A little history of how I became a ranger owner...
My dad own his own roadside service business, sort of a mobile shadetree mechanic if you will, and he called me one day and said one of his customers was going to scrap a 98 ford ranger because he didnt want to spend the money to fix it up. First words out of his mouth were, its a 4 banger and its CLEAN. So I ask, whats wrong with it? He says not sure yet, he dont want me workin on it cuz hes done spending money on it, so I get the guys number and call him. Real nice guy named bobby, bought the truck new in 98, 150K on it, wifes tired of driving it, he said he thought the engine was trashed because the timing belt went while his wife was truckin down I-20 outside of weatherford TX. Im thinkin, no way, its a non-interference engine, so I ask what'll ya take for it. He says, Imma scrap it for scrap price. I say, you gotta clear title, he says yup, I say, I'll give you 500. He says sold quicker than I got it outta my mouth. So The day rolls around I go to pick er up. My gas guzzlin dodge, 19 foot flatbed trailer, and a stanley tool kit. I pop the hood, and realize the engine is already taken down to the timing cover so I say, eh WTF, and start tinkerin with it.. Turns out, The guy he had do the timing belt timed the cam off the wrong mark and it was about 120* out firing with the valves wide open, so I loosen the tensioner pop the belt off the cam sprocket and line up the triangle instead of the diamond, tighten everything back down, put it back together, fill the radiator, fired it up, and drove it home. I figured the guy woulda been a little aggravated, but he was happy as hell to see it go. Its a great little truck and gets dang near 30 MPG.
I put a flowmaster on it, and a set of 17s. I wanna get a little more performance out of the 2.5, so anybody got any performance enhancing suggestions for me???
|
