up on me, like all TFI's and I got a new pig tail and coil. When the TFI failed, I found that the previous owner had been there and had broken off a screw and the other one was rounded. So out came the distributor....
After a few months, July 2010, I got a new set of wheels and tires for the truck. The old tires were literally 10 years old so they had to go. I threw on some 30 x 9.5's that are still on the truck now.
Ebay cheapy lights.
In Dec 2010, My son was born. This was a gift given to me by a friend of mine (and a fellow ranger lover) for his room:
Around this time...The fenders started to go. When I was checking out the truck, I put a magnet on the fenders and it fell off. The guy selling it said "yeeaahh...We had ta' use some bondo there....." I had no idea what was really going on under there. I just knew it was bad.
In Sept 2011, I had a few issues with body mounts either being rusted completely or the bushing itself being rotted. So out they came....With Poly Bushings, some new metal where needed and a 3" Body Lift. Why not? I was already in there replacing those bushings anyway. I'm very happy with it. Yes, it's not suspension but it's made my life easier on many occasions. No more rubbing tires every now and then either. I don't take the truck offroad to anything crazy because I need to rely on it traveling 60 miles a day but when I have ragged on it offroad, it's been great.
I've owned this truck since December of 2009 and it's been my main mode of transportation and now has about 200k on it. Not too much trouble just typical old truck stuff. These first few posts will bring you up to speed where I am now.
I bought it in Bear DE after someone apparently traded it in to a small, father/son dealership. I would of loved to see it before they did the body work, if you want to call it that. It definitely wasn't a looker. The truck lived it's life around New Castle DE before I owned it and brought it over to Jersey. Clean car fax even though it has an odd break in the late nineties. I think it sat for a while and probably had a trans issues. from what I've read on the trans tag and the governor, The trans is an '85. Knowing the previous owner, it was a junkyard trans due to the fact that I've found tons and tons of junk yard receipts for parts on this truck dating back a while. I found them under the seat.
Here are some pictures from when I first got it:
Anyway, I bought it for $1,200 like this with fresh paint (and terrible bondo / body work). It was solid and tight for what it was. 136k on the clock and everything worked. All I had to deal with at first were some stupid previous owner fixes. I've had everything from burn wires with aligator clips clipping into a burned and melted coil when I got it to strange spacers here and there, tape, Fuel filters falling off due to lack of clips and just duct tape, staples in a radiator hose to hold the clamp on, No brake shoe hardware on the passenger side rear drum, broken bolts and just overall terrible, terrible fixes that I've had to deal with. Poor truck....
First thing I did was pull out the dead A/C. It wasn't working at all and one line had a hole in it. In retrospect, I should of kept it in and replaced a few things. Then I grabbed a '92 bumper for it. I also replaced the TFI when it gave up on me, like all TFI's and I got a new pig tail and coil. When the TFI failed, I found that the previous owner had been there and had broken off a screw and the other one was rounded. So out came the distributor....
After a few months, July 2010, I got a new set of wheels and tires for the truck. The old tires were literally 10 years old so they had to go. I threw on some 30 x 9.5's that are still on the truck now.
Ebay cheapy lights.
In Dec 2010, My son was born. This was a gift given to me by a friend of mine (and a fellow ranger lover) for his room:
Around this time...The fenders started to go. When I was checking out the truck, I put a magnet on the fenders and it fell off. The guy selling it said "yeeaahh...We had ta' use some bondo there....." I had no idea what was really going on under there. I just knew it was bad.
In Sept 2011, I had a few issues with body mounts either being rusted completely or the bushing itself being rotted. So out they came....With Poly Bushings, some new metal where needed and a 3" Body Lift. Why not? I was already in there replacing those bushings anyway. I'm very happy with it. Yes, it's not suspension but it's made my life easier on many occasions. No more rubbing tires every now and then either. I don't take the truck offroad to anything crazy because I need to rely on it traveling 60 miles a day but when I have ragged on it offroad, it's been great.
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