kishy's 1985 Ranger

[kishy]

The bench testers just have a regular narrow female spade terminal with heat shrink on them for the 3G test lead's stater connector. They often left marks on that pin when you unplugged them so you know they made good connection. Probably no better or worse than the OG connector (which is usually broken anyway) in terms of water resistance.

Also too bad you can't easily re-clock the 3G case like you can a 6G. I may have reassembled a 4.6 6G with the case clocked completely upside down before sending it back for warranty. I had a string of bad luck with 6Gs in my '98 so when that last one failed I did an autopsy cuz if it was bad diodes or something I was gonna suspect something in the car was killing them. That one was number 3 in ~4 months. Turned out it was a internal fault missed during reman that time around, but I still put it together upside down cuz why not? The one that replaced it has been a good reman so far. Kinda funny cuz I've sold hundreds of 6G (and 3Gs) over the years and rarely ever saw them back under warranty. Yet on my own car? I got every defective reman in SE Michigan.

Funny thing about that AZ test machine. I was turned away a couple times at a couple locations because I wanted to test a 3G, and the store staff told me that "all the junkyard alternators people kept bringing in burned up the one wire connector in the tester harness".

Now, I was pretty sure that was nonsense, but had no working understanding of what the stator wire does to be able to call them out for it. And of course, it was also painfully apparent that my alternator had come from a junkyard, since it had that nice fresh paint marker on it lol.

That test machine is not something we have on this side of the border and is something I appreciate a fair bit about the American parts store experience. PartSource, a retail auto parts store wholly owned and operated by Canadian Tire, does offer "free alternator testing" but it's done in-vehicle. As someone who appreciates verbose specificity, I'd prefer they distinguish what they're doing by saying they're testing the charging system, not the alternator. Yeah, one includes the other, but "testing an alternator" sounds a lot like it can be done without the rest of the car being present, and what they are doing does not accommodate that.

Sway bar. Oh, sweet sway bar. I've spoken about the sway bar thing countless times. Finally, it's in my hands.

Meet E3TZ-5482-A, a 1" solid front sway bar, for the less-common setup found on some 83-87 Rangers.







The bushings on the left-right span of the bar seat in a slot in the crossmember below the front of the cab where they are attached with hardware that I don't have yet, and the bar reaches forward along each radius arm, attaching to each with a bushing (also not present yet) and a large special U-bolt, described and pictured in a recent reply in this same thread...but here it is again:



The large special U-bolts are a challenge. They are not anywhere in Ford's parts network and Green Sales doesn't have them.

While at the junkyard yesterday, some similar looking special U-bolts caught my eye on a Bronco II spare tire carrier, and I sort of hoped it might be the exact same part, just oddly reused for that other application. Not so, it's looking like the required ones have a diameter of 7/16" (unsure, but probably) while the ones I found are 3/8". Additionally, the required ones have a very slightly wider spread between the bolt sections. I think I could probably hack this together well enough to work but it may be less than ideal for a few important reasons:

-The correct design part has a cast-in washer or seating surface, so the nuts can be torqued correctly without crushing the bushing too much. The U-bolts I found do not have this, and the nuts will be unable to reach a proper clamping force without destroying the bushing.
-If I have to widen a bolt hole to fit the narrower U-bolt, the effect mentioned in the point above will be worsened: clamping force will be even more critical, and there will be even less of it as some of one nut will not be touching steel anymore.
-Especially considering that all of the force on the sway bar is either up or down, and in order to make the improper U-bolts fit I'd have to widen a hole either up or down, this installation would fail pretty quickly from holes getting excessively egged-out, and then necessitate replacing or substantially repairing the radius arms.

The nuts you see pictured installed on my truck currently are threaded onto two bolts that are both fitted to a "cage" of sorts that holds them together and prevents them spinning. In a non-sway-bar application, these bolts are extremely overkill and might not actually be doing anything of value at all. The same holes are used for the U-bolts for the sway bar ends, on a vehicle so-equipped. It's just too bad Ford didn't use the U-bolts on the non-sway-bar trucks too, it would make this substantially simpler.

[Tiggie]

I will keep an eye out for that hardware.

