What did you do to your Ranger today?

[Racket]

Today I was able to look under the hood and inspect my engine - lo and behold, the 'hose' that supports the fan wiring had broken.
I had picked up some fuel injection hose the last time I was at the auto parts store for this inevitably so I was able to resolve this before it disabled my truck.

Here's the fix:

Sponsored

 

[Big Blue]

Finished up my headlight install today. For most part not to terrible. But man getting the grille out is a pain. Those bottom clips are a b@#$%h. I do come up with a way to make them super easy. Take a small drill (just big enough to push a small Phillips screw driver though). Now drill a hole just through the upper bumper centered on the area of the clip. Then once you have the side clips loose simply take you screw driver and press down on the clip. Instant release. Wasted about two hours pushing down on those clips with no success .

The other major stumbling block was the outside bolts on the upper bumper facia. Nearly impossible to get up in there and see what you doing, not much wrench swing space either. My solution was to pull the bumper. I know bunch more work. But now you can get at those bolts with a long extention just like inside three. Anyway got the lights in (that part was a piece of cake) and the upper bumper facia back on and called it quites for the night.

Hey, when 71 you don't work fast!?

Today finished up a few loose ends and got the bumper back on. and adjusted the lights. Love of them, will be much better than the old halogen ones, even with the illegal LED bulbs. Didn't need to go into Forscan or anything. Only thing is I had my old ones set to include parking lights with DRLs. That part doesn't work, May play with settings in Forscan, to see if I can get that back.

The last picture I had the 4-ways on. They are sequencial just like the turns.

These are the OLM lights. It seems Coplus that makes these also makes the lights for Morimoto.

 

[TJC]

I got the same plugs, it runs well.
#4 plug was not as hard as I thought it would be. Agree, they didn't seem very tight and I torqued them to I think 18 ft lb which again, didn't seem very tight.
My old plugs looked good for 75k but it's better with the new ones.
I put some anti-seize on also, I was told a while ago not to use a lot or the plugs won't ground properly so I just put two little dabs on the threads, 180° apart.

I lightly covered the entire threaded area, then went over it with a blue mechanic towel to remove excess. What was left was evenly placed between the threads. Just got back from a test drive and my truck is running better now (including my transmission) than ever!

It has been a long time correcting everything, but I now finally feel comfortable trusting this truck on a long trip.

 

[Colo_Ranger]

How many miles on those plugs?

Mileage ? ?

Just shy of 50,000. like... 49,700 or so.

Looks terrible...

Looks like corona stains combined with manganese buildup. Use higher grade fuel...

I only use premium and I try to use Tier 1 whenever possible. I worked at an Oil & Gas company for the past year and I am starting to think their additives were not excellent. But... I got cost plus $0.02, so... I used them pretty exclusively for that time. I am going to be getting back to Shell or Costco, for the most part.

 

[Racket]

I only use premium and I try to use Tier 1 whenever possible. I worked at an Oil & Gas company for the past year and I am starting to think their additives were not excellent. But... I got cost plus $0.02, so... I used them pretty exclusively for that time. I am going to be getting back to Shell or Costco, for the most part.

My thinking is midgrade+ is the way to whether it is ethanol+ or ethanol free.

 

[Colo_Ranger]

My thinking is midgrade+ is the way to whether it is ethanol+ or ethanol free

[/QUOTE]


I am tuned, so I need to run premium.

 

[Colo_Ranger]

Also - All the Rangers I know who replaced the spark plugs looked like this or worse at 50k.

 

[JohnnyO]

My thinking is midgrade+ is the way to whether it is ethanol+ or ethanol free.

I run either midgrade 89 or E15 88. Regular gas here is 10% ethanol anyway.
I average about 1.5 mpg better on a tank of gas with 89 over 87 so it doesn't really cost any more to use.
Saw no improvement running 93 over 89. E15 88 is a bit better than 87 but it also costs 20 cents less a gallon.
I burn a tank of gas every five days and put on about 20k a year so for me it adds up.

 

[deleriumtremor]

Filled a few more chips in the paint up front, caused by the chip seal demon, with the Mr. Colorchip kit. Works pretty good once you get the hang of it.

 

[KNI]

I only use premium and I try to use Tier 1 whenever possible. I worked at an Oil & Gas company for the past year and I am starting to think their additives were not excellent. But... I got cost plus $0.02, so... I used them pretty exclusively for that time. I am going to be getting back to Shell or Costco, for the most part.

Also - All the Rangers I know who replaced the spark plugs looked like this or worse at 50k.

Corona stripes may be safe but raises the question why it's happening in the first place.

For the manganese stains I'd guess it's MMT. Was that some smaller company using MMT or have you been using something like STP Octane Booster at some point?

I'd guess for the plugs the obvious solution is to switch them, but if they get gunk then it's possible that it builds up also on other parts over time.

 

[Colo_Ranger]

Corona stripes may be safe but raises the question why it's happening in the first place.

For the manganese stains I'd guess it's MMT. Was that some smaller company using MMT or have you been using something like STP Octane Booster at some point?

I'd guess for the plugs the obvious solution is to switch them, but if they get gunk then it's possible that it builds up also on other parts over time.

I will probably run some fuel system cleaner through at some point. There really isn't anything you can do about fuel these days. You get what you get. I know that all the stations in my area come from the same refinery. The only thing that changes is the additives added right before it's put in the tanker to be delivered. So... choose your additives.

 

[shovelhd]

Washed the bed and bed mat. Installed four round stainless cargo hooks.

 

[rang19ca]

I made a delivery run to drop off the OEM sport wheels and tires to another Ranger owner. He works for the company I retired from and needed new tires. Mine had 21,000 miles on them so he was happy to have them.

 

[dtech]

I had recently put Wildpeaks on the Ranger and the old rubber had uneven wear so decided to use my 43k pass points and had an alignment done at Western Slope Ford in Grand Junction, CO. Other than warranty work I've never had work done at a dealer. I was impressed, people were polite, truck was done on time , the service writer put down that I had to buy new tires because the alignment was off - I hadn't said that, just that the old tires wore unevenly (minor), they did the routine inspection and found nothing and didn't try to sell me anything - no filters, no wiper blades, nada. Body is so riddled with arthritis might be time to let shops service the Ranger and not entirely opposed to paying extra at a shop where every employee was courteous. And I still have some Ford points left. I didn't notice Rangers on the lot but saw plenty of F-150s and Broncos.

 

[FM AZ]

I just drove 3,750 miles from Tucson to Portland and back to have this Super Pacific X1 pop-up tent camper installed. Great trip! Drove mostly 2 lane secondary roads, passed through AZ, NV, OR, WA, ID, MT, and WY. Four hotels and 9 nights in the camper. $767 in gas, averaged 19.5 mpg. Truck handled it all great, even four wheeled for the first time on a one lane dirt track over the continental divide.

Sponsored