1947 ford ranger...

very artful and purposeful work. awesome bracketry!

JP

a glorious hour spent reading through this. I want one

Just for mrbounce , more gratuitous flange action.

One remaining piece of original bodywork id not yet refitted was the rad cowling. It’s important for cooling as it directs air actually through the rad, but it’s also important as it’s what the bonnet latches to.
Problem was I’d moved the rad forward about 2” or so so it needed some trimming to go back on.

As stock it has a little flange at the back where it meets the rad, to stiffen it and to stick a seal to. I wanted to replicate that, which meant cutting it slightly oversize then tipping the flange back on to bring it down to size. Not the easiest thing to do, and you don’t know if it’s right until youve spent ages shaping it.

I used a hand held flange tipping tool I made out of some bar stock a while back, it’s one of those really useful, simple, and cheap little tools everyone should have but hardly anyone does.
Even with all the heavier duty metalshaping kit I have, I still use simple little tools like this quite a lot.





It then got a bit of hammer and dolly work in the corners too, and here it is fitted. I didn’t get any before pics but those bits on the side that wrap round should explain what shape it was before I took a 2” full-width strip out of it.

I think that was a bracket-o-matic.

So, I decided next job was get that filler neck sorted, then the back half of the truck is nigh on done.

I wanted to use the stock filler neck and location, because it saves having to weld up a hole in a compound curved panel and try to hide it’s been done, plus having the filler through the bed somewhere would instantly give the game away.

My plan is weld a new neck into the tank that points forward under the bed floor, then have a short flexi rubber joiner, then have a 90deg bend that runs through the back of the cab and up to the original filler neck. Obviously now I got my tube swaging tooling sorted I can add beads to em to make em a proper secure fit. It’ll need a bolt flange with gasket to the cab back to solidly mount it and seal it, but it’ll all be hidden beneath the seat so look stock.

I unbolted the old filler neck that was keeping the tank sealed, which used to exit out of the bed side to a filler flap on the ranger. I’ll probably just put a blanking plate on there, not much point welding it up. I’ll cut off and weld up the smaller burp hose though.



The sender/pickup unit is a bit crusty as all the dirt/water sits right on it on top of the tank, ideally it needs replacing for piece of mind, but it’s £80 I’m putting off spending right now. Interestingly the tanks are coated in a thick raptor-type product for protection, whereas nothing else on the truck is.


So, I had to Jack it up an inch to get a bucket under the tank, then crack the drain plug and let it all flow out. I knew it wasn’t siezed as it had been out fairly recently 🙄


You’ll notice there’s two buckets there.
That’s because when the first one was about 3/4 full, I bothered to look in the tank through the hole to see that is was still very full. Cue me running round to find another clean bucket and swap it over. When that one was also about 3/4 full I had to find the drain plug I’d dropped on the floor and refit it, hence the large puddle on the floor!

In the end just over 50l came out. The real
Mystery here is why one of my vehicles has 50l of fuel left in it, but then I remembered that when the pump died I was 100 miles into a 400 mile round trip, and I’ve not had anything diesel since.

Once I’d found enough containers to decant 50l of clean fuel into (good job my mate in the unit next door is a sprayer and had some empty thinners cans!) I set about actually removing the tank.
First I successfully snapped off all 4 bolts for the bashguard, then once I’d done that I snapped 2/4 of the tank bolts too 🙄
Once I’d undone the two remaining ones, I was left with a tank and guard sat on the floor-


And plenty of access to cut the hole in the back of the cab.


The bashguard will go to the blasters, and the tank will now be washed out and then modded for the new filler neck.

By this point I was absolutely covered in rust and diesel, as was the workshop floor under the truck, so it was left at that!

Thats odd.
Usually about this time I forget I'm covered in sh*te and rub an itchy eye.......

Great work, amazing looking truck. Making it look easy too!

It is the day job as well, so I do get a bit of practice!

great idea to work the assembly off the truck!...I don't have that kind of confidence!

well done.

JP