1947 ford ranger...

[Dez]

Or should that be 2007 ford f1? 🤔

A little something I’ve been putting together for a while now. Progress has been sporadic for various reasons which will unfold as I tell the tale, but I’m about on the home straight now.

To start, I bought this in September ‘15


I was gunna make a car transporter out of it, but there was various issues with getting the build how I wanted it, plus the amount of time it would have spent parked up deteriorating put me off, so it sat in the corner of the yard for a while when I formulated plan B.

A lot of tape measure work on various vehicles and I convinced myself of what was going to work best. I didn’t want some curse word slow old truck, this was going to be my daily driver. Many options were looked at based on cost, power and drivability, and best fit for the ‘47 body, and in May ‘17 I finally put my money where my mouth was and got round to buying this-


It’s one of the 2007up common rail models, a totally different breed to the earlier IDI ones. It’s got nearly twice the power, taller gearing and is a much more modern drive.
It was a bit cosmetically challenged, the bed had been bashed in both corners, the bonnet was rusty and the front bumper torn but that didn’t concern me. it was ex-motorways fleet with FSH, and had been meticulously looked after mechanically. It was also half the price of any other one on the market, mostly cos it’s been to the moon and back (300k+) but that doesn’t really matter when literally everything wearing has been replaced twice.

I used it as a daily driver for a while, doing all the work related truck things you’d expect-


In the meantime, I stripped down the ‘47 truck once it was registered. The basic plan was to use the body for this build, sell the registered chassis for build funds, and keep the running 59AB flathead v8 for another build.

It’s a Arizona truck so there’s no rust. I just shovelled the chewed up tumble weeds, dead rats and curse word out of it and liberally applied jeyes fluid.


The I took the front end off, the motor out, and unbolted the cab.

[Dez]

I was daily driving the ranger to make sure it was the correct donor vehicle to use, and I was very happy with it. So much so I was just using it constantly!

But in November there was a little ‘incident’


That’s about 50l of contaminated fuel cos some dickhead used the wrong pump. First time in nearly 15 years though. 🙄
I topped the tank off with derv to try to redeem the situation, I thought I’d got away with it but it packed up 70 miles later on the return journey. I got it recovered to the workshop and with nothing to loose I dropped the tank, drained the entire system and refilled it with derv. It seemed to actually be ok with fresh fuel in. So much so I used it that week to go down to hayling island to pick up another important ingredient.



I took the godawful paint off em and they suddenly looked a lot better-


It was almost a month after the fuelling incident I was trolling round the m25 with a trailer on to go pick up something else, when it started making bad Knocky noises from the pump and died just after I’d managed to get off at a junction and into a lay-by.


On big yellow taxi back to the workshop please.


Take one last look, because that’s the last time you’ll see it like that. Mid December ‘17.

[Dez]

So, between other things a stripped the ranger down over the next few weeks. It took a while as I was doing it between other things, and it had to be sorted into ‘keep’, ‘sell’, and ‘scrap’.
I also needed to extract the wiring loom fully intact as I went.









Success!


More success!


Weigh-in time....

[Dez]

It mid January by now, and Moment of truth time.

This was transposed from this chassis-


Onto this one-


Some other bits where chucked on to check the fit.










There was some trimming involved to the inner fenders and stuff to get the front clip on-

[Dez]

There was a little bit of rust in the frontmost bed mount uprights, a common spot on these, so I fixed that whilst there wasn’t anything in the way and before it spread to the chassis rials.






I made some new body mount rubbers-


Cab wood blocks needed remaking-


I had two options with mounting the cab. Spacers under the cab mounts (about 3”) so the prop cleared the floor and the tunnel didn’t need cutting, or cut for a prop tunnel, trim the tunnel area and bolt the cab directly to the chassis on the stock wooden blocks.

Obviously the latter happened!


This made it a lot lower. Remember the chassis and running gear is stock height-




This effectively moved the motor up and filled the bay out nicely.



mocked up the steering and stuff to see what space I had. One glittery chistmas present on top of the column there too.

[Dez]

I jetwashed the chassis and this came off. Interesting!


I reattached the bed mounts once fixed. Now the cab is trimmed it sits down nicely, right up to the fuel tank.


I even mocked up the front bumper my make Kerry had dug up out of a hedge over the other side of Essex, local legend had it there was a 30s/40s ford truck there and he went and found it and I ended up with the appropriately patina’ed bumper!


