1947 ford ranger...

[Dez]

Getting close to being caught up now.

I bought a mega-expensive but totally unavoidable bit of rubber. I guess seeing as I managed to salvage the slightly burnt filler neck and cap (although the cap needs a new seal) it balances out.
£31 bloody quid for that grommet inc. shipping and duty though!
But totally unavoidable as it not only waterproofs the cab and stops the neck rattling at all, it positions it correctly/solidly so I can start making the rest of the new fuller neck.






Ive also started on adapting the gauges to fit the dash better. The major issue is they have sweeping glass (plastic) as most modern gauges in binnacles do to reduce glare/reflections. Issue is my dash is totally the wrong shape for that. So I need to cut the gauge overlay/surround bit down so it can accept a bit of flat Perspex. And sit flat in the dash.

A mate has said he’ll have a go at skimming it down for me on his CNC router to get a neat result. If not I’ll probly do it with a saw and sander. But he suggested I fill the void on the back of it with resin so it’s more solid to work with and snags less,which seemed sensible.

So I bought a cheap resin kit of eBay, and made a unbelievable f-king mess getting it absolutely everywhere. It was a total comedy of errors, I’d propped it up so the back was level (in hindsight not particularly well) then managed to knock it over, spilling the resin all over the bench which I had to scrape up and dollop back in 🙄
They may be a few bits in it now, good job it won’t be seen! Luckily it doesn’t stick too strongly to the plastic and the spillage onto the front could be peeled off once dry.



It’s dry now so I’ll give it to him this week to have a crack at.

[Dez]

Oct 12, 2019 15:50:08 GMT colinhd said:

Just caught up with this build and lovin it!!
There is so much room/scope with the rebody thing, surprised more people aren't making the most of it.

Great work Daz, keep posting.

People do seem quite slow to catch on. This is my second one now and I thought loads of people would have built rebodied stuff over the past few years but there’s still not that many.

[07lilredwagon]

very artful and purposeful work. awesome bracketry!

JP

[mrbounce]

I love following your work Dez - loads of fabulous metal trickery and copious usage of the word "Flange". Perfect.

[legend]

a glorious hour spent reading through this. I want one

[Dez]

Thanks everyone. I’m looking forward to it being done and usable.

Oct 15, 2019 16:41:04 GMT mrbounce said:

I love following your work Dez - loads of fabulous metal trickery and copious usage of the word "Flange". Perfect.

You’ll love the next update then!

[Dez]

Just for mrbounce , more gratuitous flange action.

One remaining piece of original bodywork id not yet refitted was the rad cowling. It’s important for cooling as it directs air actually through the rad, but it’s also important as it’s what the bonnet latches to.
Problem was I’d moved the rad forward about 2” or so so it needed some trimming to go back on.

As stock it has a little flange at the back where it meets the rad, to stiffen it and to stick a seal to. I wanted to replicate that, which meant cutting it slightly oversize then tipping the flange back on to bring it down to size. Not the easiest thing to do, and you don’t know if it’s right until youve spent ages shaping it.

I used a hand held flange tipping tool I made out of some bar stock a while back, it’s one of those really useful, simple, and cheap little tools everyone should have but hardly anyone does.
Even with all the heavier duty metalshaping kit I have, I still use simple little tools like this quite a lot.





It then got a bit of hammer and dolly work in the corners too, and here it is fitted. I didn’t get any before pics but those bits on the side that wrap round should explain what shape it was before I took a 2” full-width strip out of it.

[MiataMark]

Oct 16, 2019 8:34:43 GMT Dez said:

I used a hand held flange tipping tool I made out of some bar stock a while back, it’s one of those really useful, simple, and cheap little tools everyone should have but hardly anyone does.

Brilliant, I think I've seen something similar on Project Binky as well.

[merryck]

Oct 16, 2019 9:02:25 GMT MiataMark said:

Brilliant, I think I've seen something similar on Project Binky as well.

I think that was a bracket-o-matic.

[Dez]

One day I might watch some of that binky thing if I ever get time.

[Dez]

So, I decided next job was get that filler neck sorted, then the back half of the truck is nigh on done.

I wanted to use the stock filler neck and location, because it saves having to weld up a hole in a compound curved panel and try to hide it’s been done, plus having the filler through the bed somewhere would instantly give the game away.

My plan is weld a new neck into the tank that points forward under the bed floor, then have a short flexi rubber joiner, then have a 90deg bend that runs through the back of the cab and up to the original filler neck. Obviously now I got my tube swaging tooling sorted I can add beads to em to make em a proper secure fit. It’ll need a bolt flange with gasket to the cab back to solidly mount it and seal it, but it’ll all be hidden beneath the seat so look stock.

