- Joined
- Jul 12, 2012
- Messages
- 227
- Reaction score
- 9
- Points
- 18
- Location
- Cambridge, MN
- Engine Size
- 1.9L
- Transmission
- Manual
Hello Everyone. First thread here on TRS. I've owned a few Rangers over the years so I'm not necessarily a stranger but I don't know them as intimately as I do diesel VW's. I've been disappointed for years that the big three think there is no market for a small diesel pickup and have decided not to wait for them to offer one. I've been doing my homework for the better part of a year planning all the details of my swap but also developing my own adapter. More on the latter in another thread.
I'm starting with a 2000 Ford Ranger:
2.5L, 5pd, 2wd, 199k miles.
And the previous owner decided he wanted to attempt a no-timing belt record:
I suppose it isn't all that bad since I got a surprisingly rust-free (99% ) Ranger for my swap that's lived in MN its whole life. I rescued the Ranger from the field mice with a buddy's truck and trailer (a helluva guy who's let me use this combo to haul many a vw's). I think the next picture is pretty comical. If you can't read the sticker in the Ranger's back window it says "At least it's not a Dodge."
So I'll combine this truck with a 2000 New Beetle that I purchased from a fellow tdiclub member. It was in a front end accident a year prior and also thought it would be a good idea to provide a home to some field mice - I did not have a fun time removing the nest out of the dash to get at the wiring and ecu. I think I removed 3 full grocery store bags worth of carcasses, nest, feces...yuck. I unfortunately do not have a shot of the car in its natural habitat but it was stored up in the pines on the back 40acres of a friend of a friend.
Here it is during the drivetrain removal:
The front end accident did a number to the car destroying the header panel, radiator, fans, condensor, power steering pump, accessory bracket, passenger motor mount. Because of this last one it actually shoved the engine into the firewall so hard that it snapped off the intake and of course the little mount ear off the back of the block. No big deal as I'm not using that for my mounts. The car also donated a number of parts to the Passat sitting next to it.
The plan of course is to drop the vw diesel into the Ranger but the kicker is I need to have it ready for a car show at work where we are commemorating the closing of the St Paul assembly plant. The race is on to get this truck together by Aug 31st.
Once together I intend to do some serious testing of the truck with several stages of performance modifications that will take this truck beyond the stock power levels of any of the original Ford engines.
Stay tuned.
I'm starting with a 2000 Ford Ranger:
2.5L, 5pd, 2wd, 199k miles.
And the previous owner decided he wanted to attempt a no-timing belt record:
I suppose it isn't all that bad since I got a surprisingly rust-free (99% ) Ranger for my swap that's lived in MN its whole life. I rescued the Ranger from the field mice with a buddy's truck and trailer (a helluva guy who's let me use this combo to haul many a vw's). I think the next picture is pretty comical. If you can't read the sticker in the Ranger's back window it says "At least it's not a Dodge."
So I'll combine this truck with a 2000 New Beetle that I purchased from a fellow tdiclub member. It was in a front end accident a year prior and also thought it would be a good idea to provide a home to some field mice - I did not have a fun time removing the nest out of the dash to get at the wiring and ecu. I think I removed 3 full grocery store bags worth of carcasses, nest, feces...yuck. I unfortunately do not have a shot of the car in its natural habitat but it was stored up in the pines on the back 40acres of a friend of a friend.
Here it is during the drivetrain removal:
The front end accident did a number to the car destroying the header panel, radiator, fans, condensor, power steering pump, accessory bracket, passenger motor mount. Because of this last one it actually shoved the engine into the firewall so hard that it snapped off the intake and of course the little mount ear off the back of the block. No big deal as I'm not using that for my mounts. The car also donated a number of parts to the Passat sitting next to it.
The plan of course is to drop the vw diesel into the Ranger but the kicker is I need to have it ready for a car show at work where we are commemorating the closing of the St Paul assembly plant. The race is on to get this truck together by Aug 31st.
Once together I intend to do some serious testing of the truck with several stages of performance modifications that will take this truck beyond the stock power levels of any of the original Ford engines.
Stay tuned.