project Fumbler's Gone To America - Ford F*cking Biohazard

[Fumbler]

27 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

I’m pretty sure the Ranger like yours @Fumbler is basically the same as the original square style ones launched way back in the early 80’s (83ish I think?) very little changed other than body panels and the addition of things like fuel injection and whatever emission control stuff your state had. The twin spark version was about the end of the Lima engine development though I think.

The Lima engine was also fitted in Mustangs and the Thunderbird Turbo coupe so in theory you could  make a few alterations to go faster!😄

 

I believe it's almost the same as the 80s models like you say - twin I beam front suspension, same frame, same defective spring shackles which break (these have been replaced). According to a few sites the Lima engine was replaced by the Duratec sometime around the millennium. As far as emissions rubbish goes, I think only California had anything different to the rest of the country. It's still a low compression engine however, but 112HP is way nicer than the supposed 90 it had a few years prior! It definitely feels very willing, even when it had the original spark plugs installed.

[Fumbler]

This is quite long and rather ramble-y. M'pologies.

The interior of this Ranger is easily the worst one I've dealt with yet. It started with removing the disgusting driver's seat. This wasn't entirely easy, more on that later-

Anyone fancy some embedded treasure?

There were several pennies buried in that black mess. Adhered to the carpet. This is after a few passes with the extractor vac thingy-

That looks a bit better, smells a bit better too! This isn't yet finished however, because I made the mistake of kneeling on that section of carpet the next day and my jeans are now brown from the knees downwards. Bah. The driver's seat was duly installed in the kitchen (a gr9 marital bonding experiment)...

It's supposed to be a grey seat, but instead it was brown. Parts of the seat and the armrest had this weird muddy brown glazing on it. I ended up dismantling the armrest and dumping it into the sink with some washing powder. I should've taken a photo of it, but after 5 minutes of soaking, the water had turned to mud.

Since taking this picture I've gone over it again with a steamer and the vacuum. It looks marginally presentable! At least it no longer smells of farm... Just.

Anyway, onto the next seat, starting with the seatbelt anchor. It went fantastically*

Driver's side bolt threaded in for reference. When undoing the driver's side bolt, I broke one T50 bit getting the bolt broken loose, then I twisted another "impact rated" bit pretty good when getting the bolt the rest of the way out. I then destroyed that bit when I visited the passenger side. I then try another one and promptly snapped it on the first turn. Well shit, I guess it's coming out the hard way then. All in, I ended up having to drill half of it out before the other half would unthread. Of course in doing this, the threads in the body are pretty much ruined. The driver's side bolt threads in okay, but there are no threads left on one whole side of the rivnut thing. This won't do, so it was suggested to me to just drill the nut out to 1/2" ID (the anchor bolts are M12, roughly 0.470" OD) and use a Grade 8 bolt with its own nut and lock washer. Alternatively, I could drill and tap for a 9/16" fine thread bolt. None of the actual seat hardware was as unkind to me but it's all getting replaced. Everything is so rusty.

"Why is everything so rusty?" I wondered. I came to the conclusion there's definitely a leak from somewhere, which would explain the damp carpets and the enhanced Farm Smell™. Fortunately, it rained the following day and I had a feel around. The rear, right below the rear window, was very damp to the touch. I hadn't shampooed that area yet, so I grew suspect of the sliding window. Except, it wasn't the window, because I then decided to check the headlining for giggles, and found it was soaked. Hmm... I guess the third brake light is leaking. It turns out they're notorious for doing this and improved gaskets are a tenner on eBay. I'm not holding my breath, but it would be nice if that was the only problem. The door seals or gutters could also be a problem, but the door jambs were bone dry when I looked. Time will tell I guess.

This is what the headlining looked like-

Since it was now also damp and smelly I decided it ought to go. Step 1: get up early and go to scrapyard with husband. Step 2: Shit, I'm an hour late. Rush to scrapyard because they close before noon. Step 3: liberate headlining.

