Hi everyone.

My name is Tim, and I own a Ford Ranger.

I used to own a different one It was a 1994 with the five-speed four-cylinder. It was a good little truck. I thought it could have used a couple of more cylinders, but I still liked it a lot.
One day at work it got stuck in a slick spot of mud near a retaining wall. Every time I tried to go back it would slide forward toward a four-foot drop over the side of the wall. After a couple of tries, we decided to just pull it out with another truck. One or the other guys got his truck, hooked up a chain and pulled me out. Everything seemed fine. Disaster averted.
Later, I discovered my sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes my tail lights didn't work. So that was fun. I got to meet a couple of the local cops. They were cool about it, but it was still a problem so I parked the truck. I'd already inspected everything I could access without getting in over my head. Everything that I could see looked fine and I resigned myself to being without my truck until I could pay someone to do the work I couldn't.
A few weeks later, we had a hail storm with monster hailstones. The windshield looked like the one that shattered it was about the size of a softball. I was like, "well, it's going to parked longer." And then my Grandma did something really sh*tty. She sold my truck for $400 while I was out on the road working as a truck driver. (And she kept the money!) So I'd lost my little truck.
Flash forward about seven years to about a year ago. My wife divorced me and I found myself without a vehicle. I got lucky and found a decent job within walking distance. When my tax return came around, I put it together with some money I'd been trying to save and it gave me $3,000 to buy some wheels. I looked and looked for weeks and everything was overpriced crap. (Our town is about 45 minutes from anything and people think that all their junk is made of gold.)
Eventually, an ad for a 1994 Ranger for $2500 turned up. I went to go check it out. It had almost 200k miles on it, and they showed, but overall it wasn't in bad shape. And it had a 4.0L with a leaky water pump. $2500 was more than I wanted to pay, and the guy wouldn't budge on the price. But everything I'd seen for $3000 or less had been a total p.o.s. I remembered how much I liked my Ranger and this one had the bigger motor that I thought the other one could have used. So I said screw it and decided if that I'm going to have to have a piece of crap that I have to fix all the time, I might as well get this one and bought it.
I changed the water pump. It wasn't the leak, but hey, everyone loves a new water pump. The mechanic said it was leaking from the timing chain cover. (Hell if I know, that's further than my knowledge of motors goes at this point.) Anyway, $800 later it leaks less. Maybe it had more than one leak. I couldn't say. I'm not too worried about it though. The long-term plan is to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it. I'm not sure what I might someday want to modify, probably most things. It wouldn't hurt my feelings to strip it down to just as simple and bare bones as I can get it. Generally speaking, my opinion is that the fewer electronics a machine has, the better.
At the moment, I've got something going on with the gear shift. When it's in gear there's as much play in the gearshift as when it's in neutral. A little reading has told me that it's probably a bushing where the shifter attaches to the transmission. I bumped into the mechanic the other day and he said it's not a big repair, that I just need to pull the shifter boot and go at it from the top. I guess that's my project for today. I also have a new signal flasher and bulbs to install because my turn signal flash too slow and it irritates the crap out of me,
So anyway, that's me.
Hello, My name is Tim, and I own a '94 5 speed 4.0L 2wd Ford Ranger.
It's nice to meet you.

 

ok, it turns out that the problem is with that weird cam bolt that attaches the gear shift to the transmission. Someone has welded a nut onto one end and then installed it backwards with a nut on the other end. It must have just barely been holding the gearshift steady when they installed it, after a little wear it lets the gearshift move all over like it's basically not attached because, well, it's basically not attached. Yay!