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

[rubydist]

It certainly does look mean with that dozer blade up front.

 

[BroncLander]

Well, sadly the Bronclander is down. I took it off the road today. The engine is leaking too much oil, it's running like a bag of ***** and when I did the brake calipers I failed to properly deal with the crush washers and air got in the lines (no big deal just need to bleed em).
The idea is to either buy a new fresh engine or have mine rebuilt. And then it can go back on the road. I'm still undecided whether to do the 2.8 rebuild or do a 302 swap. I'll definitely know more in the coming days after I speak to a few people, like the engine rebuilders, the scrapyard ect.
For now, it's not reliable enough to go very far so I put the Grand Am GT back on the road. I actually gave the car to my kids, but they aren't using it so it works out ok for now. I got it almost new and have had it for about 15 yrs and it's in good shape.
For now, I'll be looking in here for the 302 swap thread and read it. I don't need to decide right away so it's nice to have options open.

I don't see this as a bad thing, more like an opportunity to make this vehicle 10x better than it is. And no matter what it costs, it's still better than $1000 payments for 8 years.

I wonder what the weight difference is between a 2.8 and a 5.0

 

[tw205]

wonder what the weight difference is between a 2.8 and a 5.0

About 100 lbs.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Looks great! Good luck!

What size tires? And is it lower than original, lowered from stock?

And just my two cents, but even a good rustoleum custom paint job won’t quite get it on that front bumper. Got to do a little bit better on that when you catch your breath.

Again, looks good, good luck!

Those are 31x10.50-15 tires. I think it could use something a little more street friendly and smaller, but those are what I have currently. As it sits, the torsion bar adjusters are backed all the way out which makes it sit level roughly speaking. The rear is an Explorer 8.8 done as spring under axle. So definitely lower than stock (my fat arse doesn’t really fit under it anymore). I haven’t calculated how low yet.

The front bumper was a 5 minute throw something together that you can call a bumper so it’s legal. My original bumper got damaged back when it fell off the jackstands. I was out of time and money to do anything else.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

It certainly does look mean with that dozer blade up front.

Somehow that and the loud exhaust seem to make people more prone to pulling out in front of me to putt along though..

 

[Rick W]

Somehow that and the loud exhaust seem to make people more prone to pulling out in front of me to putt along though..

When I don’t feel like having idiots mess with me, I drive one of the Lincoln town cars and I wear a totes rain hat. Everybody sees the gray haired old fart in the ancient town car with that rain hat on and they stay at mile away!

but it would be nice to have a snowplow for special cases…

 

[James Morse]

New Bosch wipers for the Mazda, inspection tomorrow. $35. They work great, but what ever happened to the days when you could just get the rubber blades and replace them into the arms? Seems like no one carries them now. It was sometimes a pain to change them, but my memory says they were a couple bucks.

I probably haven't put 500 miles on the Mazda since last inspection so hopefully it should be fine. I don't go to the Jiffy or other places where, ok, they do an inspection, but they aren't very picky and the whole point of inspection is it's a -safety- inspection so if I'm missing something I don't know about, I want to know. I go to the Acura/BMW/Audi dealer (it used to be Saab back when I had them) and they don't miss anything. Admittedly there are some places that will rip you off saying you need this/that, I don't see them as one of them, anything they've ever found (Mazda was missing battery hold-down last year), I'd want them to find. I picked one up at AutoZone for under $10, they put it on no charge, so I'm ok with them. Plus they have nice a/c waiting room with free snacks and tv and newspapers and new magazines. And they usually wash your vehicle but I pass on that. They're not fast, I guess that's a downside.

 

[Roert42]

New Bosch wipers for the Mazda, inspection tomorrow. $35. They work great, but what ever happened to the days when you could just get the rubber blades and replace them into the arms?

You can get the whole wiper blades online for about $3 per. I really liked the Bosch ones, they held up great, but RA stopped carrying them.
I bet if you looked around online you could probably buy a whole spool of the rubber stop for the wiper blades for like $10.

 

[Shadowrider6661]

I spent last weekend replacing the ball joints, Wheel Bearings, front brakes, timing chain cover gasket, oil seal, tensioner pulley, Idler pulley, radiator and heater hoses, oil and filter, and serpentine belt.

 

[pjtoledo]

ordered more parts

 

[Rick W]

Really sincerely bummed to hear @lil_Blue_Ford had issues and headed home. Get it together and you’re welcome here anytime.

To manage expectations, mudding here involves the Vietnamese face and nails place in the village, and parking could be crowded on a Saturday.

 

[BroncLander]

About 100 lbs.

That's not bad. Wow. That's actually nothing really

 

[ZMan]

I finished up replacing the front brake hoses and one hard line tonight. Also washed it for the first time, getting ready for a show this weekend. Next is to get it off the jackstands and on the trailer tomorrow, not quite ready to drive it 30 miles on the highway lol.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

Well, I haven’t fully headed home yet, but I’m at my friend Lisa’s trying to squash problems. Transmission was acting up, power steering leaking, and a couple electrical issues. In between rain today I got a new hose from a local hydraulic shop (what I should have done from the start) which ran me $88 and got that on for the power steering.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of the transmission other than one of my electrical issues is the #6 fuse keeps popping and that happens to control the transmission among other things. In order to properly determine what’s wrong with the transmission, I need to fix that. Although I do seem to have a discrepancy on how full the transmission is of fluid and it seemed to be slipping.

I’d love to continue the trip, but I don’t think it’s wise at this point.

 

[Rick W]

After I failed to find the center caps I wanted for the Road Ranger and another project last week, when I got caught up on my paperwork yesterday, I grabbed Lincoln and we headed off in the Missing Linc to the other two pull a parts in Atlanta for the same caps.

Very slim pickings at both of those also, unfortunately. Chatting it up with the guys, they said there are regular crews of guys who show up hours after the vehicles are posted and pull off a lot of the stuff that’s easy to sell on eBay. When we chatted further, I was wondering how come there were so many wheels and tires gone. The yard used to be covered with them between the cars.

Then one of the owners enlightened me: Bidenomics. Everybody’s working on less money, and parts and tires, and everything have skyrocketed. So people who used to go get a new tire or a whole new car, now swoop in on the salvage yards for their girlfriends and themselves for the tires, and the little parts they can make a profit on craigslist or the Internet. I was stunned, but it made complete sense.

Personally, I had a tiny bit of better luck. I needed two center caps, I wanted seven, I was looking for 10 so I’d have a few spares. I ended up with one and a half.

One was fine. The interesting thing was that I found it sitting on top of an inner fender on the car next to the crown Vic it must’ve come off. I figure somebody was grabbing them as described above, set it down there, and then forgot to take it with them.

The second one was filthy dirty, but I’ve learned they clean up pretty well with a little Comet or occasionally a Brillo pad if you’re real gentle. When I went to pop it off, it just fell down. There are five clusters of four tabs each that grip onto the Lugnuts. Only seven of the 20 tabs were intact. Amazingly if you popped it on it will stay there, but I can’t imagine what will happen if you hit a bump. Having no alternatives, I grabbed it, and I’ll use the ole silicone seal dots on the tabs that remain and let it dry overnight. And the search will go on.

And I don’t know why, but the Pull-A-Part gods are looking out for me still. When I went to check out, and I mentioned the second one might not work, the guy just waved me through without charging me! That’s twice in as many weeks.

Before:

After;

And a note for @Roert42 If you get rid of the wife, you can clean these things up in the kitchen sink.

i’m going to check all the wheel bearings and grease before I put them on. Adventure for another day.