Got some shape back in the drivers seat that’s been sat in for 180k miles. Clothing steamer from second hand shop restored about 1/4 in lift / shape and my tail bone doesn’t rest on the metal bar. It was a YouTube hack.

You Tube

Go slow like he shows.

 

Last week, installed the 1.5" shackles and twisted the torsion bars to match. Got it aligned yesterday. Today, had the 265/75R16's installed.

 

Loaded up all of the scrap from the Ranger Rick project (and other car work) into Ranger Rick and drove to the scrap yard. Old frame, a buttload of rotors, control arms, wheel bearings, fuel and brake lines, clutch flywheel, etc. Got a whopping 45 bucks for it all.

 

Took truck in to gear shop on Monday and got it back today. They put in all new bearings, seals, new ring and pinion gears and setup everything. The clutch packs weren't worn out but the gears needed replaced. He said the bearing had sucked in some on the case on passenger side and had a problem solver to fix it. $600 total, so far it's smooth and quiet. I need to do the rear brakes pretty soon and that should be that for awhile. I also got one AC line needs replaced hopefully get to that over the winter.

 

Made another attempt to replace spark plug number 3 on an 03 Ranger 4.0 4+4.. might need Harry Houdini to get it out.

 

what makes that plug hard to get out? Do you have the SOHC 4.0? I replaced the plugs on my 4.0 OHV and dont remember having any trouble. That #3 cylinder was a lil tight with that Air conditioning box back there but not too bad.

 

Being now that I have rice paper skin, I took my 4.0 SOHC into a local shop to have the plugs and wires done. The dang AC box presses right up against it, just like the old Aerostars.

 

Must be different on the SOHC? That ac box was close but not that close. I used a small extension 3" on the spark plug socket and it fit right in there with a few inches to spare. All the other plugs I used a 6" extension.

 

Rip off the wheel, crank it hard left, remove large protective shield, bend my upper torso like a pretzel behind the rotor, contour my arm to the left then to the right then up then down and around. Now it’s time to twist my fingers blindly towards #3 and hope for success

 

lol

 

Is this what your #3 looks like? The top plug in the picture. It's kinda hard to see in the dark.

 

Wish my #3 had access like that

 

cut out my floor board. The previous owner used the truck for mudding, but did not rip out the interior carpet. Caused a giant hole to rust through the drivers side floor board.

 

The sawzall has a new home in the garage. It’s easier to cut off rust than struggle with it.

Replaced the valence today with new driving lights.

now, the body work is left with slurry caked from sanded primer. What’s the right way to remove that slurry dust before color coat?

 

Today tried to tackle my AC rebuild. Removed all the components except the giant box on the firewall. Plan to flush that out. As I was removing the radiator I decided to check the thermostat. Looks like previous owner snapped a bolt so housing was held on by two bolts and a whole lot of RTV. Inside there was only the outer casing for the thermostat. That explains why truck never heated up. That and the fan always going full blast. So AC rebuild being put on hold for tomorrow. Till I can extract that broken bolt and replace thermostat. That's more important than AC. Even though it's still scorching hot outside, I cant drive at all w/o the cooling system going back together.

 

Did donuts in a field to celebrate the truck getting back on the road

 

After all the laborious under prep, bondo, sheet metal. Smooth to 1000 wet grit, the $10 rattle can red just doesn’t cut it. Under this, the wet base coat looked great but the finish is blotched.

Al this trying to avoid $100 paint and clear Coat along with a bigger compressor. So I pay anyway. It’s all about learning something new in the non pro garage. Now I know. Do the base work yourself and get some help with the top coat.

 

Got fan out with $14 air hammer from harbor freight. And removed broken bolt by grinding it flush, drilling a small hole then using an extractor. As I put thermostat housing back on I noticed the bottom bolt got loose as it was tightened. Thought I broke that one, backed it out and turns out the threads in the hole are stripped out completely. So tomorrow will be tap and die that hole or using a helicoil kit. Not sure I'll buy both tonight.


I realized my mistake. That bottom bolt hole was full of RTV. So I should have used a tap and cleared that out of the hole first before threading bolt back in.
bolt went in and got tight about 1/4" from bottoming out on the housing. So I forced it all the way in. It was probably compacting the RTV as it was pulling threads out.

 

Replaced the hoses to the power steering pump, since one was leaking. Then had all the fluids in the truck flushed.

 

Today I fixed my blower motor variable speed control. Before it only had two modes, off and Max. Found the resistor block under the hood. Bolted to the side of the AC evaporator box thingy. Ran some tests on each resistor, they all seemed fine. So I was puzzled. Turns out it was the diode. All the modes need to go through that diode and that was an open circuit. So I bought a duralast one from autozone. I'm guessing the one that was in there was not factory motorcraft anyway. Judging by the copious amounts of RTV pasted on it. Also the AC box was stuffed with leaves. I couldn't even see the evaporator coil in there because it was stuffed with dead leaves like a scarecrow. I vacuumed out as much as I could reach which was a ton. Maybe that will help things flow better. Was wondering if I can take that box apart to dump out the leaves? Looks like it splits down the middle with a few bolts. Also how did all those leaves get sucked in there? There was hundreds of them

 

Last week I shipped my gray seatbelts off to Safety Restore to be rewebbed in basic black. They just arrived so I'll be installing them. Old belts were 20 yr old & frayed so worth the expense to me. Color change was free.

 

Do you mind sharing what the cost for that is please and any details? Thanks

 

I used Ebay so it was around $150. Little more expensive if you go through their website only because they offer free shipping on Ebay. They received my belts on 11/9 and I got them back on 11/14. As part of the reweb service, they also clean all the mechanical parts. You just have to make sure your belts are complete or they won't do a reweb. They also offer other services.

$150 may sound like a lot to some people but the belts are guaranteed. And its way cheaper than buying completely new belts.

 

Great Tip about ebay, Thanks for the information. You can't place a price on safety :)

 

New shocks. Well the fronts are done, then I came in for lunch. We'll see if the rears make it on today.
EDIT: Ended up doing the rears yesterday afternoon. Since I did the "Poor man's 1.5" lift" (crank the t-bars and rear shackles), I went with the Rancho RS5000's. Wow....night and day on our brutal country roads up here, especially since i replaced 20 year old shocks.