Every Boy Deserves A First Pickup

So the boy turned 15.5 and has his learners permit.  It was time to find him some wheels.  My working theory is a small 2wd 4cyl pickup only fits one passenger, is hard to impregnate a female in, and is slow enough to keep him out of trouble.  I also wanted him to learn to drive a manny to keep the religion alive.

I hunted for months finding very little priced reasonably that fit the bill.  Most things had 250K on them or were rusted to death (Ohio), or both.  I really wanted a Taco but they are silly money and few and far between.

Enter a buddy that runs a used lot and picked up an ugly duckling for me cheap at auction.  It had a hurt bed/tailgate on it so he had his guy toss a nice bed on it.

Enter the 2001 Ford Ranger XLT 2wd short cab 2.5cyl Ranger.

The good - 101K miles, no rust on body, passable rust underneath, decent mechanically, near perfect interior.

The bad - Roof and Hood paint were roached to the point of surface rust and aluminum oxidation, bed is mismatched disco blue, all the paint is so dry and scruffy I doubt it's ever seen wax, suspension is shot, needs brakes, needs tires.

The intention is to go over all the mechanicals and bring it up to good condition.  Following that it will get a 2" F, 3" R drop kit on fresh shocks along with something cool and mustangish 17" in terms of wheels.  Let it begin.

The starting point and a happy teenager.

Then some time with the vinyl eraser and another bath.

Made a first pass with the buffer after a replacement boneyard hood today.

That bed looks plenty roomy...

Ohio - you get snow, right? Should be a fun learning platform for car control. I spent many happy hours exploiting a RWD car in the snow and it has done me well.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Lol yeah but the bed liner is uncomfortable, at least I hope it is.  We get plenty of snow but low power pickups typically do ok with some sandbags in there.  I expect numbskull teen behavior, hence the low power and older platform.  He's already digging working on it with me which was the intention.

Stepside!  Cool.  Was it originally a stepside or was that the replacement?  In this era, are the stepside beds fiberglass...no rust?  

Boneyard hood?  Found one in factory color?  If so, awesome!  

In reply to John Welsh :

It was a basic bed to start with but my dealer buddy found a clean stepside.  To my knowledge the bed sides are the glass but the front, rear, and bed surface are steel.  For the hood, I totally lucked out.  I really love car-part.com for finding stuff in the yards.  I punched it in and there was a black hood like 8miles from my house at a yard I hadn't been to.  $150 later we had a 90% perfect hood that shined up decently.

The Bruiser!  You know; Black and Blue.  

I like the color combo. 

I had a '99 ranger 2wd extended cab with the 2.5/5spd combo.

It would get 25mph highway and did fine in the NE winters with decent snow tires. Learning to short shift and let it lug a little will keep traction.

I used to keep a set of tire chains in it in the winter, as a precaution. The chains got used a few times, but only laid out behind the rear tires to get out of an icy uphill driveway, then thrown back behind the seat. 

Only required regular maintenance, except for a bad oil pressure sensor and a bad speed sensor in the rear differential.

Even if the dash has a gauge, the sensor is a switch and the gauge goes to halfway as long as there is 5psi of oil pressure.

The symptoms for the speed sensor was stalling when coming to a stop and the speedo not working below 10mph. 

Ah this brings back some memories.

That's a nice clean ride he has!

My son's first car was a 99 F150 RWD V6 5speed, named Large Marge. It came pre-dented, but was initially pretty rust free.

The shenanigans stories are starting to come out over the past few years 😮.

I can't remember what he did to the bumper and light bar in this pic.

We still have the flamingo up in the garage 🦩

John Welsh said:

The Bruiser!  You know; Black and Blue.  

I like the color combo. 

Hah Wae said the same thing.  It goes into paint 5/12 to make her all shiny black.  I'm hoping the rest of the black comes out well enough that I just need to have them shoot the bed, the roof (roached), and a fresh grill surround for the broken one.

XLR99 (Forum Supporter) said:

Ah this brings back some memories.

That's a nice clean ride he has!

My son's first car was a 99 F150 RWD V6 5speed, named Large Marge. It came pre-dented, but was initially pretty rust free.

The shenanigans stories are starting to come out over the past few years 😮.

I can't remember what he did to the bumper and light bar in this pic.