[kishy]

No progress on the sway bar - need to sort the hardware issue out. What will almost certainly happen is that, in the quest to find the hardware, I'll find a donor truck that has the bar, and my ebay purchase will have been pointless. But we'll see.

Today, I tackled a few things:

• Removed the white aluminum contractor cap from the Ranger; it is now sitting on my driveway.
• Removed the third party bedliner which I had set in the Ranger bed after purchasing it at the junkyard.
• Removed the third party rear cab window from the Ranger, and installed the junkyard-sourced factory original rear cab window, then removed stickers and paint from the 'new' window.
• Separated the navy fiberglass cap from the trailer (most recent junkyard cap purchase), so that I could remove the Ford OE bedliner from the trailer (which was used to transport the bedliner home from the junkyard).
• Hosed off both bedliners, and installed the Ford OE bedliner in the Ranger, including the tailgate cover piece.
• Moved the navy fiberglass cap from the trailer onto the Ranger, drilling holes aligning with the stake pockets for wiring access. Got it positioned just about right and clamped it down.

Relevant reading: recent reply in my junkyard thread.

Test drive confirms that, between the window and the aero features of this cap, highway wind noise is significantly improved. It also feels like it can gain speed easier when already at highway speed (e.g. pulling out to pass), which makes sense given less wind resistance.

Of course, this reintroduces a problem I had with the original cap, which is lack of secure storage. I'll probably do something along the lines of a trailer tongue box, bicycle-locked to an anchor I'll install somewhere.

The other bedliner remains in my back yard at the moment; it will go into the trailer, then for now, the white cap will go onto the trailer. The black contractor cap is in my friend's back yard until I figure out what's happening with the white one permanently.



















Aesthetically, this pretty much hits the nail right on the head. The windowed "camper shell" top is the right look for an old pickup. Just hoping I can deal with the functionality loss.

Also, looking at the photos, I realized that I forgot to scrape paint overspray off half of the cap front window. Fixable with not a crazy amount of effort later, but irritating as I did the other side.

[Mainemantom]

Good job. I like the Ford bed liner. That was a good find. I had a similar camper shell with those type of locks on my 69 Dodge. I never had any problems when shell was locked. Hopefully you can have keys made.

[gadget73]

My truck has basically the same style cap. The handle locks but obviously not actually secure. At most its a minor inconvenience to anyone who actually wants whats in the bed.

[DerekTheGreat]

Yah, they just keep an honest human honest. Not much you can do about the dishonest & determined though.

[kishy]

Well, well, well...look who still exists. It's me!

I kinda fell off the radar during the forum software migration project due to some personal priorities. The others picked up my slack very well and I'm appreciative for that.

The 84 Town Car did some brief winter duty this year, prior to any snow or heavy salt application. The Ranger needed some love before I could drive it again. That love has now been done(ish) and the Ranger is now in the daily driver role.

Over the last month, I have done the following:

