1947 ford ranger...

[Dez]

Some other problem-solving was done.
I happened to have a rad for a 57 Chevy sat around for another project, which looked like it might for rather well. It fits so well it’s now been diverted for this project!




The inlet/outlet are in the wrong place, but that’ll get sorted later.

After mocking up the bedsides with the rear wings on, it was apparent the rear wheels sat too far in as they were very close to the bedsides. Some ebaytastic spacers soon sorted that.






The NSRA swapmeet happened-


I relented in the end and flat packed the pickup bed with a chisel 😂
But that’s how I ended up with the ‘41 only
Ford script tailgate that doesn’t say v8 on it.


The other major score you will see these is a recovered seat I bought off paulcoltech for a knockdown price (cheers mate).
Makes the interior a much nicer place-


I also picked up some bits miles at jackhammer speed shop had ordered for me-

[Dez]

As the steering column was provisionally hung in place, I decided to mount the pedals around that.
This is the rhd ranger pedal assembly with very little modification, just a couple of cuts to get it to sit flat against the firewall.
I elected to use the ranger pedal assembly as they’re a fly-by-wire throttle, plus have a brake pedal and clutch pedal switch that are needed. Plus it means my pedal ratios are right and it’s all proven to work with the ranger master cyls.

I put a big 3mm spreader plate across the firewall to stop it flexing as it really wasn’t designed for mounting pedals to (they were previously under floor mounted to the chassis) then a 1” box section brace that runs up to the steering column mount, with an angle plate on the end that is drilled and tapped for the steering column bolts. This triangulated everything together and braces it up nicely so it doesn’t flex at all. All the nuts are welded on so they’re captive.
I’ve since added a couple of tabs to the box section for the top of the pedal assembly to bolt to as well. The servo and master cyls just bolt through the firewall and have the standard ranger sealing boots on them.

[Dez]

well thats Tapatalk maxed out, I’m now VIP after upgrading 😂

One slight problem with the bedsides is they’re 7 foot long, and my brake is 6 foot two.

Cue a bit of improvisation.


You’ll notice the panel now has some swages in too. That’s because I paid my mate a few quid to machine me these up on my lathe whilst I did something else. They exactly replicate the size of the swages on original bedsides.


Actually swaging them was a bit of a palaver, they’re so big it took 3 of us to do em, one to crank the wheel on the beadroller, one to guide the panel and another to hold the other end up! So there’s no photos of that bit.

Bedsides back on once the folds and swages were done, and I could finalise the rear wing position.


I then drilled (most) of the wing mounting holes, and filed em all square to take coach bolts like standard, once I found a supplier of some that weren’t stupidly long.

[Dez]

Then I revisited the wiring.
I’m not bad at wiring, even if I don’t necessarily know what all the components are and what they do!
I’d thinned out the loom down to what I thought I needed to keep for it to run, plus the basic lighting circuit and fuseboxes. I had to loose some of the switchgear as it was column mounted so I’ll have to add that back in, but kept all the gauges and warning lights.
For safety reasons I’d also removed the entire airbag and ABS systems, as they wouldn’t work safely in the truck now. You can’t remove the lights for them though as they’re board-mounted crees in the gauges so they were skilfully sorted with some electrical tape 🤣

Amazingly the wiring loom was laid on the roof of a car right in the middle of the workshop when it burned down, and survived almost totally unscathed, just one little melty corner on the OBD plug. I replaced this with one cut out of a scrap car.


The issue I did have was I lost the keys and transponder in the fire. I still had the ECU and immobiliser unit that are coded together though. I was given another ecu, transponder and keys by a guy I bought some other ranger bits from, But no immobiliser unit so that wouldn’t work. This is the doohickey in question.



I decided to wire it up and see what happened.

[Dez]

Turns out I can’t do vids on tapatalk. That’s annoying. Hopefully I’ve just uploaded one via the forum?

Here’s attempt 1. Connect everything up, but it’s keylocked and therefore immobilised. That’s what the little flashy car symbol means.

EDIT- nope. Doesn’t work?

[Dez]

Well it appears I now have a YouTube account as well now 🙄

The video-

[mrbounce]

Fabulous work and fascinating as well Dez. I really wish I had paid more attention in metalwork at school, but they didn't give us much to work with. Instead they seemed to want to concentrate on us making key rings and the like...

Bookmarked.

[Dez]

Oct 6, 2019 13:10:12 GMT mrbounce said:

Fabulous work and fascinating as well Dez. I really wish I had paid more attention in metalwork at school, but they didn't give us much to work with. Instead they seemed to want to concentrate on us making key rings and the like...

