My $500 4x4

Eidt: good luck with the sale! will make someone a great deal
 
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that didn't take long. Good thing it was a $500 truck and not a $50K one. My advice: buy another beater.
 
jmccracken1214 said:
Bought a 96 ranger xlt from an older couple at work. Dash shows 149k but the worm gear is broke. They said it has less than 170k miles. Air doesn't blow cold but the interior is pretty nice. Drives great. 4wd works, has power locks and windows.... Couldn't pass it up.

Got it tagged today and 2 new tires on the front to match the back. With an alignment it cost me $319. Sold the subwoofer and amp that came in it to my wives Co worker for $100. So I've got $719 in the pick up.

Got it home, checked the fluids, oil is a little low (no leaks) and dirty, and the tranny fluid is low and black. Looked at the tranny pan, it's leaking. Going to put a new fuel filter in, change the oil, put a new tranny pan on with a drain plug and put a new filter/fluid in it. Should be good to go then. Can't believe I got this thing dirt cheap!

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I got a 99 I bought new. Almost 20 years old with 120K. I have spent a total of $600 on it in 20 years. Tough as nails, 3.0 V6, straight drive with AC. I am sure you will get lotsa more use outta yours.
 
Alright folks, I bought the truck about 10 days ago. Figured I would continue the updates on this beauty as I work on it. I've done a few things to vehicles I've owned but will do almost allof the work with my father since he has a lot more experience and much better tools. I'm no expert so may misuse or not even try to use the proper terminology.

First I want to mention it was a pleasure meeting jmcracken1214. He was very up front about what the truck needed and priced it accordingly. I finally had a chance today to really look at the truck and it was pretty easy to spot all the work he put in.

So the 2 big issues I started with today. One is the previously mentioned drive shaft/u joints and also the tire rubs a little on sharp right turns.

First the good news. After very careful inspection, the rear drive shaft is actually mostly in good shape. Only the rear most u joint needs to be replaced. jmcracken1214 had mentioned checking out a junk yard for the one piece drive shaft on 98 and later models. However, the center bearing was completely shot. I'm a little disappointed I didn't take any pics of it but the rubber disintegrated as I touched it. Also it appears it was vibrating a lot since I was able to unscrew 3 of the 4 screws with just my hand. I drove this truck to my parents to visit for the weekend for Father's Day and need to drive it home tomorrow so can't wait for junkyards. It took me half a day to get everything apart (laugh away. first time for me.) and obviously can't put back together disintegrated rubber. I checked O'Reillys and the remanufactured steel one piece drive shaft is $300. A new center bearing is $30. I went with the latter.

Not being able to check the old disintegrated one, I wasn't sure which side of the center bearing should face the front. One side has the rubber sticking way out and the other side is more rounded. Also there are loose shields on both sides that I don't remember removing. It looks like the side with the rubber sticking out like an awning goes towards the yoke and the rounded side isn't supposed to get the shield. YouTube videos were terrible and I can't find anywhere that mentions it. The packaging doesn't mention anything either. If anyone has any insight on this I'll gladly take it. Part number 6062 at O'Reillys.

The reason why we didn't go ahead and put the bearing on is because the lady at O'Reillys gave me an incorrect u joint which I'll now have to exchange tomorrow anyway. Unlike the center bearing, I didn't previously research the part number and just told her the cheapest one that fits a 96 ford ranger xlt 4x4. Long story short, it wasn't their finest hour. They couldn't find the parts I needed right away even though they were in stock and had to search and dig around. (Edit: went to a different O'Reillys and their computer does list the previous u joint as compatible. Once they clicked details to see it was too big compared it to 4 others that were the exact same size I don't blame the previous O'Reillys for giving me the wrong one.)

Btw we broke a vice trying to remove the u joint. I didn't have a big enough c clamp and tried to make due. Big mistake. I then watched a YouTube video where the guy seemed to easily remove it using a vice and a puller. I went to autozone to look for a larger c clamp and puller and the guy mentioned their tool borrowing program and had a u joint kit ready to go. I got it off with the right tools but it still wasn't as easy as the video. My father has done this many times and said he's never seen one that stuck. The kit had a massive c clamp and we used an impact drill. Instead of slowly moving until we could pull off the cap, the pressure from the clamp eventually explosively pushed the u joint as far as it would go. It didn't budge 1 mm prior. I'll post pics tomorrow after I do the exchange and we get everything back on.
 
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Last post was long so writing a new post about the tire rub. As previously mentioned, jmcracken1214 had bought 2 new front tires to match the back ones, then realized the old front tires were smaller. This made it seem like the tires were too big.

I pulled off the bumper to take a look and it turns out the tires aren't the problem. The lines on the body match up extremely well (for a 96) so I don't think it's been in any multi vehicle wrecks, but the original owners definitely hit something from the front right. The bumper doesn't have any cracks or major dents, but this explains the missing trim below the bumper as it was clearly torn off. Some ripped up pieces of plastic were still attached. Also the plastic funneler to the bug catch (it's after midnight the name escapes me) was lopsided and has a big crack. Whatever they hit, it was short enough to not mess up the bumper but strong enough that it bent up the brackets on the right side. My first guess would be tree stump.

