Mr. B's House of Hoopties

[MrBurgundy]

Oh my;

A wild ranger has appeared

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

When I bought the engine off CL it was assembled, so I couldn't read the cast number on the heads.

I put the heads on the work bench today to take a peak and to my surprise, they're off 78 351w...

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Probably the worst possible heads for a small block ford.. these heads have a large combustion chamber, so bolting these up to the 302 block will drop compression too much for my liking..smog era heads (thanks obama)

First thing that comes to mind to solve this is to go with a edelbrock aluminum street heads and sell these off.

I might be able to run the same suspension up in the front with the saved weight by going aluminum. The lima is all cast, so she's a heavy girl.

As for the transmission, seems like the most logical and cost effective rout is to go with ah MO5D-R2 of a 90 something F150. Still mazda, but this one will bolt up to the 302 block and I'd just have to cut out the trans tunnel for the shifter.

With this trans, the shifter is going to be located more towards the underside of the dash, so I'd have to whip up some shifter relocate thingymabobbbber to keep the lever somewhere not so outrageous.

While I did take two steps back, I did take one step forward... Some of the parts are starting to trickle in for the rear end swap...

New drums showed up.. just waiting on the brake shoe stuff with the wheel cylinder.

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo progress bb

The truck is still working for me as I put together the remaining parts to pull the ol' weezer out

Got my last seat done a week ago, so the ranger was on transport duty to take it home until it's ready to go in the car after my carpet and headliner get finished

(yes, the e30 build thread will be vaguely mentioned through the ranger build thread)

Bonus pics;

Here's a 71 super beetle I've been restoring for a client over the past year or so

It' was a rusty roller with sentimental value, so a lot of body work needed to be done... Wish I had more pics on me of the earlier days.

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

as of last week

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

The new harness is mostly in, but I'm waiting on a new dash to wrap that up.. Excuse the mess


Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr


Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

An R107 is hiding there in the back that I'm restoring as well (1 of 3) lol

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

She's coming along well, almost ready to go home..

Really a great experience essentially building one from the ground up..

[Slybeanx]

I'm a big fan of the smaller truck build threads vs the massive dually, crew cab lifted 8" threads I see on the C10 forums lmfao.

Good looking ranger!

[MrBurgundy]

I'm not going to deny that I'm a small dick man myself and fancy a big ol' whistling diesel

But, the small truck is awesome and I think people are going to start realizing that the days of a truly small truck are gone. The new ranger is massive in relation to its older sibling.

An unloaded small truck is probably the most violent ride I've experienced. This makes the BMW on race springs and billies experience cloud like.

When I add a leaf in the back, it's going to get pretty wild lol maybe too wild.

Back to the heads;

My Dad's boat rocks a 351w which he's currently rebuilding, so he's going to put these heads to use.

I'll be buying me heads here after I do some homework.

[MrBurgundy]

Parts are coming in,

The Lima is a little tired, running what I suspect to be the original plugs and coils.

I went ahead and got some Ford goodies to refresh the ignition system. I got trips planned that the truck is on duty for, so this little tune up will help it on the long, steep drives with large loads of white claws.

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Ford makes the prettiest spark plugs

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

All the little things for the rear end swap are coming in. Just having a hard time with sitting down to find the right wheel bearings lol

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Drums, shoes, hardware and new wheel cylinders all rolled in, so I might just go for it tonight and get it ready to install. I think the truck I took the axle off only had 70k on it, so the wheel bearings should be fine.

Updated the lighting on the front of the truck. The first set of lights were cheap shitty ones I threw on to make it out to our land in the mojave at night. It's pitch black out there when the moon is hiding, so you need some pretty bright lights to see any ditches/banks on the dirt trails.

Got some not so shitty LEDs. I put 2 behind the grill, because 4 upfront would look ridiculous.

Got some 3/4" steel bar and fabbed up a couple brackets.

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Yes, theres enough air passing the rad

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Those oddly cut pieces in the background are just some pieces of metal we were using to tune the plasma torch on the cnc plasma we recently finished building

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

I welded the exterior bar together through the grill to make sure I'd be able to get it in and out before everything was one piece.