We still have the flamingo up in the garage 🦩

 

 

Hah Large Marge is fantastic!  Gonna let the boy pick a name, I would have gone with Danger Ranger but not my place.

John Welsh said:

The Bruiser!  You know; Black and Blue.  

I like the color combo. 

That's what I told him!

Awesome Dad! 

When my buddy was 15 YO he devised a plan to his Dad to allow him to get a beater Chevrolet 4x4 truck and fix it up over the year and have a ride when he turned 16 YO.  

His dad shut it down knowing the temptation to take it out one night would be too much.  He was probably right. 

Datsun240ZGuy said:

Awesome Dad! 

When my buddy was 15 YO he devised a plan to his Dad to allow him to get a beater Chevrolet 4x4 truck and fix it up over the year and have a ride when he turned 16 YO.  

His dad shut it down knowing the temptation to take it out one night would be too much.  He was probably right. 

Only have till August but at least momentarily safe as he doesn't know how to drive manual yet.  Those lessons do start shortly though.

Great ride, well done. 

Are you aware the Ranger is currently a meme on social media? I have no idea what direction that might steer your kid, but I'd make sure it's well insured just in case. 😂

They're such great little pickups. 
 

I bought this turd for salvage price about a year ago. It was abandoned in a guy's yard and the city was on him to do something with it so I wound up in the right place at the right time. 
 

I did a bunch of PickNPull parts and a goofy paint job using Summit Racing house brand paint products. A lot of catch up maintenance, and it has been my 26 miles per gallon daily driver for about a year now. I just love this little truck to death. 
 

I had that same truck once, it did everything I asked of it.  VERY light in the back so put two sand tubes in the bed for winter, and right hand turns in the rain you gotta feather the gas, but pretty indestructible beastie.  Congratulations and good luck with it!

BTW:  Check the spare tire under the bed.  The little chain that hold the tire up there gets rusty and the thing drops out surprising any tailgaters.  =~  0

Crackers (Forum Supporter) said:

Are you aware the Ranger is currently a meme on social media? I have no idea what direction that might steer your kid, but I'd make sure it's well insured just in case. 😂

Damn have to find this

In reply to Cousin_Eddie (Forum Supporter) :

That is a sexy beast - would expect nothing less from the master of slammed trucks.  This will be my first so prepping nuts and bolts with break free for the suspension.  Praying the moog alignment adjusters do as advertised up front.

Basically, a dude on Tiktok just goes around filming all the Rangers he sees while acting goofy yelling variations of FORD berkeleyING RANGER. 

The community responded by taking the audio and playing it over video of them doing stupid E36 M3 in their own Rangers. Specifically the one where he's "singing" over EDM.

Video obviously very much NSFW 

In reply to Crackers (Forum Supporter) :

What in the information superhighway is wrong with kids these days?

I see a lot of recommendations for sand in the bed. In > 15 years driving 2wd trucks after getting my license, I avoided adding weight in the form of sand bags or other persistent weight. 

Instead of adding weight that was always there, I would shovel snow into the bed when cleaning the driveway. They gave it added weight during the period of time when the roads were still snow covered and speeds were slow, but melted away around the same time the roads were bare again. 

While I never did proper analysis to verify if it was accurate and what weight might be impactful, my theory for avoiding sandbags, etc. was that while it might add some traction, it added weight to daily driving that could negatively impact braking, handling, and fuel economy. I also theorized it made a very front weight bias vehicle into a  pendulum where if it did slide there was more momentum to make it harder to recover when encountering black ice, refreeze, and other marginal conditions.

YMMV

In reply to wae :

IDK, I was an AV kid in the 90's, and this is exactly the kind of thing I would have done. I think most of us just don't realize how much our perspective changes as we get older. 

If I'm honest, it's probably best I don't have a Ranger now. 😅  

I have enough acreage now to build my own rallycross course at home with a water feature and jumps. I may have grown up, but not really.

As a fellow member of the small truck mafia, I approve.

Weight in the back can be a double-edged sword. My '91 Ram 50 is quite happy with an empty bed, and actually tracks better that way. Even in snow and ice it's just a touch under-steery; I can rotate with the throttle, let off, and it settles right down.

Start off in 2nd, apply throttle judiciously, laugh as you pass the lifted bro-dozer spinning all 4 of his wheels cause he don't know how to drive.