Ford Ranger

[DanStokes]

I'll get pics tomorrow but this is to start a new thread on a quick project. A widowed friend of ours was left with her husband's daily driver, a 1994 Ranger long cab short bed pickup. The truck has the 8 spark plug 4 cylinder, a 5 speed manual, and AC, PB, PS but otherwise pretty basic. It was sold new here in SE North Carolina and has never seen salt - clean little truck! It doesn't seem to have rolled over and the odo shows (IIRC) 36K miles! Anyhow, like any 27 year old vehicle it needs some sprucing up so I'm taking that on before we put it on the market and I'll detail that here.

The BIG projects are painting the bed rails (it had a cap at one time and it wore thru the paint), and realigning the driver's door and adjacent fender. The door might need a hinge but I'm not sure of that yet. There are some other little jobs like getting the fuel gage working but we'll work thru those as I come to them. Of course we'll need to buff and wax it and clean the windows but that's all just SOP. All these things are pretty minor but need doing to get a good price.

Dan

[studemax]

I had one a few Rangers back. Drove over 300,000 miles in it, and then sold it to a pal. Dependable, rugged, comfy. That's why I still drive Rangers. Not crazy about the new ones....

[DanStokes]

Here's the "as received" pics as promised.







I finally sorted out the mileage. I found some old paperwork in the glovebox and it has 113K - still pretty good for a '94. The odo is just 5.x digits so I wasn't sure but it has been over once. Still in really great shape.

Dan

[studemax]

Damn. I like it. Is the bed from a different truck? The pinstriping is different.

[DanStokes]

Original bed. I have a stripe of masking tape laid out to make sure I don't sand too low as I prep to respray the bed rails. It is a nice looking little truck, isn't it?

Dan

[studemax]

Yuppers.

[Tubbed Pacecar]

Dan: If you guys have u-pull-it type yards in your area, you should go for a stroll, and see what they have for Rangers, because on some of the newer ones, they have a plastic protector on the top of the box panels, and on the inside of the end gate. These just might cover the marks from the canopy. And the one on the end gate will stop the inside of the gate from getting all barked up from dragging stuff in or out of the box.
The ones for the top of the box panels are held on by double sided foam trim tape. The one on the endgate has screws that hold it on, so make sure to grab those!

**was googling to see if I could find some pics, and it seems most call them bed rail caps, and discovered there are also a number of aftermarket ones available, but those will run into some $$

This one is an aftermarket (Wade), but is pretty similar to the ones that came on my '08 Ranger



Anyways, something to consider......
Cheers!
James

[studemax]

I have them on my current Ranger, along with the plastic cover for the inside of the tailgate.... Mighty handy.

[DanStokes]

Dan: If you guys have u-pull-it type yards in your area, you should go for a stroll, and see what they have for Rangers, because on some of the newer ones, they have a plastic protector on the top of the box panels, and on the inside of the end gate. These just might cover the marks from the canopy. And the one on the end gate will stop the inside of the gate from getting all barked up from dragging stuff in or out of the box.
The ones for the top of the box panels are held on by double sided foam trim tape. The one on the endgate has screws that hold it on, so make sure to grab those!

**was googling to see if I could find some pics, and it seems most call them bed rail caps, and discovered there are also a number of aftermarket ones available, but those will run into some $$

This one is an aftermarket (Wade), but is pretty similar to the ones that came on my '08 Ranger


Anyways, something to consider......
Cheers!
James

That's a thought! I'll need to spray it now as I've worked it up with 180 sandpaper but that might be a good idea especially if the color doesn't match well.

Dan

[DanStokes]

Getting ready to paint. Now that the booth is back up and ready to go (I hope) I resanded w/400 grit and it's now smooth as the proverbial baby's behind. Finished out today by taping off. I think I'll add one more stripe of tape before the color coats so I can bounce blend - I'll post pics when I do that but it's an old trick to make a soft blend.



Notice that I cleverly bought a new Mustang fuel tank so I'd have that big hunk of cardboard to shield the back of the cab, proof that this isn't my first rodeo.



Dan

[DanStokes]

I promised to post a pic of back taping and explain the concept so here goes. It turns out it's hard to get a useful pic of this but between the shot I did get and my explanation hopefully you'll get the idea.

I hope you can see that there's a stripe of tape running down the quarter panel and the top edge is peeled back about 1/3 to about 1/2 of the tape's width. This way the paint spray can't make a sharp line against the tape which would have to be sanded out - that's a real PITA. so the blend line will be soft and easy to blend. This is for the primer. When I spray color I'll retape about 1/4" or so lower (I usually remask st that time) so the color laps the primer by a bit. With no hard primer line and no hard color line it's easy to fade the new paint into the old. It's an old trick but it works.



Dan

[DanStokes]

In epoxy primer - this is PPG DP50, thinned so it flows better. I went with the DP primarily (see what I did there?) as a sealer - it works great. I'm seeing a bit of a "ghost" of previous layers so I'm pleased that I sealed it. I'll sand it up tomorrow and see how it looks. I can give it another coat if necessary.

Part of the story here is that I'm also trying out my new Spectrum (Harbor Freight) gun. My old Binks #7 is ancient technology and is getting pretty tired to the point that it would need a professional rebuild if I was going to use it and paint transfer has always been terrible as it was for all the old siphon feed guns. I kind of dove in with 1 foot and bought a mid-level gun - this one is copied from a Sharpe. I REALLY like it. It's a HTE (High Transfer Efficiency) and there was almost no cloud following spraying. The droplet size was very small, more of a fog, and the primer laid down nicely. So far so good.



In this pic you can see the outline of the layers if you look closely a bit ahead of the stake pocket. I'll see how this layer sands up.



Dan

[studemax]

I had a Binks booth and a little Sharpe touch-up gun with a pair of teflon lined cups. Big Campbell-Hausfeld compressor. Worked like a champ. For small stuff I used my $19 Miller single action airbrush. Made a lot of money with that rig.

[DanStokes]

Got the paint on today. Looks decent but I'll probably 2000 sand it and buff it when I do the rest of the truck. There's just a little dirt in the paint - not bad but I know it would be even better. One of the disadvantages of not having a dedicated booth.

Here's a shot of my HF gun stand mounted to a portable base. I didn't want to give up bench space to screw it down but I definitely wanted a gravity feed stand so I could set the gun down so this was my solution. I can just tote the whole deal up on the mezzanine when not in paint mode. I continue to be pleased with the Spectrum gun.



One side:



And the other:



I plan to work on the driver's door alignment tomorrow.

Dan

[DanStokes]

Nothing pic-worthy....


Today I worked on the driver's door alignment. After significant head scratching I worked out that if I pulled the lower hinge (much easier to get to the bolts) rearward it should lift the door back up to the striker. Son-of-a-gun, it worked. After slight adjustment to the striker the door closes like a bank vault. There was a little slop in the upper hinge but really very little so I didn't feel bad about not replacing the upper hinge. One thing off the list.


Dan