Bookmarked.

You can still learn it all if you want to. I’m mostly self-taught, and am still learning all the time.

[Dez]

Speaking of learning, it was at this point I spoke to an auto electrician about something else (replacement key for a Lupo) and we then discussed this.

He looked at the transponder ring, and because it only has two wires he thought it was just a sensor of sorts, rather than coded. He thought it would be possible to just code a key to the original ECU and immobiliser using the replacement transponder ring off the second hand steering column I’d bought, so essentially just treat it as a lost key.
He could order the code to do this from the chassis number direct from ford for £30. What he didn’t know was if it had to be a new key, or if a used one could be recoded. He ordered the code anyway (takes a week to be issued) and we decided to have a crack with the old key.

So a week later he turns up with the code, after me flapping about to fix the OBD port cos I thought he’d need it to code it.
Turns out he doesn’t need it at all, the code is inputted entirely through key clicks! This is why they have a second key sensor as well as the ignition switch. It’s a rather primitive system to say the least, but after a bit of faffing around inputting the code, we have this-



(I do listen to things other than black sabbath at the workshop, honest!)

As you can see, all the gauges and warning lights are working. The fuel pump is still knackered though, tbh I’m surprised it started at all. I’m rather pleased with that though, it could have been a far bigger headache than it turned out to be. And it turns out you can reprogramme used keys so you don’t have to give ford £60 for a new one 😉

[voodoo57]

BRILLIANT!

[Dez]

Next job, weld the bed rails on. On an original bed they’re rolled as part of the bedside, but I don’t have the facilities to do that (not that I can figure out how they did it either) so I just bought some tubing the right dia. and welded it on. A mere 14 foot if welding and smoothing out after!







That slight bow will be pressed out once the bedsides are welded to the frame.

Rolled it outside for another looksee.


Then I cut and shut the original 47 truck shifter with the ranger one.


Also replaced the lower boot, straight from the Mazda parts bin. The entire shifter setup is the same as an mx-5.


Then I spent quite a lot of money on all the bits to make the steering setup. There’s over £100 in those two UJs alone. With the steering box, idler and pitman, plus all these bits, the steering setup is knocking on £600. But it’s gotta be right so no skimping.

[jonsey]

Very cool truck.

[strikey]

i really am seriously anti the fun-police and this is an inspired and clearly well thought out build...but...are you likely to run into issues with deleting airbags and abs while retaining the donor identity? hope not.

[Dez]

Oct 6, 2019 18:18:02 GMT strikey said:

i really am seriously anti the fun-police and this is an inspired and clearly well thought out build...but...are you likely to run into issues with deleting airbags and abs while retaining the donor identity? hope not.

Quite the opposite.
They actually encourage you to remove them or not fit them on ‘amateur’ builds or conversions. presumably because as soon as any of the design parameters change the system is operating outside its remit. So for example if a car has disabled hand controls fitted, the airbag must be removed so it don’t fire the hand controls at your face if it goes off.
A car with ABS will actually fail a IVA.

In reality though all I have to worry about are MOT regulations, where a system can’t just be disabled, all evidence of it must be removed completely.

[jollyroger]

This is brilliant. Thoroughly enjoying reading thanks.

[strikey]

Oct 6, 2019 18:56:04 GMT Dez said:

Oct 6, 2019 18:18:02 GMT strikey said:

i really am seriously anti the fun-police and this is an inspired and clearly well thought out build...but...are you likely to run into issues with deleting airbags and abs while retaining the donor identity? hope not.

Quite the opposite.
They actually encourage you to remove them or not fit them on ‘amateur’ builds or conversions. presumably because as soon as any of the design parameters change the system is operating outside its remit. So for example if a car has disabled hand controls fitted, the airbag must be removed so it don’t fire the hand controls at your face if it goes off.
A car with ABS will actually fail a IVA.

In reality though all I have to worry about are MOT regulations, where a system can’t just be disabled, all evidence of it must be removed completely.

happy days. i didn't realise any common sense remained in this mad  world of ours?!

[tonycocacola]

This is going to be one seriously cool work truck.

[rblote]

This is so awesome. You make it look so easy to do something like that. Great skill!!

[07lilredwagon]

Following along for sure. Just love the proportions of this truck...its definitely in the "what Ive always wanted" category!

JP

[Ralph.Wrecked.It]

ERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRM..... LIKE!!!!!

That is a seriously cool project, very much liking the look of this and can't wait to see it rolling around with the new body on. Awesome job, really smart work on the interior.

Very good sir, very good indeed.