97 Rangerrrrrr

[Chimi]

What up! New here but the journey finally begins…

I’ve been wanting to start another build for many many years. And researching forums in the mean time haha

It all started with a 71 Baja bug I bought for 500 bucks when I was 13. It was rough, really just a rusted shell. Eventually finished it, drove it everywhere but overtime needed another rebuild and it was my only car. Working on a career, moving around a bunch forced me to eventually sell it.



Fast forward, finally at a spot in my life where I can begin planning something out.

Found me a Ranger that someone had already put some money into for a good price!



But here she is!

Before I really get to start driving needs a few things to fix or improve..

Said to have done:
- motor replaced
- c4 artcarr shifter manual valve body that got a seal kit recently
- old camburg unequal length kit
- old giant 64 leaf kit with some 2 tube bypasses

To do:
- rear bypasses are blown
- leaf spring bushing have disintegrated
- front lower shock mounts need to be moved looks to be binding
- relocate the shifter mount, can’t move seat close enough to reach pedals well haha
- trans seemed to get a bit warm driving up the hill so may need to work on cooling, unknown stall. Seems a bit higher
- motor wanted to overheat on me also going up the hill, noticed fan wasn’t spinning

Buddy and I been building/ rebuilding an old shed that has been around the last 40 years at his folks in order to get things started. Bunch of old scrap which will prove to keep things cheap.

 

[Chimi]

Before I got the truck, we had to do some work on the shed to get things rolling. This has probably been a year or so by this point. Gutter were all rusted out, replaced those. Poured a slab, built a bench with only some of the scrap around, still a bunch more! Spent all my tip money I had been saving and bought a lift

 

[Chimi]

on to the truck. Fix spicy motor. Sketchy electric fan no spin spin. Took it apart and cleaned brushes, now it does. Definitely something I’m gonna come back to but good for now.
Test drive holding steady 174 ish on the temps going up hill driving around town now.

At this point I’ve put some load on the trans, wanted to see what it would do. Temps wanted to climb 230 towards the end then saw 240 and backed off let things cool.

I’m no expert but seems I need to figure out some cooling or play with stall. Gonna have to come back to this one but the truck will be down for a bit. It has a little cooler in front of the radiator with some zip ties….

 

[DP_Tundra]

Are you still in Hawaii or back on the mainland? Congrats on the lift, those make life 100x easier.

 

[Chimi]

Took my buddy, his wife, mom, and his little girls for a few rips around the farm. Super fun

But gotta move shifter, I’ll probably build a console when it comes cage time. So this will be temp have a bunch of 1” 065 around

 

[Chimi]

Are you still in Hawaii or back on the mainland? Congrats on the lift, those make life 100x easier.

Yep over on Maui
Yeah dude, thank you we're stoked!

 

[Chimi]

Shocks need love


Gotta replace shafts, DU bushing trashed from pitted shafts, gonna play with valving, and cerekote the shocks corrosion is real here







Adult east bake oven… chest freezer died, so cut some holes and gonna use the heat gun to see if we can get a good bake on the shocks… borrowed sandblaster at work


Just gotta put everything back together at this point

Dropped the rebound shims down to 8s from 12s
And compression went from a crazy double stack 20 shim stack down to 15s and go from there as a new baseline

 

[Chimi]

Not a whole lot been done, wish I had more time but put shocks back together and cleaned up the shifter mount a bit

 

[LoganB]

Something to help keep these things cool is the mechanical fan, as the electric fans never seem to be sufficient enough. Rad truck!

 

[Chimi]

Something to help keep these things cool is the mechanical fan, as the electric fans never seem to be sufficient enough. Rad truck!

Yeah for sure, there are definitely a few things on the truck I wish hadn’t got messed with but I’m stuck now haha
core support is pretty hammered so I’ll be tearing that out and throwing tubes in at some point in the near future

 

[Chimi]

Dead lead acid battery with a blown out battery box in the bed. So savaged some good bits and bent up a new base sized to the new battery

 

[Chimi]

Ran around for a little bit to play with the shocks. But decided to tear the trans out because keeps wanting to run warm, didn't want to burn the thing up. Wanted to check fluids/see what i've got going on. so its on the work bench for now. the pump/stator and forward drum/planetary were damaged previously, and from what i can gather someone just slapped some new trust washers/clutches/steels in and called it good. I've got little experience with this so If anyone has any pointers.... im all for it hahah for now reading books and forums. I wanna get his thing solid.

 

[Chimi]

Welp, at a bit of a crossroad here. Spoke with Steve Culthane about the trans and sounds like a bit of a lost cause. Was looking at trying to rollerize and make nice but seems parts are a little tough to come by and always planned on v8 swap later down the line so wondering if now maybe the time.

Either that, orrr if anyone has a built c4 for sale?

Definitely delays things, and turns into a snowball if that’s the new direction.

In the mean time been building the homies little girls a go cart quick n dirty

Thanks Shockseals for the help staying hydrated!

 

[the bodj]

My wife wants to know where you got the coozie

 

[Chimi]

My wife wants to know where you got the coozie

Bahahah dude I’m pretty proud of that thing, when I rebuild the bypasses I bought from seals n parts from Shockseals and he hooked it up