• Pulled the Ranger into the garage to facilitate the resolution of my clutch hydraulic issues. Very much a "throw the baby with the bathwater" type of fix, I had concluded previously that the next time I touched the clutch hydraulics, I would convert to external slave at the same time, due to it being the same amount of effort and buying me an easier time in the future. I've been hoarding junkyard parts for the last few years to this end and recently scored the final piece needed.
• Once the truck was in the air, I identified that the inner tire sidewall and steel wheel on the passenger rear corner was very wet. After some time, this developed a considerable puddle, and the brake master cylinder level became rather low. This was traced to a failed wheel cylinder (new in 2020), and I evaluate that I would probably want to make new brake lines as the rear axle lines are steel (new in 2015) and looking a little sad.
• I identified that the PCM, which has been living on the driver inner fender wrapped in food-grade plastic wrap (lol; re: 93 engine harness and newer engine swap), is being eaten aggressively by salt. Working on a plan involving an ammo box and probably Flex Seal to address this. An injector driver heatsink may fail prior to getting that done, though.
• I drained the transmission oil (saved for reuse as it is quite recent), removed the driveshaft, transmission crossmember, and transmission.
• I removed the bellhousing and replaced the front cover of the TK-5 transmission with the 83-84 variant of this part, which includes the snout for the throwout bearing to ride on (re: clutch fork vs concentric slave). While in there, I determined that the clutch slave has not failed. I either had a bad bleed, or a bad master, but the slave is not leaky in the slightest.
• I installed the 83-84 bellhousing, which has provisions for the clutch fork and external slave cylinder.
• I removed the clutch master cylinder in order to drive out the roll pin holding in the clutch line connector. This is a stupid fastener and I hate whoever decided it was a viable option. I've since mastered the technique of driving it out in-vehicle because I had to do it no less than 10 times in the course of fitting parts and bleeding.
• In consideration of finding the slave cylinder not leaking, I considered warranty replacing the master (new in 2015; lifetime warranty) but ran into some issues. At time of purchase, the part was an Advance Auto Parts store brand. It has since migrated to the CarQuest store brand (re: Advance buying CarQuest). The part I bought is no longer in Advance's parts network, and is in CarQuest's, but there is no inventory near Detroit except a store some 90 miles away. The store 90 miles away is in a different network as the Detroit stores, so they will not transfer inventory. Accordingly, my part basically doesn't have any sort of redeemable warranty anymore. Between this, and being unsure if it was actually bad, I put the part back in the truck and hoped for the best.
• I reinstalled the transmission and got the clutch hydraulics set up. Everything fits like a glove as you'd hope. Refilled trans with the previously removed oil, topped up with some small traces of the same Ford fluid finishing off an almost-empty bottle as well as some traces of Redline MT-90 finishing off another almost-empty bottle.
• Bleeding required some out-of-the-box thinking. The slave cylinder (NOS Ford part) does not have what we usually think of as a bleeder screw, instead a recessed hex-head screw that opens a pathway to a hole in the casing of the part (impossible to attach any type of line or fitting to).
• I allowed it to fill by gravity, then closed it, and used a vacuum bleeder on the clutch line. Once the bubbles were out of the slave and line, I attached it to the master, filled that by gravity, and then used a vacuum bleeder on the line from the reservoir into the master. This seemed to work really well and I achieved factory-like perfection in the clutch pedal feel and clutch fork travel.
• Moving on to the wheel cylinder, given I had replaced these in 2020 with parts from a local parts store, and they were readily in-stock, I didn't think this would be hard to get quickly. On December 22, I called the store, they didn't have them so they ordered them for the next day. On December 23, Hwy 401 was closed due to many collisions in the fresh and heavy winter storm, so the truck never made it into town. I still don't have my wheel cylinder.
• I had previously purchased a wheel cylinder hone and repair kits, but upon attempting to actually do this, I found the wheel cylinders are not the diameter that RockAuto had me believe they are. Seems the 9" brakes use dinky little cylinder (didn't measure but they're something silly like 5/8" diameter), so my hone doesn't fit and my rebuild kits don't either. Inspecting the cup seals found they look absolutely perfect, and the bore checks out for no obvious faults. I ran some really fine sandpaper in the bore, cleaned it out well, applied a tiny bit of 10W30 to the cup seal edges, and crossed my fingers. Bled and held pressure successfully and drives well, so I'm calling that a win. Still taking that wheel cylinder when it ever shows up though.
• I installed a rear sway bar and aired up the helper bags. There is still no front bar installed but I have almost all the bits required to do that. A rear bar without a front may encourage oversteer and this doesn't bother me in the slightest. This truck is on good newer winter tires and historically is quite bad for understeer, so anything I can do to shift that back to oversteer is a good thing.
• Snapped on the winter front. It makes a big difference in the ability to get heat out of a 2.3.
• Proceeded to do some brief highway driving for Christmas-related activities. I filled up the truck, got on the highway, went to destination, came back to same station and filled it again. 116km, average speed about 110km/h across a range of 80-130, actual US MPG after conversions is 16.5. Not good but also not bad. It's shaped like a brick, after all.
• The parking brake cables, new in 2015, are trash. The plastic jacket has split, they're expanded from corrosion, and the brake becomes seized on if applied. I am investigating what mix-n-match of parts I need for the axle swap I want to do, RE: having a complete newer Ranger limited slip rear end hanging around. But spending some time under this is making me think it might only have another winter or two left on it, so there's definitely a "diminishing returns" thing going on.