I did a bit more mock-up with some proper bedsides and parts.






That was February ‘18.

*There will now be a little year-long interlude where my workshop burns down, we rebuilt it, and it takes me the rest of the year to sort out all the fallout and problems from it all *

[Dez]

*welcome to intermission*

(Internet points if you get that reference 😉)

During the intermission we will talk about why a ranger.
The reasons are many.

1. Wheelbase.
A stock ‘47 ford half ton wheelbase is 114”. A ranger is 118”. A little Longer is ok, it visually lowers the truck. Shorter is bad, it makes things look dumpy. An extra 4” was deemed acceptable and is easily lost in the bedsides and running boards.
Funnily enough it makes the bed exactly 7’ long.

2. Other chassis dimensions.
Track width on a ranger is a couple of inches narrower than a 47. This is ok, ‘cos out back some spacers easily sort things, and on the front it’s beneficial as it actually improves turning circle when lowered as the tyres are further away from the arch lips so don’t catch.
All other chassis based extremities (front overhang, rear overhang etc.) all fit within the footprint of the 47 ford body so are all hidden.

3. Spec.
The ranger chassis has a LSD, leaf spring rear, independent torsion bar front suspension, power steering, power brakes, front discs, 5 speed gearbox and a reasonable 2.5L turbodiesel motor that puts out 145hp and 245ft/lbs of torque. It’s geared nicely, 80mpg in 5th is about 3k rpm if I remember rightly. It’s obviously separate chassis construction, and the chassis has a nice few inches of sweep at each end in exactly the right places, doing the same job as a stepped or notched chassis on an early truck, with none of the associated registration issues.
You could deliberately go out to modify an original 47 ford chassis with modern parts to update it, or make a new Custom one entirely from scratch, and it would end up looking almost identical to this one.

4. Lineage.
The chassis in all rangers and Mazda bt-50s up to 2011 is basically a mildly updated Mazda b2000 chassis. They have improved power plants, power steering was added, the ARBs is a little thicker, and the gearing is taller to go with the increased power output. Otherwise, they’re largely identical. I have half a 1984 b2000 chassis kicking round and even the front brakes are the same.
This is great for upgrades as the b2000 is basically THE Minitruck.
Lowering and air ride are well travelled routes on these chassis.

5. Identity.
As this is purely a rebody, so retains the full 12 points on the scale system, I keep the ranger identity. They just cross out ‘ranger’ where it says ‘model’ to recognise the visual change. So ill be left with a v5 that just says make= ford and body style= pickup, which I think is pretty nifty.

6. LHD-ability.
Ford/Mazda don’t make two different chasis for lhd/rhd markets. All the holes are there for either setup. Just buy the lhd bits and bolt em on. I wanted it lhd so you can’t tell the truck has been chassis swapped.

7. PCD.
Rangers are 6x139.7mm PCD. In real money that’s 6x5.5”, a PCD those pesky japs stole off the ‘muricans (mostly Chevrolet) back in the ‘60s. This means that I can give it traditional looks by literally bolting a set of 60s Chevy rims straight on, which hides the origins of the chassis very easily.

There’s probably more I’ve forgotten but I’ll come back and add them if i remember anything else.

And there concludes tea for two 😉

[rickygolf83]

Some skills and great ideas there man, look forward to the next installment! 

[stealthstylz]

8. You're a Donny traveller so the cost of running a V8 would outweigh the scrap value of how many manhole covers and cats you can nick.

[07lilredwagon]

This is a great project...looking forward to more pics and story telling!

JP

[Ritchie]

Great project, how common are the '47 fords? I can't see them being 10 a penny!

[Dez]

Oct 5, 2019 23:31:25 GMT stealthstylz said:

8. You're a Donny traveller so the cost of running a V8 would outweigh the scrap value of how many manhole covers and cats you can nick.

It’s a turnup for the books when Matt is calling you a traveller 🤣
If I was that traveller it would be a pre 2001 and on veg!

[Dez]

Oct 6, 2019 8:00:21 GMT Ritchie said:

Great project, how common are the '47 fords? I can't see them being 10 a penny!

They’re obviously all imports, but there’s quite a few around. Although they do seem to fetch less than later f1 and f100 trucks. (The ‘F’ designation didn’t actually exist until the new F1 came out in ‘48).
This cab design ran 40-47, with this grille/bonnet/wings design being 42-47. The earlier 40/41 design is a little more compact so may not cover the front chassis/steering box though.

