'85 Ranger Restomod

85_Ranger4x4 said:

Steering wheel on-off switch does nothing on the ohm meter when the on button is pressed. So I get out the volt meter (next step in the service manual) It calls for approximately 7.8V at the switch with the key on, I have 7.7 so I think I am good there. When the on button is pressed it should go to 12v when the cruise is armed... and mine does nothing. So I think I need a switch, so that is on ice for awhile until one turns up in a yard.

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Did you ever figure this out?

I actually ran into the same problem on my cruise control install earlier today. Your truck may not be the same, but I wasn't getting 12v at the amplifier when pressing 'On' either, but I was getting 7.8. Turns out the power for that comes from the horn relay, it's a yellow and green wire. The yellow and blue supplies power to the relay and the dark blue one powers the horn itself.

If yours is different then.... Idk.

I bought a NOS switch, everything works fine at the steering wheel switches (and everywhere really) but the cruise is still inop.

Out of all of it I did finally get the horn to work though so I did gain a little ground.

85_Ranger4x4 said:

I bought a NOS switch, everything works fine at the steering wheel switches (and everywhere really) but the cruise is still inop.

Out of all of it I did finally get the horn to work though so I did gain a little ground.

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Hmm. Well then I'm stumped. Did you test the servo and make sure it pulls the throttle cable when applying power and ground to the correct pins? I did that test when mine wasn't working and found the first servo was bad and I replaced it with another from the pick n pull that works great.

BlackBII said:

Hmm. Well then I'm stumped. Did you test the servo and make sure it pulls the throttle cable when applying power and ground to the correct pins? I did that test when mine wasn't working and found the first servo was bad and I replaced it with another from the pick n pull that works great.

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Did it first with the throttle disconnected because I didn't want my engine to run away if something messed up. Worked great. Got to thinking maybe it didn't have enough power to pull the carb open with the throttle springs and such so I ran it again fully hooked up and it still worked perfectly. I nabbed another connector/pigtail from a different truck to test the servo with since on mine it is kind of tucked up against the fender.

Aside from the amplifier the only thing I am not sure of is the brake pedal switch stuff. Everything newer has that all tied into to the engine harness, it comes up on the passenger side of the engine and is woven in a harness that snakes across the top of the engine. I can see it on the diagram but I don't know where exactly it goes and how it gets there in real life. I have never found a 2.8/'85 truck with cruise to compare. I left it unhooked thinking it is only needed to kill the cruise and for experimentation I could either hit the off button or shut the truck off if anything goes wrong.

Pretty much every vehicle I have found so far is like my '88 donor where that wire is in with the speed sensor in the same connector. My '85 only had two wires for the speed sensor in that connector so that wiring was ran differently. (for some reason my truck already had the speed sensor and the harness running up to the engine bay in it when I got it and that was all I had for cruise)

The previous diagram is out of my '88 EVTM, this one is out of my '85.

85_Ranger4x4 said:

Aside from the amplifier the only thing I am not sure of is the brake pedal switch stuff. Everything newer has that all tied into to the engine harness, it comes up on the passenger side of the engine and is woven in a harness that snakes across the top of the engine. I can see it on the diagram but I don't know where exactly it goes and how it gets there in real life. I have never found a 2.8/'85 truck with cruise to compare. I left it unhooked thinking it is only needed to kill the cruise and for experimentation I could either hit the off button or shut the truck off if anything goes wrong.

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I believe you are correct, though I didn't test mine with the light green wire disconnected. The truck I pulled the cruise out of was an automatic, and mine is a manual. My clutch switch has already been bypassed, so I just spliced the light green wire from the amplifier into the light green wire on the brake pedal switch. It works great in that it turns the cruise off the minute you touch the brakes.

I need to pull the amplifier out again and remount it, as it's not fully secured yet. I can unplug the light green wire as a test and see if the cruise still works.

85_Ranger4x4 said:

Pretty much every vehicle I have found so far is like my '88 donor where that wire is in with the speed sensor in the same connector. My '85 only had two wires for the speed sensor in that connector so that wiring was ran differently. (for some reason my truck already had the speed sensor and the harness running up to the engine bay in it when I got it and that was all I had for cruise)

The previous diagram is out of my '88 EVTM, this one is out of my '85.

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My speed sensor has two wires at the transfer case, and the harness connects to the engine harness like yours and it runs down over to the EEC. One is grey/black and it's the vss signal; it goes to the EEC and to the amplfier. The other is pink/orange(I think) and it goes to a ground terminal by the EEC and to the amplifier. I spliced both of these into my existing harness as the 4.0 Dash harness I used had no cruise wiring whatsoever. The Engine harness has the VSS signal and VSS ground, as they are used by the EEC and if you have cruise, the amplifier as well.

Your '88 diagram looks very similar to mine, save the wire colors.

BlackBII said:

My speed sensor has two wires at the transfer case, and the harness connects to the engine harness like yours and it runs down over to the EEC. One is grey/black and it's the vss signal; it goes to the EEC and to the amplfier. The other is pink/orange(I think) and it goes to a ground terminal by the EEC and to the amplifier. I spliced both of these into my existing harness as the 4.0 Dash harness I used had no cruise wiring whatsoever. The Engine harness has the VSS signal and VSS ground, as they are used by the EEC and if you have cruise, the amplifier as well.

Your '88 diagram looks very similar to mine, save the wire colors.

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So does the one speed sensor wire need to be grounded then?

I have no EEC which complicates this process too, there is nothing to tap into.

On the '88 harness I have it wired just as shown but obviously nothing going to the EEC. On C129 there is the power from the brakes (unhooked) and the two wires going to the speed sensor.

