1947 ford ranger...

Finally started in the rust repairs. A million other things going on is using up all my time.

Cut out thin/holed bit-


Cut bit of 3mm to size and tack in. I’ve also welded a nut on the back of the hole i drilled for the bolt but I forgot to take a pic.


Seam-


Grind/flap wheel back. I’ve deliberately gone over the patch hard with the flap wheel to thin it a little as the patch is 3mm and the crossmember I’m patching is about 2.5mm


Next bit is a little more tricky. This area is around the prop centre bearing bracket on the crossmember and is an obvious dirt trap as it’s double skinned. It’s also quite a convoluted shape.
Partially cut and bracket removed to be reused-


Cut some more-


Metal going back in on the front face and bottom side (that’s the top cos it’s upside down)-




Bracket back on-


And finally the inner boxing panel repaired as well-



With those bits on that crossmember done, the chassis is good as far back as the rear kick up. From there back the inner face of the chassis rails need some attention, but oddly only the inner face, the top and outer faces are fine, and the bottom only needs one small bit by the rear spring hanger. There’s also a couple of small bits to do on the spare wheel crossmember, a very common rot spot on these.

interesting to know, but I expect the numbers of each I’d want would fall well below anyone’s minimum order number! It’s often only a couple of each I need but in very weird size/head combos as OEM manufacturers have the luxury of ordering. At least the older stuff all tends to use ‘standard’ fasteners, it’s generally only these more modern things a that are a pain.

More.

First, presents in the blue and white wrapping paper 🤣


Spot on. 4 days and I didn’t even pay for the quick post.


So, back to repairs.
Little one on the gusset on the bottom of the spare wheel crossmember at the back. Again, an obvious dirt trap.


Done.


And a little bit behind the rear spring hanger on one side. A less obvious place but in the spray zone from the rear wheel so not unexpected.




Then, as that was everything on the bottom face done, the chassis magically turned itself over. (It didn’t, I had to go find help and there was still a fair bit of huffing and puffing involved).


Next up I decided to tackle one of the big ones. I’d decided that rather than patching the inner faces of the rails I was just going to replace them almost entirely from the start of the kickup back. This way I knew it would be strong and I’d never have to revisit them, and it would also remove a whole load of unnecessary holes that were along there and probably contributed to the issues with them in the first place. Part of the decision to do this was one of my latest discoveries, that the steel merchants sell 100x3 flat. As most chassis are around 4” deep, this is basically ready made inner chassis rails with hardly any waste material. Only minor trimming required where they start to taper.

So, I cut a big (30” long) hole in the chassis rail. I cut just onto the flat surface past the bends on the corners, which got me well into solid metal.


A good clean out inside and they’re not too bad. Certainly good enough to not have to worry about repairing the other faces, on this section anyway. I didn’t bother with painting them or anything as it will be getting heavily waxed once the repairs are done.


This is why I replaced it. Torch behind shows lots of pinholes and there’s a few thin bits too.


New bit trimmed to fit and captives welded in for the only two mounting holes that are used. There was some push in wiring clips ran along here as well but the holes for those can be added afterwards, they’re all broken anyway so will need replacing.




Tacked in-


Then seamed up bit by bit in short bursts, moving round to spread the heat about.


At the back where it meets the tube crossmember for the tank I cut half of the original inner rail away and ground the weld back then fishmouthed the new plate and welded this in as per stock-


Some flapwheeling later-


I’ll flip it back over to do the radius on the bottom side. I’m sure you’ll agree it looks pretty tidy though. Gotta do the same to the other rail next!

It doesn’t need to 😉
As the cab is fitted down properly to the centre section of the chassis, the sweep of the ranger rear rails is equivalent to about a 6” notch on a stock chassis. If you look at the height of the bed floor it’s about 5” higher than stock.
Obviously I’ve checked all this previously, and with the running boards on the floor I still have about 1.5” between axle and chassis.
Another reason why this chassis is suited so well to these trucks.

Thats lovely n neat!

Two more bits done.
This is the very bottom of the kickup each side where it meets the straight bit that runs under the cab. This is where rangers/b2000s usually rot as it’s where all the dirt and water collects once it’s actually got into the rails, probably helped by all the unused holes there is in this area leaving the rails open to dirt ingress. I cut both inner faces out to make sure they weren’t corroded at all as this is where any stress on the back half of the chassis is focused, but tbh my concerns were unwarranted. The bits I cut out were still full thickness and even had a lot of the original paint on the inside.

