I never thought I'd end up with a Ford product, having mostly bought Japanese auto products all my life. But here is where I find myself. I needed a cheap, small pick up and Toyota Tacomas are ridiculously priced, even Nissan Frontier's are kinda high (to me) right now, so I met a guy selling a ragged out 2001 Mazda B3000 with 150K miles for $2600. It was a total POS, and I honestly didn't want it... the paint was mostly black spray can primer over any surface rust, the interior smelled of BO and stank sweat, the engine ran rough... but it did actually run and drive. I told him I'd pay $1500 at most, and really would prefer he didnt take the offer as it was just a very big project and I already had a big house project/rehab I'm in the middle of. He asked me to meet in the middle at $2K, I repeated what I said, so he shrewdly negotiated a sale price of $1500- my last, final, and only offer.

So now I have this heinous thing in my driveway. I'm calling it the Black Swan project, as it is seriously one UGLY duckling. But hopefully I can turn it into a good little get-around, light duty vehicle with a little help from this forum.

Dumped $1100 on parts already... everything from the entire braking system, to all lights, to all the simple stuff like plugs, wires, radiator, tranny filter, O-2 sensors, etc. Lots to do...

 

Welcome to the forum

Yes, the Tacos are way over priced, good trucks, had one, just not "that good", lol, glad the Rangers never caught on with that crowd

2001 B3000 has the 3.0l Vulcan engine, good reliable engine, it was designed as a HIGH RPM engine so makes best power(torque) at 3,500rpm, most engines do that at 2,500rpm, so it drives "slow" if you don't REV it, also gets best MPG on highway at 3,000rpm, most efficient rpm

The water pump passages go thru front timing chain cover, that timing cover gasket was a common leak point for coolant
PITA to change
So if you ever change the water pump you may want to go the extra mile and change that gasket as well

If its an automatic then its the first year of the 5R44E in B3000, good transmission but needs a 2nd trans cooler and regular service just like all automatics
Rangers/B-series used the same automatic for 26 years, as A4LD, 4R44E, then 5R44E, only changes were added solenoids to valve body

If manual trans then its a M5OD-R1(M5R1), very reliable, like most manuals, uses ATF not gear oil

2001 B-series will have PATS(passive anti-theft system)
This means it uses transponder keys for start up, so you need to have a spare key
Cheapest way is to go to a locksmith and have your working key "Cloned", locksmith cuts a blank PATS key to match the lock, then "reads" your keys 80bit number and then "writes" that number to the new key
So to PATS system its the same key
On the dash is a THEFT light
If you turn on the key it should come on and then go OFF, if it starts to flash rapidly it means PATS is active and engine will not start, wait 45-60 seconds and THEFT light will start to flash a 2 digit code, always a 1 and then 1 to 6 flashes, and it repeats 3 or 4 times, so 11 to 16 are the codes that tell you why PATS activated
There is no work around for PATS, unfortunately it is a good anti-theft system, so have a spare key
Most common PATS failure, besides losing the key, lol, is the transceiver(codes 11 or 12), its a power antenna around the lock cylinder, not hard to change

Good website for used parts is car-part.com