Anyway, here's some pics.











































This thing drives like a million bucks. Or maybe a hundred. The clutch has never felt this good and it no longer feels like everything is still turning when I try to shift it. Switching to the Ford oil back when I was working on the Focus was definitely a help, but this was the real problem I was masking: clutch not releasing.

Wagon needs a starter. It's on-hand. Need to do soon to be able to return the core. Hoping for a few degrees of weather improvement to tackle that.

[gadget73]

is the master cylinder the proper one? Normally drum masters have a residual pressure valve built in that holds a few psi on the rear brakes to keep the piston cups expanded. If that doesn't work or isn't' present for reasons, the cups fold and it will leak even when everything seems proper.

no idea why it seems to be so hard to make reliable hydraulic parts anymore but wheel cylinders just seem to be this mystifying device that just cant be made to work right.

[kishy]

is the master cylinder the proper one? Normally drum masters have a residual pressure valve built in that holds a few psi on the rear brakes to keep the piston cups expanded. If that doesn't work or isn't' present for reasons, the cups fold and it will leak even when everything seems proper.

no idea why it seems to be so hard to make reliable hydraulic parts anymore but wheel cylinders just seem to be this mystifying device that just cant be made to work right.

The brake master is wrong for the truck but should be right for what I've done to it. That is, I was seeking a way to delete the combination valve, and determined that newer years...

• kept rear drums of the same dimensions
• optionally did have rear ABS, but the master was the same with or without (my concern having been that maybe the ABS pump is where the residual pressure function lives)
• do not have the combination valve and when not equipped with rear ABS, just have one straight simple line to the rear

So with that research done, I bought the master cylinder for whatever year I figured that was - off the top of my head it may have been 1990 - and that's what's in the truck now. I agree that usually there would be a valve on the output of the master for the rear, but the mix-n-match I did shouldn't have required one. I do agree with the theory that the wheel cylinder collapsing would cause a leak, but the spring inside it pushing the cups apart is also rather substantial.

[DerekTheGreat]

16.5mpg on the highway is pretty bad for a 2.3l. For comparison, the 5.7L V8 in my boxy '89 K1500 has pulled over 19mpg on the highway at similar speeds. What rear gears does it have again and is this a transmission with overdrive? Eons ago I had a '94 Ranger, 3.73's M5ODR1. Best MPG I ever pulled with it was 24.xx, perhaps a bit better even, I'd have to check the old log. But anyway, that was my first stick shift vehicle and so before I began to see numbers north of 20, I had routinely been throwing it in OD almost as soon as I could, at 35 or 40 mph. After some advice I began running it in 1:1 and reserving OD for speeds 55 and above. I also wound gears out a bit more and held them longer. The truck seemed happier and the higher mpg numbers confirmed it. Not sure what your driving/shifting habits are, but give that a shot if you tend to be an early shifter. An easier approach to better MPG would be to figure out where the peak power band of the engine is and try to keep it there. Of course, make sure all wheels spin freely, that'll help a lot too.

[kishy]

16.5mpg on the highway is pretty bad for a 2.3l. For comparison, the 5.7L V8 in my boxy '89 K1500 has pulled over 19mpg on the highway at similar speeds. What rear gears does it have again and is this a transmission with overdrive? Eons ago I had a '94 Ranger, 3.73's M5ODR1. Best MPG I ever pulled with it was 24.xx, perhaps a bit better even, I'd have to check the old log. But anyway, that was my first stick shift vehicle and so before I began to see numbers north of 20, I had routinely been throwing it in OD almost as soon as I could, at 35 or 40 mph. After some advice I began running it in 1:1 and reserving OD for speeds 55 and above. I also wound gears out a bit more and held them longer. The truck seemed happier and the higher mpg numbers confirmed it. Not sure what your driving/shifting habits are, but give that a shot if you tend to be an early shifter. An easier approach to better MPG would be to figure out where the peak power band of the engine is and try to keep it there. Of course, make sure all wheels spin freely, that'll help a lot too.

Not entirely sure that's an apples-to-apples comparison. The 350 is known for its mythical economy.