If anyone knows where I can get that trim below the bumper I would appreciate the info. Right now the front of the truck kind of looks like Homer Simpson's upper lip ha. I'm guessing I won't have much luck at junkyards looking at wrecked trucks and the parts stores didn't have them online.

I remembered to take a few pics. The little red rectangular pieces on the far left and right just above the tires show where it hit. You can see the cracked funneler after I straightened it out. It was hanging lopsided since the right side screw was stripped and the clip was broken. I bought some epoxy for that crack.

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Bent brackets meant there were some bent screws and broken washers. My dad has buckets of screws and washers to replace so easy enough. Not the most exciting pics but here's an example.

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Hard to see the bent parts from this pic. If you look carefully the top middle is wavy while the bracket I left attached is perfectly straight. I'll hammer these as straight as I can and hopefully that'll be enough to solve the tire rubbing. I'll post more pics tomorrow once I put it all back on.

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Mirac said:
If the old U-Joint does not have circlips, it's set in with melted plastic and needs to be heated to get the cups out.
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We used a blow torch but it didn't seem to help. When We did eventually get it to move, dust flew everywhere like I had just opened some ancient sarcophagus.
 
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Sevenshot said:
Last post was long so writing a new post about the tire rub. As previously mentioned, jmcracken1214 had bought 2 new front tires to match the back ones, then realized the old front tires were smaller. This made it seem like the tires were too big.

I pulled off the bumper to take a look and it turns out the tires aren't the problem. The lines on the body match up extremely well (for a 96) so I don't think it's been in any multi vehicle wrecks, but the original owners definitely hit something from the front right. The bumper doesn't have any cracks or major dents, but this explains the missing trim below the bumper as it was clearly torn off. Some ripped up pieces of plastic were still attached. Also the plastic funneler to the bug catch (it's after midnight the name escapes me) was lopsided and has a big crack. Whatever they hit, it was short enough to not mess up the bumper but strong enough that it bent up the brackets on the right side. My first guess would be tree stump.

If anyone knows where I can get that trim below the bumper I would appreciate the info. Right now the front of the truck kind of looks like Homer Simpson's upper lip ha. I'm guessing I won't have much luck at junkyards looking at wrecked trucks and the parts stores didn't have them online.

I remembered to take a few pics. The little red rectangular pieces on the far left and right just above the tires show where it hit. You can see the cracked funneler after I straightened it out. It was hanging lopsided since the right side screw was stripped and the clip was broken. I bought some epoxy for that crack.

View attachment 61153


Bent brackets meant there were some bent screws and broken washers. My dad has buckets of screws and washers to replace so easy enough. Not the most exciting pics but here's an example.

View attachment 61154


Hard to see the bent parts from this pic. If you look carefully the top middle is wavy while the bracket I left attached is perfectly straight. I'll hammer these as straight as I can and hopefully that'll be enough to solve the tire rubbing. I'll post more pics tomorrow once I put it all back on.

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Glad it wasn't the tires being slightly larger than factory that was making it rub! That's semi good news on the driveshaft only needing 1 ujoint as well. Did you get the new center bearing thing back in right?
 
jmccracken1214 said:
Glad it wasn't the tires being slightly larger than factory that was making it rub! That's semi good news on the driveshaft only needing 1 ujoint as well. Did you get the new center bearing thing back in right?
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Not yet. Do you know which side is supposed to face the yoke? Also, do I keep that shield on the opposite side?

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Mirac said:
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Ah thank you. Went out and did it as soon as I watched that 1 min video. I ended up ditching the shield since the bearing I bought had hoods on both sides.

Truck is put back together and hammering those brackets was enough to resolve the tire rubbing issue. It's still close on both sides but can turn the steering wheel all the way now.

Button Pusher said:
I would recommend to replace all U joints at the same time, you don't want to have to do it again later.
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I thought about it but doing the one was bad enough haha. The rest of them are in surprisingly good shape. I really wasted a lot of time trying to set the rings. Luckily I was able to save 3 from the old one since I mangled 2 trying to smash them in. You can see in this pic where I couldn't get it to set all the way even though 80% is smashed in. Not sure why. I took it back apart twice and wrapped a rag around the end of a screwdriver to clean out those grooves but still couldn't get the rings to seat all the way. I rented a u joint kit from autozone had the exact right tools to make the job easy. Maybe just down to being 20 year old parts?

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I'll gently warm the yoke with propane torch or heat gun, let it cool and then some liquid wrench then use the tool.
Most of the time the needle bearings end up rusting and causing driveshaft vibrations. New joints will have zerk fitting.
Ride ON!:) Job well done!
 
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