Got everything welded up. Going to wire everything in and paint it next

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

[MR E30 325is]

Glad to see you committing time and energy to an old Ranger. Good stuff!

[roguetoaster]

Always makes me chuckle when I see 8 plugs for a 4 cyl. I don't recall for certain, but the power plugs are on the DS, and emissions on the PS?

[MrBurgundy]

Glad to see you committing time and energy to an old Ranger. Good stuff!

Thanks, I've grown on this old bitch

If I'm not mistaken, the spark plugs do spark at the same moment, but the intake side is the "primary" coils destination.

It seems as if they did this to mimic the centered spark plug that was seen in DOHC engines for better combustion

[roguetoaster]

Hmm, interesting, hadn't looked at it that way, and it would probably make for faster flame propagation, but not sure if that would net much more power or more complete combustion.

[Reichart12]

That's a lot of Claws you have in the bed...

[MrBurgundy]

Hmm, interesting, hadn't looked at it that way, and it would probably make for faster flame propagation, but not sure if that would net much more power or more complete combustion.

I'm sure in the high rpm range the dual spark is helping out a lot to ignite everything as quickly as possible.

I'm a white claw fan for sure lol

I'd even go as far as calling my self a slut for white claws

[2mAn]

bump

[E30auddie]

bump

Lol, you weren't kidding about bumping threads! And I don't remember who said it, but it does seem that r3v is turning into a truck forum haha. I guess maybe I should make a build thread for my Tacoma crawler too!

To OP: hard to beat an old danger ranger! I loved my 99 3.0 5sp!

[2mAn]

Lol, you weren't kidding about bumping threads! And I don't remember who said it, but it does seem that r3v is turning into a truck forum haha. I guess maybe I should make a build thread for my Tacoma crawler too!

To OP: hard to beat an old danger ranger! I loved my 99 3.0 5sp!

Yes... Now you owe R3V TWO build threads

[E30auddie]

Yes... Now you owe R3V TWO build threads

Haha, damn, should've kept my mouth shut!

[MrBurgundy]

ALL RIGHT

Back in June, I ended up doing the rear end before my trip to a music festival on some mountain up in Utah. GLAD I did it. My cabin was 9000ft up and that truck w the old rear end and bigger tires would have been rolling backwards.

So, the rear end I got was not the level 2 like I had hoped.. My inexperience in ford parts was to blame when trying to ID it, but it's all good. No torsen- we got a traklock or whatever tf Ford calls their clutch LSD.

Got a Ford racing rebuild kit for it and slapped it in there, quite literally.

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Soaked the discs in friction modifier

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

This "S" spring was terrifying to install.. A series of vice grips, sweat, tears and crippling anxiety got the job done.

-maybe I'm being a little dramatic~

While doing the rear end, I added a leaf in the back to lift the truck up a bit and to help assist the old, tired springs when carrying a payload. It was sagging terribly before.

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

The level of the rear looks nice now and I can carry a few hundred pounds back there before the bed starts to come down, which is nice. I thought it was going to ride like a mine cart after, but it rides much better, to my surprise.

The rear springs were so tired, when you would hit a bump the springs would flex and the little power the Lima has would cause axle wrap. Not a fun time.

The 4.10 gears dramatically transformed the way the truck drives. MUCH better acceleration and power. I can actually use the overdrive gear now! woooo!

Truck did amazingly going up to Utah. Fully loaded bed and a mountain didn't trouble the little motor at all..

Around that same time I purchased another 'truck"

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

2005 CHEVY 'LANCHE

It's got coil springs in the rear, a full size cabin and a DVD fucking player. DBL XTRA CREDZ (get on my level, nerds)

Anyways, were here for the Ranger, so fuck that thing, for now..

Yes, V8, I haven't forgotten.. My E30 took up all my time in the recent months, so that was put on the back burner and will be there for a while as I get ready to paint the Ranger. I want the engine to go in and not have to live through the process of getting painted. I would like to do it next summer, when it's too hot to drive it.

Oh yeah, also got some new shoes for it.

Untitled by Omar Albasateneh, on Flickr

Tentative plans now are to maybe construct/fab up a rear shell frame that I can wrap in canvas and add a bracket on the bed to accommodate a rear tire mount to keep a full size spare.