I picked up a clean 84 (My First 1st Gen!!!) last year and have some ideas for a serious overhaul. Well, it's a clean , complete running driving truck that I enjoy driving to work a couple days a week and around town. So rather than rip apart a nice runner, I've been on the lookout for another clean Gen 1 for a project. I found one in Pennsylvania, a good 5 hour drive from home. Went down Sunday and picked it up. Sorry for being a pic *****, but here it is from the trailer to how it sits as of Tuesday night...

 

 

 

Found this little guy when I started ripping the dash apart, yeah, I jumped a little!

 

And, onto the bodylift...

 

Pulling the motor, lol. And then the bed...



And the doors and fenders...

 

Pulling the cab...

 

Nice Kevin! What are the plans for it? Do you still have the F150 and the mustang duo?

 

Chassis back on trailer and ready to send down the road to a hot rod builder...


And the body sitting low...


Sort of re-assembled...

 

What's up Adam. Yeah I still have the matching Mustang notchback and Lightning, as well as the crew cab dually F-350 you see hooked up the trailer in these pics, and of course a couple Rangers kicking around, you can see my 2-tone 84 in the back of a couple pics.

 

Not much of an update, but loaded the cab onto trailer last night and test fitted a pair of 08 seats I had in the garage. Looks like they're gonna bolt right up with very minor adjustments!

 

Subscribed! looks like fun haha.

 

Couple new updates... Brought this home from storage...






And got the dash ripped out of the 88...




And found the partner in crime... eek, I guess barns in PA are a favorite hang out for these little guys...

 

What are your plans?

 

Hmm very nice! Yes what are your plans for this?

 

I love how you have 3-5 rangers at any given time. haha

 

Progress on this stopped for a while, started wrenching on it again this week. The plan is to mount the 88 body to the 02 chassis and use the duratec motor. Here's the 02 I started with...

 

Engine bay before we ripped into it...



Stripping it down...





And interior torn apart...

 

And for those of you asking what and why...

I've had a couple of the newer rangers in the configuration of the 02, with the duratec 4 cylinder, 5 speed transmission. I like the way they ride and the easy alterations to the A-arm suspension over the i-beams. I also love the duratec motor that can take a serious beating and still get 28 MPG all day long while being reliable. My concept with this truck is to restore the underside to like new, update the interior to modern dash, seats, etc. so interior and underside will be like new. The body I plan to leave as you see it here, not doing paint at this point. When I do paint I always end up being too **** about parking or even driving them. I'm building this to be a daily driver all summer long and enjoy it.

 

that's a cool project. you have quite a collection of vehicles.

 

Great photo and cool project!

 

I really want to see what comes to this! I have always wanted to do somthing similar!

 

i am really liking this build so far! keep it up!

 

Thanks for the motivation guys. Should be wrenching some this weekend and hopefully getting 88 cab mounted next week. That's when it'll start getting interesting!

 

Progress pics from the weekend...
She came to help too