I paid £3600 for the original truck in 2015. Bear in mind the running-ish flathead was worth at least half of that, the rest of the truck was pretty cheap.

[Dez]

So, fast forward to feb this year, and I’ve about finished clearing up after the fire. I’ve got a new, bigger workshop and alternative parking. Luckily the truck was unscathed as it was parked outside.

As part of the sorting out I’d got a pile of stuff I’ve salvaged that’s for this, but I’d also lost a lot of parts that were stored inside.
All the ‘keep’ pile and ‘sell’ pile were lost.
A couple of hundred quids worth of sellable parts were a drop in the ocean, but the loss of the ‘keep’ parts I needed was annoying.
Much eBay trawling later I’d ended up spending another 2-300 re-buying an entire pedal assembly, brake and clutch master cyls and servo, timing cover, airbox/MAF, steering column with lock and keys, Gauges, and probly a few other bits I’ve now forgot.

I’d already bought the materials for the pickup bed before the fire, and cut them to basic size. When they emerged from the container full of salvage as I was clearing it out, the first part of the bed went together, the base framework. It’s just 2” angle, trimmed to clear a few bits.






The original pickup bed parts I’d bought were also salvaged, Sandblasted and primed. I actually ended up not using the 38-40 v8 stamped tailgate as I later picked up a 41 only one that just says ford.


The , the truck was brought round and put inside. The wheels and tyres where changed as a bit of a mojo boost to get me rolling on it again, stealthstylz had picked me up some Chevy steels from near his that I’d bought on FB, I’d then picked em up off him when I was up north, brought em back down south, and they were then blasted and painted. Some wide whitewall bias plies completed the look.

[stealthstylz]

Oct 6, 2019 8:55:48 GMT Dez said:

Oct 5, 2019 23:31:25 GMT stealthstylz said:

8. You're a Donny traveller so the cost of running a V8 would outweigh the scrap value of how many manhole covers and cats you can nick.

It’s a turnup for the books when Matt is calling you a traveller 🤣
If I was that traveller it would be a pre 2001 and on veg!

They're all into late Transit Customs on red now, with gloves on multiple engine changes cos the injectors fail and melt stuff.

[Dez]

Now it was inside, I cracked on with the cab floor, bolting the cab down properly (literally just move the cab wooden blocks over a couple inches and drill and tap the chassis for the bolts) and putting in a prop tunnel.
This space used to be taken up by the fuel tank, but as I’m using the ranger one under the bed, this is now ‘free’ space. itll be a nice storage space for tools and ratchet straps and stuff and all that other junk you carry round in a work vehicle once it’s done.
The extra bit at the back is for the ranger propshaft centre bearing crossmember. I folded up the tunnel on the press brake but made the boxing for the crossmember out of flat sections as it was a complicated shape.
The floor and seat riser were trimmed out a little more to get a good fit.

[brachunky]

A most excellent write up Dez with some proper planning and execution! Love it indeed

[Dez]

I also dragged out the two sheets of steel I’d cut for the bedsides. These were all burnt but not too badly to be unusable, and as the rest do the truck isn’t exactly boxfresh appearance wise, I decided to go with em in an attempt to match the patina.

Quick mock-up with them and the stake pockets to check everything would fit, and mark out for the bends and swages-

[Dez]

This is a (leaky) rhd steering box.


This is a non-leaky lhd steering box, sourced in Germany by the ever-helpful RR Dutch correspondent berendd


It just bolts straight up to the chassis, once the inner wing is trimmed a bit.


Unfortunately as it was off a truck a couple of years older, the spline size for the pitman arm was different. Not a problem, a call to those helpful people at Milner 4x4 soon got me the right part for not too much money. I also got a lhd idler arm which I already knew was different.



It wasn’t quite plain sailing though as the tapers for the pitman arm and the idler arm are different sizes so if you swap them rhd to lhd they don’t fit. but the centre drag link can’t be flipped over as it is asymmetrically shaped to clear the sump. So I used the taper reamer I happened to have to bore one side out.


The other side was more difficult as you can’t ream a hole smaller, so I bought some VW bumpsteer bushes, drilled it out and pressed one in. Job jobbed.

[Dez]

In the meantime, I’ve got all the tunnel finish welded, and removed the dropped section of floor at the pass side for the bottom of the tank that didn’t really fit with the tunnel very well and panelled it in flat. the seat riser was also welded back in and any extraneous holes in the floor welded up too to make it weathertight.