Right.




Left.






You’ll notice i didn’t grind the front weld off as there’s meant to be a weld there from factory.
I added the one mounting hole per side that’s actually used back in, but hopefully loosing the 9 extraneous holes each side will keep it a bit cleaner and dryer in there in future.

So, I’m now done up to the tubular fuel tank crossmember just in front of the rear axle. Only the very back section to go.

So much going on it’s hard to keep track of it all!

One thing I’ve not covered is the rear axle. I got it back from the blasters and he had uncovered this ‘interesting’ little modification!


I am surmising that what has happened is someone has blown the diff in it the past (it has all been resealed), putting some shrapnel through the case as they’ve done so, and wanting to get it back on the road ASAP they’ve swapped the diff and patched the casing using a chunk cut from the donor axle, as it’s quicker than swapping the whole lot and disturbing the brakes etc.

I thought about it, and elected to leave it alone. If I was to do anything with it I’d want to start with a less pitted axle casing anyway, and as it’s been good for the 10k or so I’ve had the truck I don’t think it’s going to cause any problems.

He had also found a rust hole under the brake line bracket, as when he turned it over to do the bottom side it started pi$$ing oil out. You can see the dark stain here. You can also see the case is quite pitted, but still solid.


I cut the bracket off and managed to weld up the pinhole without blowing a hole in the casing, so no worries of any metal entering the diff. I built it up a bit too in thickness then smoothed it over.


And then stuck the bracket back on.


All me bits then went over to George’s for paint, when he had time to fit em in. Well, I actually dumped em all in his workshop when they came back from the blasters a couple weeks ago as his less damp than mine. (As it’s a swapsies job for a bit of metalwork on his truck I had to wait til the booth was free).

That day was today and it’s all come back chassis blacked.






After two attempts I’ve also got all new balljoints. One lower had a little play, and two others were ‘loose’ but without play so I elected to replace them all. It was £65 for all of em so basically £16 a joint which I thought was reasonable. Despite me asking on year fitments and supplying the reg, the first place still got em wrong, and then tried to charge me to return em! Second place was much more helpful and get em right.
Turns out as part of a slight chassis revamp for the ‘new’ model in ‘07, they made the taper on the bottom balljoints slightly larger, presumably to strengthen them.


So being as I’m dangerously near this going back together so it can be moved about when I need to so I can do other stuff, I carried on with the chassis rails. Last bit of the taper/kickdown now, the remaining bit after this is just a straight run to the back of the chassis. But these bits step and taper quite a bit. Luckily they just fitted within the confines of 100mm wide strip. This section was also much more rusted and more holed, so the rails were full of loose flakey stuff, but again the other 3 sides were in reasonable condition.
Cut out and clean out in the rail-

The extra box bit welded in seems to be re-enforcement straight above the axle where the bump stops would hit when heavily laden.

The old bit being used as a template for the new bit. Funny stepped bracket that doesn’t seem to do much will not be going back in. You’ll see why in the future.


Why it needs replacing-


New bit trimmed to a nice fit, and a close up of the fish mouth for the tank crossmember tube.




Tacked-


Weldy weldy grindy grindy-


Some more of the same on the other side-




And that’s it cos I’m now out of steel. I can use 60x3 flat from here back as the rails have tapered down by this mount so I’ll order some of that to finish em off.

The law of engine stands is you always need N+1 to what you have. So already having 3 scattered around the workshop, i bought another one to hang the truck motor off for cleaning, resealing and servicing.
Only the finest ebay 40 quid delivered job of course. At least it’s goff-spec rather than bright f-king red like all the other cheapo stuff. That would clash with my classic pale green colour scheme and we can’t be having that.



Except you can’t just hang the motor off one when the bloody bellhousing bolts are also pointlessly metric fine, and the longest m10 fine bolts you can buy anywhere are still an inch too short.
After trawling the deepest recesses of eBay, I eventually find someone selling metric fine allthread, badly listed for cheaps. £7 delivered for 2x1m lengths sort of cheap!

Cut a few lengths once it turns up, some spacers on the bolts so I can still turn the flywheel, and rob some nuts off other bits of the engine, and it’s good to go-

Aye, there’s a few hours in it. Getting there now though, I’m not far off stuff beginning to go together for the last time.