ITS BLOO. This was surprisingly easy, about 30 minutes all in all. It seriously helps to have another pair of hands. We were worried this would fold up in front of us and everything would be in vain, but fortunately, it was pretty stiff and springy (oh matron!). Along with the headlining I copped the visors, "oh shit!" handle and coat hanger. I'll probably be back to scavenge other panels and fixtures because the interior's in very good condition compared to mine; I'm pretty sure a can of silver paint exploded or something inside my truck's cab because there's silver spatter all over the rear glass, the dome light, the carpets and all the trim. It's seriously tempting to try and replace as much as possible with this blue truck's interior. My interior's going to look all patchwork now, but that's all good with me. 

I finished today by removing the old headlining. This was also pretty easy to do, aside from it shedding foam into my eyes and lungs every time I moved it. It had clearly been damp before because the topside was rather mouldy and the whole thing was pretty floppy. Made it very easy to frisbee into the bin. Ironically enough, the old headlining will end up buried right next door to the scrapyard its replacement came from. It's a small world.

[danthecapriman]

Great progress👍

It’s amazing what some people actually do in cars. How on earth does someone manage to get an interior that filthy!? It looked like a health hazard. 
It’s coming back well though.

[Fumbler]

The armrest/centre console bin was rather broken. I have no clue what happened to it in a previous life but it seems someone smashed their fist against it multiple times and broke the plastic pretty badly. Fortunately, everything was still present and I could set to fixing it.

Some epoxy later and it's all back as one again -

This was followed by screwing this map holder thing back on and then attaching it to the bin and seat.

Not too pleased with its wonkiness but I'm told TADTS and that's just a side effect of having a really tiny mounting point to the seat. Looks way better than it did a few days ago! I also stripped and painted the legs, and dismantled and cleaned the filthy seatbelt buckle.

Much nicer. Next job on the list was cleaning the A pillar trims I removed to delete the headlining.

Ew.

EWW! Nasty horrible filth. On the inside of the trim. I still don't know how that's possible.

[Fumbler]

While pulling my tools out I made the mistake of bumping a trim panel, and a wrapper from a long dead sweet brand fell out

Curiosity got the better or me and I pulled more stuff apar- oh fuck no this carpet's going in the bin

There was a mouse nest in here^

I'm now halfway through trying to get this horrible thing out of the cab, trying not to vomit (the smell is god awful)

[Fumbler]

Update:

This is so heavy with stagnant water, all the underlay is ruined. The smell is still awful, not helped by the 26° weather.

[loserone]

Looks like it would jetwash just fine?

[Fumbler]

9 hours ago, loserone said:

Looks like it would jetwash just fine?

I'm going to try that this evening and we'll see how well it works. If it cleans the smell and the filth out, I've saved $200 (cost of new carpet) which will be nice. Maybe my initial reaction was a bit over the top but I don't know, finding the rubbish was one thing but the mouse debris and nest material wasn't a pleasant find.

[Asimo]

18 hours ago, Fumbler said:

Update:This is so heavy with stagnant water, all the underlay is ruined. The smell is still awful, not helped by the 26° weather.

I removed the stinking, filthy and wet carpets from my (low miles, 7 year old) Ford van as soon as I got it home.

They went in the trash. Plain steel floors are the best deal in a van / truck. 

12 years on and I still don't miss Ford floor coverings.

[Fumbler]

Here's the worst of the floor

Plan here is to peel up the rest of the old soundproofing on this side, take a wire wheel to it and see where it leaves us. It certainly isn't staying this way, that's for sure. 

I then threw a bucket of water all over the cab to see where it's leaking and I took some crap photos 

The third brake light is completely watertight, the rear window seal isn't.

[danthecapriman]

That carpet is absolutely rancid! I’m surprised it didn’t get up and drag itself out of the truck tbh!🤮      
A bloody good power wash and dry should sort it out though.

The floors actually don’t bad considering its age, mileage and the fact it’s been leaking for however long. Are floor patch panels available for these?

[Fumbler]

21 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

That carpet is absolutely rancid! I’m surprised it didn’t get up and drag itself out of the truck tbh!🤮      
A bloody good power wash and dry should sort it out though.

