What did you do to your Ranger today? (Part Deux!)

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Wire nuts and T-Taps?
Or
Twist and tape?

Sounds about right, lousy hacks. Not sure who put the stereo in my F-150 before I got it, but there was taps, crimp butt splices that were smashed with pliers, wire nuts, twist n tape, and my favorite, the flat blade connectors that they only had one side to so they shoved the wire in and smashed with pliers. Somewhere I have pics of the disaster. No wonder the radio never worked right.

 

[sgtsandman]

Wire nuts and T-Taps?
Or
Twist and tape?

Yes to all.

 

[JoshT]

That sucks on the lights. When I had thought they were the same as well. I'll be going with stock light housings on mine when I facelift it and I knew I would have to do some rewiring around the turn signals. The headlight bulbs and side markers carry over, but I knew that a turn signals bulb would have to be deleted. Looks like there is a little more studying to do.

Do your lights plug into the bulb socket or into the harness connector that the socket plugs into?

Not much to the Ranger today, but I wanted to at least get some paint on the new brackets. Ended up making most of the new center header panel support too...

What are you having to make? I thought that the parts were basically bolt-on aside from the wiring changes.

 

[sgtsandman]

What are you having to make? I thought that the parts were basically bolt-on aside from the wiring changes.

He needed a set of brackets made to support the transmission cooler he is adding. It's getting mounted to the front of the core support.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

That sucks on the lights. When I had thought they were the same as well. I'll be going with stock light housings on mine when I facelift it and I knew I would have to do some rewiring around the turn signals. The headlight bulbs and side markers carry over, but I knew that a turn signals bulb would have to be deleted. Looks like there is a little more studying to do.

Do your lights plug into the bulb socket or into the harness connector that the socket plugs into?



What are you having to make? I thought that the parts were basically bolt-on aside from the wiring changes.

My new lights plug into the harness connector that the socket would plug into. Problem is, 98-03 use the same connector, but they changed the connector for 04-11 and the lights I got, even though listed as 01-11, have the 04-11 connector, not the older one. If the connector was the 98-03 style plug, it would plug right in to one of the two turn signal plugs. I was intending on doing that and just capping the other.

The brackets that got made are because of a self-inflicted problem. I got a transmission cooler from an 07 F-150 which stretches all the way across the front of the core support in front of the radiator. Had to make custom brackets to mount the cooler and then it was in the way of the center support bracket for the header panel. We kept the cooler low enough to get to the top bolt hole for the center bracket, but the cooler is where the rest of the bracket would go. So a little custom adjustments were needed. But this all nets me a trans cooler more than twice the size of the original and it’s got threaded fittings so there’s now no rubber lines for any of the transmission cooler stuff, it’s all 3/8” aluminum hard line and -6 AN PTFE.

 

[carbuff]

Checked spark plugs on my 2008 2.3. First I sucked the gallons of oil out of the spark plug galley. Well maybe not gallons but at least a few tablespoons. LOL 3 of the plugs looked good. I cleaned them all up, checked the gap and put them back in. But the #2 plug was missing its tiny point on the electrode and the gap was over .090. Gotta get a new one but for now I cleaned it up and bent the arm down to get around .044. I wonder if it got installed that way? Strange plugs too. Specific to the 2001-2011 ranger 2.3. AGSF32FECA I think the SP439A is the same thing. Gotta pick one up.

 

[sgtsandman]

Checked spark plugs on my 2008 2.3. First I sucked the gallons of oil out of the spark plug galley. Well maybe not gallons but at least a few tablespoons. LOL 3 of the plugs looked good. I cleaned them all up, checked the gap and put them back in. But the #2 plug was missing its tiny point on the electrode and the gap was over .090. Gotta get a new one but for now I cleaned it up and bent the arm down to get around .044. I wonder if it got installed that way? Strange plugs too. Specific to the 2001-2011 ranger 2.3. AGSF32FECA I think the SP439A is the same thing. Gotta pick one up.

Sounds like it's time to replace the gaskets on the valve cover.

Did the plug in question look like it was burnt? With some of the plugs out there and how fine the electrode is, I can see one of them getting snapped off. If the plug looks fine otherwise, it could be that it was installed that way and someone's attention to detail was lacking.

 

[JoshT]

My new lights plug into the harness connector that the socket would plug into. Problem is, 98-03 use the same connector, but they changed the connector for 04-11 and the lights I got, even though listed as 01-11, have the 04-11 connector, not the older one. If the connector was the 98-03 style plug, it would plug right in to one of the two turn signal plugs. I was intending on doing that and just capping the other.

The brackets that got made are because of a self-inflicted problem. I got a transmission cooler from an 07 F-150 which stretches all the way across the front of the core support in front of the radiator. Had to make custom brackets to mount the cooler and then it was in the way of the center support bracket for the header panel. We kept the cooler low enough to get to the top bolt hole for the center bracket, but the cooler is where the rest of the bracket would go. So a little custom adjustments were needed. But this all nets me a trans cooler more than twice the size of the original and it’s got threaded fittings so there’s now no rubber lines for any of the transmission cooler stuff, it’s all 3/8” aluminum hard line and -6 AN PTFE.