I unbolted the old filler neck that was keeping the tank sealed, which used to exit out of the bed side to a filler flap on the ranger. I’ll probably just put a blanking plate on there, not much point welding it up. I’ll cut off and weld up the smaller burp hose though.



The sender/pickup unit is a bit crusty as all the dirt/water sits right on it on top of the tank, ideally it needs replacing for piece of mind, but it’s £80 I’m putting off spending right now. Interestingly the tanks are coated in a thick raptor-type product for protection, whereas nothing else on the truck is.


So, I had to Jack it up an inch to get a bucket under the tank, then crack the drain plug and let it all flow out. I knew it wasn’t siezed as it had been out fairly recently 🙄


You’ll notice there’s two buckets there.
That’s because when the first one was about 3/4 full, I bothered to look in the tank through the hole to see that is was still very full. Cue me running round to find another clean bucket and swap it over. When that one was also about 3/4 full I had to find the drain plug I’d dropped on the floor and refit it, hence the large puddle on the floor!

In the end just over 50l came out. The real
Mystery here is why one of my vehicles has 50l of fuel left in it, but then I remembered that when the pump died I was 100 miles into a 400 mile round trip, and I’ve not had anything diesel since.

Once I’d found enough containers to decant 50l of clean fuel into (good job my mate in the unit next door is a sprayer and had some empty thinners cans!) I set about actually removing the tank.
First I successfully snapped off all 4 bolts for the bashguard, then once I’d done that I snapped 2/4 of the tank bolts too 🙄
Once I’d undone the two remaining ones, I was left with a tank and guard sat on the floor-


And plenty of access to cut the hole in the back of the cab.


The bashguard will go to the blasters, and the tank will now be washed out and then modded for the new filler neck.

By this point I was absolutely covered in rust and diesel, as was the workshop floor under the truck, so it was left at that!

[07lilredwagon]

Gotta make me one of those flange tools! simply brilliant.

JP

[Deleted]

Oct 16, 2019 21:08:58 GMT Dez said:

 

By this point I was absolutely covered in rust and diesel, as was the workshop floor under the truck, so it was left at that!

Thats odd.
Usually about this time I forget I'm covered in sh*te and rub an itchy eye.......

[davidpallister]

Oct 17, 2019 8:38:36 GMT @quickrack1 said:

Oct 16, 2019 21:08:58 GMT Dez said:

 

By this point I was absolutely covered in rust and diesel, as was the workshop floor under the truck, so it was left at that!

Thats odd.
Usually about this time I forget I'm covered in sh*te and rub an itchy eye.......

Not just me that does that then!!

[pardonthewait]

Great work, amazing looking truck. Making it look easy too!

[Dez]

Oct 16, 2019 21:36:26 GMT 07lilredwagon said:

Gotta make me one of those flange tools! simply brilliant.

JP

They really are super useful, especially for flanges that aren’t just straight. I did those flanges on the wheel arch cutouts using the same tool.

[Dez]

Oct 17, 2019 18:44:16 GMT pardonthewait said:

Great work, amazing looking truck. Making it look easy too!

It is the day job as well, so I do get a bit of practice!

[Dez]

Time for a long and rambling update where one job turns into two others and I still haven’t finished the thing I set out to do.
Something I’m sure we can all relate to!

It starts with these.


Well really it doesn’t, it starts with a used but unused intercooler I bought off FB marketplace for 20 quid. I had trouble finding something a size and shape that would fit in front of the rad and let me get hoses to it. But I didn’t take a specific picture of it.

I’d hung it in place with some zip ties off the rad frame brace, and was eyeballing the hardlines I’d have to make. But eyeballing doesn’t get em done, so I started chopping some bits up and tacking them together.




Looks pretty trick. Offered into place to see if it’ll actually work-




It’ll work, just!

But, whilst offering everything up and messing about checking bits would fit, I decided I wasn’t happy with the fit of the bonnet. If it was shut all the way down, it was too low at the nose, messing up the line that runs from the bonnet through to the cab. Now I knew this, I needed to sort it.
This involved chopping up the front end bracketry, moving up the rad frame bit that the front wings bolt to to move the entire wings and grille up to correct the lines. An inch was enough.
Once I’d done that I added some fancier bracing and boxing in to finish it off a bit.




You’ll also notice there that I’ve sliced an inch out of the bumper drop brackets too, to move the bumper up as well.
It was then refitted, I checked I was happy with the fit, then it was removed again so I could go about doing the next bit, that still wasn’t the intercooler pipes, but mounting the intercooler.

First I made some simple brackets to step the intercooler put away from the rad, firstly to fit the fan in for the rad, and secondly so the intercooler inlet/outlet pipes clear the bumper brace bar.






With that in position, I could do a fancy lower bracket.

[07lilredwagon]

great idea to work the assembly off the truck!...I don't have that kind of confidence!

well done.

JP

[voodoo57]

Brilliant!