Whelp... im back in a Ranger!

[Langwilliams]

I'm relatively sure most YJs by this point are made up of more patches than factory metal lol.

Thanks though, I'm super happy with how it's come out considering it was my first go around with frame repair.

I need a decently sized patch at the driver's side shock mount too so.. more practice! Weeeeeee!

My buddy has a 2012 Chevy that needed a major frame patch!. He paid to have it done, they dropped the tank an found even more problems. We get our share an then some of rust here since they salt the roads but that truck was only about 9 years old when that happened.

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[Blmpkn]

My buddy has a 2012 Chevy that needed a major frame patch!. He paid to have it done, they dropped the tank an found even more problems. We get our share an then some of rust here since they salt the roads but that truck was only about 9 years old when that happened.

It's crazy how quickly the road treatments ruin a vehicle. It's SO BAD that politicians have suggested salt belt folks receive some sort of 'rusty junk' tax credit because we need to spend 3 BILLION dollars a year in rot repair.

 

[Blmpkn]

Successful few hours on Saturday.. knocked off the shock mounts, removed another crossmember, drilled some holes.. just gotta patch up by the driver's shock mount and we'll be ready to start making new crossmembers ??

 

[Blmpkn]

Managed to get a little bit done before I ran out of gas for the welder ?

Wanted to get a full perimeter weld for the fishplate so I'd never need to worry about rust forming in between it and the frame.. hogging the holes in the plate to 2x the size of the holes in the frame and welding around the inside of them seems to be working extremely well...

More next weekend..

 

[Blmpkn]

Didn't make the trip to get more gas for the welder thanks to an exceptionally shit week.. ranger Sunday was a success anyways.

Fuel tank has been removed, the remainder of the leaf spring related brackets have been removed from the frame, and the leaf spring bushings have been exorcized.

Oddly (but thankfully) none of the leaf spring bushings had the annoying outer sleeve. Just rubber and the inner sleeve shoved into the leaf..

The insides of the eyes are kinda lumpy bumpy and need to be hit with a flap wheel to fix em back to round but I'm relatively sure I have a bag of them kicking around somewhere that are close enough to the right diameter to work. Everything is going to be replaced with poly.

More next weekend!

 

[Blmpkn]

Slowly making progress still.. got the first crossmember built and burnt in last weekend.. super happy about that...

...And was super excited to get the rest of them done yesterday but the truck had other plans ? The area behind the driver's spring hanger was much worse than I thought. Had to hack a foot long section out of the web of the frame.. and didn't even have enough material with me to scab a new section in.. let alone plate over it afterwards.. so I had an early day. I didn't want an early day, dammit.

Oh well, hopefully next Sunday I can get it all scabbed and plated.

 

[Blmpkn]

Inching closer towards greatness..

 

[Blmpkn]

Haven't worked on the ranger in a few weeks sadly, been too busy.

I did get the bronco out wheelin last Saturday though! Went with a couple co-workers.. one having a wrangler .. at least it has the correct number of doors.

We went to Armor Ditch off-road park in Ossipee NH. Awesome place! I didn't get too much video since my camera man needed to keep tabs on his 5 y.o lol.. but I'm planning a return trip this weekend with no children and more camera gear

 

[TxOTRRanger]

I like your 96 Ranger. The first vehicle I had when I turned sixteen, which wasn't really mine btw, it was my late step Dads who unfortunately passed away of brain cancer not long after I graduated from high school. It was a 96 XLT supercab 2wd, teal green with a tan interior, 3.0 V6 with an automatic transmission. Just a fun, reliable truck for a sixteen year old kid. Just my two cents.

 

[Blmpkn]

Slightly big update time..

Fancypants race-truck head has been ordered!

Shaved for 10.5:1 compression.. ported.. big valves.. big lumpy cam.. etc etc.. 'fully built' as they say.

Lotta damn money for ONE iron head lol but.. boport knows best when it comes to the Lima. It's money well spent. Real excited for this one..

 

[Langwilliams]

Lotta damn money for ONE iron head

Exactly what I was thinking but you can't take it with you! You going n/a or using a power adder?

 

[Blmpkn]

Exactly what I was thinking but you can't take it with you! You going n/a or using a power adder?

N/A initially. Gonna need pistons at the minimum for any sort of power adder to be worthwhile.. that'll probably be a next year thing.

 

[Dereku]

All that rust repair, should have just tube framed it lol. Im starting to look into more modern 2.3 5 sp rangers for my son. Definitely going south of the mason dixon. If its nice enough he might get my 5g instead with 200k on it lol.

 

[Blmpkn]

All that rust repair, should have just tube framed it lol. Im starting to look into more modern 2.3 5 sp rangers for my son. Definitely going south of the mason dixon. If its nice enough he might get my 5g instead with 200k on it lol.

Yeap, Southern trucks are the cats meow compared to this one lol. The dual cam 2.3s are really good motors too... Plenty of get up and go if you put enough boot in it and I always got 26-27 mpg when I owned my 2010 which is awesome.

Tube frame would of been awesome though lol.. mabey I'll move "get a bender" up the list of priorities a few notches and plan to build one for my next ranger

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