Agreed, but if you think the topside looks bad, here's underneath!

Yuk! We're going to attempt power washing this in an hour or two. 

21 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

The floors actually don’t bad considering its age, mileage and the fact it’s been leaking for however long. Are floor patch panels available for these?

Agreed again. The structural condition of the truck is what basically sold me on it. I did some tapping with a hammer to see if I could make any more holes.

I still find it slightly ironic wet carpets is what caused the floor to rust through instead of road salt. Quite a lot of the soundproofing peeled up in my hands revealing water underneath.

As for replacement floor sections, I'm sure they're available, however that's well beyond my abilities unfortunately. I had to leave my bubble gum machine, visor, brushes etc. behind when I moved. If I'm looking at the truck's floor correctly, this isn't a structural area. The section around the cab mount appears sound and the sill cavities are as well. Seeing as floors (and metal in general) are optional in this state, rivets and adhesive may be deployed...

[danthecapriman]

28 minutes ago, Fumbler said:

Agreed, but if you think the topside looks bad, here's underneath!

Yuk! We're going to attempt power washing this in an hour or two. 

Agreed again. The structural condition of the truck is what basically sold me on it. I did some tapping with a hammer to see if I could make any more holes.

I still find it slightly ironic wet carpets is what caused the floor to rust through instead of road salt. Quite a lot of the soundproofing peeled up in my hands revealing water underneath.

As for replacement floor sections, I'm sure they're available, however that's well beyond my abilities unfortunately. I had to leave my bubble gum machine, visor, brushes etc. behind when I moved. If I'm looking at the truck's floor correctly, this isn't a structural area. The section around the cab mount appears sound and the sill cavities are as well. Seeing as floors (and metal in general) are optional in this state, rivets and adhesive may be deployed...

That is absolutely vile! The underlay felt stuff looks like it’s just full of whatever mank that is. I suppose you’ve got nothing to lose power washing it. It might be ok after, but if not it was worth a try.

If that little bit is all the rust you’ve got you should be fine. Rust converter to slow it down then cover it over with something solid and it’ll be fine. 
You could do a ViceGrip special and rivet a license plate over it! 
It’s a good truck though, you can even still see body colour on your underside photo. Apart from that tiny bit of the floor nothing has rusted or bubbled at all.

 

[Fumbler]

6 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

That is absolutely vile! The underlay felt stuff looks like it’s just full of whatever mank that is. I suppose you’ve got nothing to lose power washing it. It might be ok after, but if not it was worth a try.

Yeah, I may rip that stuff off and replace it with some carpet "underlayment" (Americans harp on about how they contracted loads of English words and yet they say "underlayment" and not "underlay") from the DIY store. From what I can tell, the carpet is embedded in a vinyl sheet and the underlay is glued to the sheet. It's also readily falling off in a few areas.  Amusingly, when researching replacing the carpet with a giant vinyl mat (it was an option), I found a bunch of forum posts saying how the carpet will "breathe" whereas the mat won't, meanwhile I was staring at an OEM carpet which trapped water because of the vinyl backing...

14 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

If that little bit is all the rust you’ve got you should be fine. Rust converter to slow it down then cover it over with something solid and it’ll be fine. 
You could do a ViceGrip special and rivet a license plate over it! 
It’s a good truck though, you can even still see body colour on your underside photo. Apart from that tiny bit of the floor nothing has rusted or bubbled at all.

I'm going to continue exploring the cab with the hammer and then the wire wheel. I'm not looking forward to that part, but that should tell me what's good and what isn't. Fingers crossed that's the worst part of the floor. Funnily enough, my brother said to use a license plate patch as well! I don't have any spare plates about, but I do have some metal which should work.

While looking underneath it did occur to me how these trucks definitely weren't built to last a lot of time. There are pockets and voids absolutely everywhere, the body grounds are attached with press-on clips and nothing else, the only coating underneath is that weird greeny-grey primer the bodies are dunked in at the factory. Anyway, I'm off to the jetwash now. Wish me luck.