So there I was, two plus years into a Ranger V8 conversion - I needed wheels and needed them bad.

When I first got home to stay, I lucked into a deal for a Suzuki Swift (parent car to the Geo Metro, Sprint, and Firefly) but with a four cylinder 1.3 liter, and an AIR CONDITIONER by God!

$200.oo, drag it away, here's the pink slip...

How could I refuse?

As I was loading it on a trailer, a kid came up and told me it was sold as a parts car to who I bought it from because a five pound bag of SUGAR had been dumped into the fuel tank.

Oh joy.

The tank was cleaned with about a half a case of OVEN CLEANER. I gave it a new in-frame fuel filter, recently tore the throttle body apart and installed a new injector and pressure regulator, and it took me a long time to find the right fuel pump for the car.

MANY parts for it are no longer available, even from the manufacturer.

And the front grill was trashed....

This is the story of the front grill, which shared my bedroom all last winter, in pictures.

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~Insanity becomes normal after a while...

The throttle body is another story.

This is for sure a work in progress - not shown are the LED turn signals I installed:
1 inch diameter three super bright LED truck marker lights...
Hey man - ya go with what ya know.

The fuel system is still on the books. I'm reading 90 PSI from a regulator that should hold it at 20 - 30. And the injector signal back to the ECU is not grounding the injector even though I pulled the codes and the ECU (ODB-1) is flashing "NO PROBLEMS"

I think a car alarm I ripped out of it had an interrupt relay for anti theft that breaks the signal return to the ECU. That's how I would have done it - but it was last year when I took the trash wiring and modules out.

I'll run new wire if I have to...


And ahhh... NO! It's not going to be a "BLING THING"

It's a study in HIGH MPG that I will use every bit of on small Ford cars.

 

What's parked behind it?

 

Behind it is the 1989 Ranger 1/4 ton with the 351Windsor already nested in it with adapter plates from Advanced Adapters

THAT THING is the reason I need a parts hauler


"Little SUZIE" is going to be decked in the back with plywood to make it a carrying machine

*What's funny about it is that I like tiny cars and trucks. That Suzuki has given me strange ideas to do to Ford cars to make TRUCKS out of them.

FORD won't, so it is up to us...

I seriously want to see what I can do to a Fiesta or a Festiva to make a RANCHITO out of one of them

The "RANCHERO" version of the smallest cars Ford ever made

Consider - fuel prices have skyrocketted, and there is no end in sight. The price of new ford vehicles is also sky high - particularly in the hybrid vehicles. They have made new mini-cars, but they are also very expensive.

And I'm an old hotrodder.


How would I look at this?

What would I do?

I think I want to bring something back from the boneyard and make it better....



The new age "BLING" people are not far off the mark. It's time we made more out of less weight and higher HP potentials with new technology.

They are NOT wrong


STUDY THAT

~As we say in Tennessee


It would be wrong to show up at a race track with out dated ideas.

 

I'm installing a 351 W in my 56 pickup, it's from a 83 f150 , supposed to have 55K original miles on it.

 

Everything I am learning from this I am going to apply to an EXP some day.

I want to be able to run everywhere across the USA in a FORD with my baby girl.
(WOOLA)

That's it!
I'm going to build a highway runner

 

The parts may be obsolete, but that doesn't mean that no one has them.

Get yourself the apropos Suzuki parts catalog, go to PartsVoice.com and scroll thru the list of manufacturers until you come to Suzuki.

Click on that, type the part numbers into the box. If anyone has them, you'll see a list of the sources, phone numbers, and the quantity.

I've got you covered for Ranger and EXP parts.

 

this should be a fun thread to watch, I enjoy watching things go way outside the box.

The Ranchito sounds like a fun idea as well.

 

Outside the box, off the wall, under the radar, and with stock car style!
I considered painting it gloss black, getting a windshield decal that read: "The INSTIGATOR", painting the number 1/3 on it in red, GOODSHAFT in white all down the sides, with suitable part company decals, and across the hood?

I dunno how familiar you are with Fillipino ethnic cooking, but:
CHEVROLET
LUMPIA

As opposed to "LUMINA"


Once I have it up and going I want to use it mainly for scrapyard raids. If I can turn up an EXP somewhere, skippy here is going to have fun...

YO BILL! Thanx for the clue about PARTSVOICE, I never heard of them before.

I wish I had a lead on Transmission kits, I have a pair of TK trannies for the 2.3 out of the ranger that I could rebuild and make a hill of cash from, used and questionable units are going for near a grand because of rarity

*Come to think of it, in about '07 I gave $850 for a lunched piece of crap at a boneyard in Atoka


Anyone here heard of an outfit called: TRANSCO ? I did a few weeks at a transmission shop near here a few years back, and they got most of their new stuff from them, but I think you have to have a commercial account, they don't do retail.

 

The verdict is in on the wild fuel pressure, the return line from the regulator is plugged somewhere. I'm letting carburettor cleaner percolate down into it for now to break up whatever is in there. I'll run some steel wire down it after the carb cleaner has a chance to work, and if it's hopeless I'll run a new line in parallel.

 

Still corked tighter than a shine jug. But it's come to me that there are several parts that the plug could be in.

1) Return Line
2) Tank Cover Line
3) An outside chance of a collapsed rubber connection
4) There is a one-way check valve back near the tank on the return line.

To get at these though, I need dry ground. I have to jack up the backend and maybe go so far as to drop the tank again, on a gravel driveway that has been getting rained on twice a day for nearly a week.

If the main return line (easiest to disconnect and check) turns out to be clear it HAS to be one of the smaller sections or the check valve.

~ and that will get it past the high fuel pressure fail.

If so, it leaves the injector signal. Weather permitting.

 

Both good news and bad - but the good news is VERY good.

The metal line that runs from the engine back to the tank is clear. This is great, because replacing it would be a mess.

The bad thing about it is that to chase the rest of the problem means I have to drop the tank, which I wasn't exactly itching to do...
*I wish I had caught the problem during assembly. I had it out before to clean it and install a new pump.

 

The seriousness of a situation is I believe in direct proportion to the cost of screwing it up.
So I have prepared well.

I looked around for a way to gently lower a half full tank of gasoline to the ground in a controlled way.
An empty tank I could just muscle around, this I can't. So I prepared a device to do the job.

Tomorrow we'll see how well it works, and I want to start messing with videos, now is as good as any a time.
If I mess up completely - this will at least record my demise.

If nothing else - I don't want to spill a single drop of it...


You will see - I think I have a pretty good plan.

 

Can you siphon the gas out into a can Wolfie?
I use an electric fuel pump, and take out as much as I can. gas costs too much to spill!

 

Do you have a transmission jack? I think that would work.

 

It's a gravel driveway - in this circumstance I think I trust what I rigged up more than my jacks.

I left it alone today though because I was expecting to do some work on a friends tractor (they forgot to get the belt) and I went after another pair of trees while the time was right and the ground was dry. It ended up being three, of course.


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Sure enough, there had to be an OAK hiding in there...
Be some good wood, if the saw lives through it.

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Stable from side to side, front to back.

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The tank is actually located under the back seat