3.45 rear end, and it has a 0.84 fifth gear. It is currently sitting on 215/70R15 winter tires. When it has been observed getting better economy (I wanna say 20ish) it was on the tiny 14" pizza cutters, revving higher to get things done. I shift by how intolerably annoying the engine drone is, which seems to keep it in the powerband with the exception of 5th, where it is pretty far below. But I don't use 5th for fuel economy, I use it so I can hear myself think.

I am quite certain that the aero differences of the true first gen vs a 94 are good for 5mpg on the highway. So if we ballpark things and say 24ish is the best you ever got and you were trying, maybe the best you would have got if you weren't trying was 21ish, and then we apply my guesstimated aero factor of 5 and we end up pretty much exactly where I am. Honestly not worried about it. It's my best fuel economy vehicle by a long shot. Do keep in mind that I don't drive anything economically.

[Arquemann]

Gearing is funny, my Caprice gets 26 hwy mpg in ideal conditions at ~100kmh. My friend's Audi A4 gets just barely better (maybe 29mpg) with a 2liter turbo and 5-speed manual. Even though my engine is more than double the size, NA and my car is not as aerodynamic and atleast 500-600kg lighter...
At the same speed his car is doing over 2900rpm, while my LT1 is chugging along at around 1200rpm.
A big V8 or diesel can happily keep pace at low RPM, but if you slap the same gearing on a small 4cyl, it's gonna lug and falls flat on it's face. And consumption goes way up.

Damn I wish I could not care about fuel efficiency... If I won the lottery I might daily drive a big block Lincoln or something ultracomfy.

[jaywish]

That is one good thing about this freezing weather. Cold and dry. Maybe 18-19 degrees F. Even with the crappy winter blend combined with E10 I still got 26 mpg highway with the Town Car on Sunday at 70mph with snow tires on hilly terrain. On the plus side traffic was moderate.

[DerekTheGreat]

Doesn't cold air require more fuel for proper mix? Not even sure it matters with a fully warmed up engine.

The 350 may be known for pretty decent economy in the right package, but certainly not a boxy 4x4 truck as in my case. I routinely get 14.5 - 16.0 mpg with it. I'm satisfied with that, given everything the truck does for me. However, I never expected to see numbers close to 20.

Given you've got a 3.45 in your Ranger, I'd be tempted to never use OD. The big increase I saw was from switching from 5th gear at 40-50 to 4th gear at 40-50mph. That's the only change I made, which indicates the parasitic loses due to aerodynamic drag weren't a notable factor. I beat the snot out of that truck, I had to. It was an extended cab with A/C and I used A/C frequently. God was that thing miserable. FFffffft!....FFffffffffft!.....Fffuurrrrrfft....ff rrrrrrrrr. That's what I remember it sounding like. I'd expect your Ranger to do at least 18 or 19. Shift more, but not into OD.

Gearing is funny. Worked with a dude who drove a '99 Honda Accord with a four banger and a five speed. He complained about how terrible the MPG was, something like how he only got 22 or 24 with it. However, he said if all he did was drive on the freeway, it would do nearly 35. I asked about his driving habits and got something like, "I've been driving a stick for nearly thirty years now, I think I've got a handle on it." Somehow I ended up with it for a week, did mostly city driving and got 32 mpg with it. He was blown away. So then I rode shotgun while he drove. Sure enough, he treated that little four popper like it was a torquey diesel, was short shifting the snot out of it, I don't think the tach ever saw RPM beyond 2k. Yet when I was driving it, I was winging the snot out of it. I had researched where it made peak torque and tried my best to keep it there. I tried advising him to hold gears a bit longer but he said he didn't want to do that. Oh well, it's a Honda so not like I care about it.

[sly]

More air... more fuel... more power... less pedal needed to do the same work... If you keep your foot out of it, you can get maybe half a MPG better. If you have to deal with "winter gas" that will probably negate the whole thing anyhow and give you -1 or -2 MPG. The gearing is the main kicker. My 93 got 28 mpg with the 2.73 highway gears an non-ethanol gas. 26 with ethanol gas. with the 3.55 limited slip towing/"performance" gears, it gets 22 at best. City also dropped from 19 to 15. The valve body upgrade got that back up to 16-17 depending on how much lead my foot has. 12mpg towing my trailer with a ton of crap in it (gross around 3500#).