Long Term '87 Ranger 4x4 Project Build Thread

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.

In 2012, I decided that I couldn't take the rear bumper gap any more from the 3" BL. I tried figuring out a way to make the bumper work. Welding? Cutting?....I gave up and ended up really liking the look of a roll pan. It's a gamble because you've got no protection from cars, trees or whatever. But I wanted the truck to look clean so.......





Finished. Not sure why, but if you look hard enough, these photos make the bottom corner look funny on one side. It's not like this in person or any other pictures.




It came out great! Built my confidence a bit because it was my first time welding sheet metal. I did make one major mistake...About half way through welding it in, I realized that it was february and about 30 degrees out. It was tough painting the sealer on it and getting the bondo to do much but it all worked out great.

2012:






I noticed that my tailgate rubbed..Not good. My roll pan might be a tad too high. This is something I still haven't dealt with. I plan to replace the tailgate since it's beatup badly from it's previous life. Regardless, this has to be dealt with before paint. I think I need to either cut it out and lower it or try to adjust the tailgate or something. Honestly, I feel fine cutting it out and putting it back in again. ugh....




In 2013, we got a house. Finally! No more apartments or rental homes. So...



Here it is in it's new home. I forsee a lot of cussing being done in this garage..it looks snug but it's not. It's a nice roomy garage. No more having to do it at my parent's house.



My sister had a tree fall down. I got the wood for bonfires.

I made a boo-boo doing U joints while I was replacing the pinion seal on my truck. Figures... The U-joints were OK but I wanted to replace them because I had them.


I started having issues going from 1st to 2nd gear. It was delayed...so I dropped the transfer case and replaced the governor with one out of a '94 explorer and put on a heavier 35mm weight. Good to go.





Had a shock mount break and nearly get me into an accident in the rain.





The craigar's I put on the truck started rusting heavily. No matter how much wax or time I put into them, the winter salt just destroyed them. So I decided to do something about it...I plastidipped them. See my thread for a How to: http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=145581







2014..Most recent pics:




Now this is happening. The rust is gaining ground:



And... Theres the ground.



There's also some starting on the passenger side fender near the bottom corner near the bumper. I don't have a pic of that. The doors have always had some bubbling too. Lets hope I can find some Vent Wing Window Doors around here for sale. I'd love to have them.

Valve covers were leaking like crazy so they were done along with some general engine bay clean up. How's this for 200k!?

So that's about where I am now. The truck has been used every other week since I started carpooling with my brother in law. It give me more time to give the truck the attention it needs. In a few months, I'll be buying a small car to commute and let this finally be the project truck that's used for fun and work when a truck is needed.

Soon I'll be replacing body panels and replacing a lot of the suspension bushings. I'm planning to do the radius arm bushings this weekend. The side with the Cat got cooked and the bushings gone. Next up will be an add a leaf in the back along with new leaf bushings. They're trashed...The truck wags its tail on big bumps. I'm hoping to gain an inch or two of lift too.

Outside of those things, the truck will also get leveling coils, wheel arches welded in (just got them), new bushings and ball joints throughout the front end, tie rods and everything else you can think of under there. New U joints in the front axle, spindle bearings and seal as well. I also need to figure out what i should do to raise the front bumper.

Also, thanks to Bladerunner123, I'm the EXTREMELY happy owner of this:




I'll update what I do from here on out. It's nice to finally start this and I'm very much looking forward to finally tackling the bodywork and getting this truck pretty again. It's paid it's dues in being an awesome daily driver.

I don't why, but the gen I body style just does it for me, over all other generations. Great story! Beautiful truck!

Thank you! I appreciate it. I love the first gens. I just love fords from the early to mid eighties. The bullnose full sizes are awesome.

First and last gen.

yep...I'd personally pick the gen I.

by the way: how's the platidip holding up? For my rims I plan on polishing the aluminum and painting in between to give it a spoked look...not sure whether to go plastidip black or use the black pearl I bought for the hood...

Definitely do it. Its been holding strong for a year. Through a very harsh winter too. I wanted it glossy so i used clear coat. Otherwise its flat black.

Welding in my fenders, i found an artifact. Check out the chunk of bondo. Time to go bludgeon the previous owner with it....by the way, thats milk jug plastic and screws holding it in.




Overall the rust stopped pretty evenly. Now to cut it out and weld in the new steel. Super excited about this! Its a very long time coming.

good lord...I was always under the impression that bondo was body filler, not body replacement.

So is everyone else who knows what they're doing. Terrible isn't it?

Done one side..

Well things are moving along well. Taking my time cleaning everything up, filling in missing spots (pinholes) from welding...

When I did my roll pan, I primed it then I used sealer. I still had a lot of rust on it. This weekend, I got the primer and sealer off and re did it. I converted the black spots left from the rust with a converter and I primed it. If i'm not mistaken, I should now use Primer Sealer......Is there any pointers I should use here? Basically, my plan is to seal the body work as I do it, one piece at a time. I'm hoping that when all is said and done, and I'm prepping for paint, the primer hasn't absorbed any moisture. Does this sound OK? If I daily drove a truck that's been primed and sealed for a year, should I expect to have these same results again? I'd hate to do it all over again... I even tbought about putting a coat of rattle can paint on top until its ready for me to sand it down for the final bodywork and paint.

The sealer will be used in the end no matter what to give me the best paint finish possible. It's gotta have something to grab onto. I'm just worried about rust creeping back in or screwing up my future paint job.

Either way, The fender is looking good. I'm feeling pretty proud sinxe its my first panel but I'll feel better after everything is clean and primed up nice and smooth. It feels good to do something for fun for once and not just a repair.

now to wet sand and get this side over with!

Next up are radius arm bushings, leaf bushings, add a leafs and leveling coils for the front. One piece at a time...

I also got wind of a set of rust free vent wing window doors. Fingers crossed, ill be getting them soon.