85_Ranger4x4 said:

So does the one speed sensor wire need to be grounded then?

I have no EEC which complicates this process too, there is nothing to tap into.

On the '88 harness I have it wired just as shown but obviously nothing going to the EEC. On C129 there is the power from the brakes (unhooked) and the two wires going to the speed sensor.

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I think not having an EEC should be fine, as the signal from the vss is simply shared between the EEC and the amplifier.

The part numbers for the speed sensors are the same from 83-91, although I am using a '89 speed sensor in mine combined with a '92 cruise control setup, so I am not sure what's going there? But yes, it looks like one wire will need to be grounded. I am guessing it's the black wire, as that is usually ground but sometimes Ford is retarded and uses crazy colors for grounds like the pink/orange one in my case.

I'll look at my sensor and see which pin is going to ground and which one is the signal.

BlackBII said:

I think not having an EEC should be fine, as the signal from the vss is simply shared between the EEC and the amplifier.

The part numbers for the speed sensors are the same from 83-91, although I am using a '89 speed sensor in mine combined with a '92 cruise control setup, so I am not sure what's going there? But yes, it looks like one wire will need to be grounded. I am guessing it's the black wire, as that is usually ground but sometimes Ford is retarded and uses crazy colors for grounds like the pink/orange one in my case.

I'll look at my sensor and see which pin is going to ground and which one is the signal.

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If you could that would be great. I am going to go thru the engine part of my EVTM and look for clues as to what wire goes where too. I just figured the EEC monitored the signal the same as the amplifier did. My '85 diagram threw me off with the cruise not being used by its EEC, I just thought the newer EFI started caring about how fast the truck was going so they piggybacked it on.

I did replace the sensor, the old one was leaking and I had an order going into Rockauto for something else anyway.

Here's the sensor. So if you're looking at the sensor itself from the back, where the speedometer cable goes in, it's the left pin that needs to be grounded. On my truck, that pink/orange wire goes all the way up to the engine harness, across the engine and then back through the firewall and is spliced with the wire going into the EEC, the wire going to the amplifier and the wire going to a ground terminal next to the EEC under the passenger side kick panel. It's the 'VSS ground' that you'll see in generic ford speed control diagrams.

I think my SC harness is intact, I didn't cut anything out of it. The pigtail that goes into the speed sensor has been spliced into the truck VSS harness. I have a black ground wires (G200/G202 screwed to the side of the fuse panel like it was in the donor BII.



Does the sensor ground in the EEC too? My EVTM just shows two wires going into it and doesn't say a thing about what happens once in there.

The orange/pink wire on my truck is grounded to the body, then spliced with the wire coming from the vss and the amplifier and then goes into the EEC. Best I can tell, it's just a ground on the truck body. There are a couple other wires sharing that ground screw so I don't think it's a special ground.

I'd check the wire at the vss and see if there's any resistance between it and body, frame, trans, etc.

This one has me stumped too bro

BlackBII said:

The orange/pink wire on my truck is grounded to the body, then spliced with the wire coming from the vss and the amplifier and then goes into the EEC. Best I can tell, it's just a ground on the truck body. There are a couple other wires sharing that ground screw so I don't think it's a special ground.

I'd check the wire at the vss and see if there's any resistance between it and body, frame, trans, etc.

This one has me stumped too bro

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I was going to check it last night but my night wasn't long enough.

BlackBII said:

Here's the sensor. So if you're looking at the sensor itself from the back, where the speedometer cable goes in, it's the left pin that needs to be grounded. On my truck, that pink/orange wire goes all the way up to the engine harness, across the engine and then back through the firewall and is spliced with the wire going into the EEC, the wire going to the amplifier and the wire going to a ground terminal next to the EEC under the passenger side kick panel. It's the 'VSS ground' that you'll see in generic ford speed control diagrams.

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On my truck that wire is black and is grounded to something somewhere.

Wedding is Saturday, supposed to rain Saturday.

So I put new wipers on my Ranger since I rarely drive it in the rain and the ones on it sucked when I washed it. New ones didn't fit well at all, they flopped all over so I went back to the parts store with the truck to see what was going on. Turns out you have to pop the middle out and flip the inside piece around. Had the truck 17 years and have never had to do that before.

On the way back to work the truck dies. JY ignition module died. Kinda glad the wipers didn't fit because otherwise the truck would be sitting until Saturday so the module could die on our wedding day... probably on the way to the church... in the rain.

Done with DS after this, I am going to have awhile to rethink what I am going to do because after the wedding the trans and front axle are coming out but I am beyond sick of not knowing just when and where the truck is going to lay down and die on me.

85_Ranger4x4 said:

Wedding is Saturday, supposed to rain Saturday.

So I put new wipers on my Ranger since I rarely drive it in the rain and the ones on it sucked when I washed it. New ones didn't fit well at all, they flopped all over so I went back to the parts store with the truck to see what was going on. Turns out you have to pop the middle out and flip the inside piece around. Had the truck 17 years and have never had to do that before.

On the way back to work the truck dies. JY ignition module died. Kinda glad the wipers didn't fit because otherwise the truck would be sitting until Saturday so the module could die on our wedding day... probably on the way to the church... in the rain.

Done with DS after this, I am going to have awhile to rethink what I am going to do because after the wedding the trans and front axle are coming out but I am beyond sick of not knowing just when and where the truck is going to lay down and die on me.

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sound like its peanut butter......












































peanut




























peanut butter LS TIME!!!!!!!!



























ecoboost?




it deserves some badassery.