So today I finally got a chance to work on the 1994 Ford Ranger that I want to buy, assuming I can get her running together. Now I've often glanced at the truck from a distance within the shop and I haven't really gotten the chance all school year to really examine her. Today I was considerably more intimate with this truck and learned quite a bit about her.

First thing is that her shifter isn't as tall as I thought, nor does it have a bend in the column. I moved the shifter throughout all the gears and was satisfied by what I was feeling. Yes it has less resistance than what I'm used too, but there's still sufficient resistance that I'm confident that adapting to this truck won't be too hard.

Second is the condition of the truck itself. I know the paintwork isn't in the greatest shape, but it ain't bad either. It's dirty and got some scratches, but other than that it's good. Under the truck, there's some surface rust spotting down the side of the body, but it's not something I am concerned about.  I'll probably check down there every once in a while and if I notice that the rust spreading quite a bit, then I'll take a grinder to the rust and repaint the underside of the body, probably in a cheapo way. The rust on the frame is of little concern as well as I've seen about the same amount of rust on other vehicles.

Inside the cab the interior looks to be in pretty good shape, though a little dirty. The headliner in the rear of the cab is stained, but I don't care about that. There's also some leaf debris and spider webs throughout the floor of the truck, but cleaning that up wouldn't take long. Somewhat more concerning to me is that armrest compartment door doesn't latch shut because the latch has been snapped off, so the spring keeps the compartment open. This kinda ruins it as an armrest, but I don't normally use armrests anyway so I'll just keep it folded up. It might even serve as a theft deterrent, make the truck seem like is more abused than it actually is.

One more thing I want to note about the immediately visible interior is the dash. Turns out that the 55 mph mark on the speedometer is red instead of white like the others. I presume this truck is thus only capable of 55 mph and unable to go much faster. It's also possible it's a hold over from speed limits applying to trucks, generally large ones which can have similar markings on their speedometers.

Moving on to what's presently holding up the purchase of the truck, the clutch. This clutch is hydraulic like the brakes in a car. And like brakes in a car, it doesn't like air in the system. Air is compressible, liquids are not and when pressure is applied, any air will be compressed before the fluid starts to do work for you. This reduces the effectiveness of the system or completely disables it if there's enough air. Thus truck is a case of the latter.

The story I've heard is that after reinstalling the transmission in this truck, the first year kids actually broke the master cylinder and so the school ordered and installed a new one. The catch here is that the master cylinder was not purged of air when installed and no one ever got around to fixing that.

So after finding that some conventional bleeding techniques weren't doing very much, I started pulled the master cylinder out to bench bleed it. Bench bleeding is removing air from a component before installing it in the vehicle.

In this instance, Ford was kind enough to provide a valve in the end of the line. This valve prevents fluid leaking out while the line is disconnected from the clutch slave cylinder. If one disconnects the line, then unbolts the master cylinder and it's fluid reservoir, then you can bleed the master cylinder quite easily. Just dangle the master cylinder by the reservoir hose, then start tapping with a screwdriver all over the line and the master cylinder, angling things in such a way to make it easier for air to work it's way to the valve.

After a while then push the valve in while holding the valve below the reservoir and gravity will force all the collected air out. Now just reinstall everything, do a few more bleeding attempts at the transmission, and you should be good to go.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to actually begin bench bleeding. But I did have time to start disconnecting the master cylinder and in the process I noticed a few interesting things.

The first is that there's a rather large hole in the firewall near the clutch cylinder. While the hole itself is likely factory, it's unusual that there's no grommet or some other cover in it. This is probably why so much leaf litter is inside, plus the spiders. I will probably address this with buying a grommet and installing it in the hole. There will still be a very small hole, but I'll then have a great place for routing aftermarket accessories.

Second is that was no clutch switch on the clutch pedal. This switch prevents you from attempting to start the engine with the clutch engaged. Otherwise the starter would be turning both the engine and transmission, possibly moving the entire truck if the truck is in gear. The lack of a switch, especially when the service proceedure from Ford mentions one, either means that someone lost it or someone has been tinkering with this truck before it was donated.

While disconnecting the clutch pedal pushrod, I then found some evidence someone has been messing with this truck. Under the dash near the ignition switch is some wiring held together with crimp connectors, something that's clearly not factory.

And I was just looking at a video of a method of bypassing the switch and found that the connector shown in the video matches a unplugged connector I found in the truck near the pedal. Some more Googling just revealed to me that the switch is in fact missing from the truck and has been bypassed as the switch sits on pushrod for the clutch master cylinder. There is most certianly no switch on that pushrod, that I can remember clearly.

So at this point, it looks like I am in fact getting something that has been tinkered with by a DIYer, which is not exactly a good thing... That said this modification is relatively minor and if I get into the habit of starting the truck in Neutral only while still holding in the clutch, then there shouldn't bee no problems.

Now I'm starting to figure out the truck will need in the coming days to make it a nice reliable truck. Right away I decided I would get new shocks for the truck as the present ones are rusty and probably on their last legs anyway. My local parts store would charge me about $80 for a set of four shocks, which sounds like a fair price given my experience with this kind of thing.

Next thing I would like to address sometime soon is a timing belt replacement. Although there should be at least 40,000 miles left on the belt, the belt is most likely 21 years old and it would suck if it broke on the highway without warning. A timing belt kit looks like it'll run me $80. My largest problem with this job is that it'll require me to get some more tools to get it done outside of my shop class.

I also want to clean up the headlights, a kit for which runs about $15.

Also I just found a replacement armrest compartment for $50. Most notably it has cup holders! But I'm not sure if I can really afford what would be mostly a luxury item...


I really hope I can get this truck running again and find that it requires no more work than the already identified maintenance items.