View attachment 89398

Got it

When it comes time to do a V8 swap I'll probaly add more transmission cooling, but I was going to go dual cooler rather than larger cooler. I've got a couple of spare stock transmission coolers and the single stock cooler would probably be more than enough for my needs, so I think two of them will do fine.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Got it

When it comes time to do a V8 swap I'll probaly add more transmission cooling, but I was going to go dual cooler rather than larger cooler. I've got a couple of spare stock transmission coolers and the single stock cooler would probably be more than enough for my needs, so I think two of them will do fine.

Yeah, we did two of them in dad’s V-8 Ranger. I had got a second stock one intending to just do two stock ones and was in the junkyard the one day and right next to the Ranger section was this 07 F-150 that the front end was tore apart and I see this cooler and went over, gave it a good look, couple measurements, go over to a Ranger and do some measuring and go, well that might be pretty sweet. So, here we are, lol

 

[carbuff]

Sounds like it's time to replace the gaskets on the valve cover.

Did the plug in question look like it was burnt? With some of the plugs out there and how fine the electrode is, I can see one of them getting snapped off. If the plug looks fine otherwise, it could be that it was installed that way and someone's attention to detail was lacking.

Its definitely in need of a valve cover gasket. It only leaks into the spark plug wells though, but thats usually the first place they leak. Its the same on my 2010 fusion with the 2.5. The plug looked fine other than the tiny point being gone. Amazon just delivered the new plug. Maybe Ill swap it out today. We got some snow so Idk. lol.

 

[pjtoledo]

new arrivals from Mazda, FA code.

made in Canada, warehoused in Texas, shipped from a dealer in California to me in Ohio.

 

[Roert42]

I recently did the valve covers on my SOHC, they were leaking right onto the exhaust manifolds. Very smelly in the morning.

Those things were as brittle and dry rotted balsa wood. 260,000miles

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Well, the weatherman lied about how nice of a day it was going to be today, instead of being dry, it was “15 minutes until rain stopping” from 7am until 1pm. So that about threw a wrench into things. Managed to get another McMaster order in, irritated about having to do that, but I need some fasteners. Since apparently I can’t measure correctly anymore.

Finally dried up a bit and I took a go at a couple small patches I had to deal with in the front end. Also, since I had them and the welder was out, I trashed my nice paint work and fitted the brackets and core support with weld nuts. When the welder worked, it worked good. Apparently the previous owner trashed the gun liner though because it would only feed if you had the tension maxed out and everything laying just right. Guess it would have killed them to take care of something. I’ll have to see about getting a liner and changing that out one of these days soon.

Also had a couple mink dang near run me over. Saw one running at me and yelled at it, it changed directions then and ran behind the equipment shed, then around the shed and back past me followed by another mink. They must’ve made 4 or 5 laps before I chased them off so I could work. Bout the craziest thing I’ve seen. Didn’t think about it till later that I had my camera and could have got some video. I wasn’t more than about 6’ away.

Anyway, I should be ready to put the rest of the front end together tomorrow, think this ends the shenanigans that I have to deal with there other than something with the headlights. I did check and it’s an 02 behind my barn, not an 01, but I was right, the turn signal plug matches the ones on my 00 and not the headlights I got. So we’ll see what the seller has to say…

 

[scotts90ranger]

There was an online auction for a company that did heavy fabrication and such (pipe fitting and so forth I guess) that was conveniently across the street from my work, a lot of people had much deeper pockets than I did, just didn't want to deal with hauling during the week in the winter really and not sure the immediate plan for storage so talked myself out of things... What I did get was 4 welding gas bottles, two 75/25 steel mix and two Argon, not sure on bottle sizes and just going off pictures... anyway they're the BIG bottles, 5' tall and like 8" diameter, one of the Argon bottles is the next size down but at like $225 a bottle I didn't do too bad I don't think, sold one of the 75/25 to a coworker so it's not as hard of a hit... of the 3 bottles I took home the small argon and the 75/25 are both full the other argon is empty... and on a whim I bought a shelf of random wire and stuff, there's roughly 10 full 500' spools of 10ga stranded 600v rated wire plus some other random cuts and stuff... for a whopping $70 , the pictures weren't great and you couldn't tell what was there... Anyway, picked all that up in the '97 at lunch today, it was squatting pretty good, the 2.3L could tell but did fine... I thought of getting pics of the mess in the bed but forgot since it was raining... Here's a pic of the bottles in front of my welding cart that apparently needs some modification to work now

The trans rebuild kit for the '90 came today and remembered my trans jack needed some love so tore into it, it's one of the HFT scissor jacks and a couple of the links were bent, the scissor mechanism is all riveted together so I couldn't get the one that was bent really bad fixed all the way... of course it fell out of the vise (my main one is smooth jawed, this is one thing that didn't work for) and chipped the concrete in the shop... that's a project to get better another time, it'll work for the puny M5OD, my shoulder just needs some help with things anymore... Here's at least a pic of the Ranger in the shop with the shop wall sheeted and painted:

 

[Roert42]

Lucky bastard.