Restomod Ranger XLT

[jonboy1]

As mentioned in my Grasshopper 2 post, I've got a Ranger XLT in mid restoration now. 

It was all original when i got it, with all the radio gear and battery so I was confident this could be good....

 

First job was to strip it all down, work out what needed repairing or replacing and start cleaning.

Overall it wasn't too bad with the chassis, an upper and lower front arm were replaced with vintage items, replaced all the bushes with bearings and swapped out the screws with stainless bolts (don't worry - i've not thrown anything away, I've cleaned and stored all the original parts  )

I then set about polishing - and polishing - and a bit more polishing. Then, I did a bit more polishing....

The worst part of it was the radio box - I spent sooooo many hours wet sanding, polishing, wet sanding, more polishing the thing - it was so badly yellowed and scuffed. I was very tempted to replace it but I really wanted to keep it as original as possible (i know, I know the bolts....) so I persevered and finally got it looking ok. It's not perfect and it is still a bit yellow, but it's way better

 

Then I got to the dampers. They were completely shot, even after replacing the seals they leaked like a sieve. I'd fitted coilovers to my re-re sand scorcher and like how that looked, and as I wanted it to look a bit more realistic (more to come on this) I thought coils would be the way to go. So, on they went with my custom rear mount...

http://i618.photobucket.com/albums/tt265/bubbajon1_photos/tamiya/Copy%20of%20File_0001_zpsde04bbee.jpeg

The wheels were a must have. The tires in the pictures are actually the originals after about a month soaking in glycerol - they came up surprisingly well. I've bought a new set of tyres which I'll put with these rims and I'll restore and build the originals and keep them together.

The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that the front bumper is not the original. You are correct - go to the front of the class!! This one came out of my spares bin and is from the scorcher. I'm not decided if I will keep it on or leave it off completely. I prefer the look of the black and metal to the beige - seems more "real" to me - so it may stay.

With all the radio gear cleaned up and the wiring fixed it was time to get to work on the body.

The guy I bought it off said when he painted it he wanted a monster truck look and the red was supposed to be blood..... I hope he was a child when he decided this, but I didn't press the subject. Anyway, whatever, there was certainly some otherworldly forces going on in that paint because the stupid stuff was not coming off without a serious fight.

First there was a week trying Mr. Muscle - that didn't even touch it.

Then I spent a week trying DeSolv It - that took the red off and patches of the yellow. However, it transpired that the paint was a 2 pack automotive type (his dad owned a body shop and painted it for him) and the filler underneath was like polished cement.

I was not going to be beaten (especially after he told me I would never get that stuff off  ) and stumbled across this stuff in B&Q:

After using the whole tub over about 4 applications it finally came off!!!!!!!!! So, some cleaning, sanding, filling and fixing later:

The quarterlights were missing, the roof was also cracked front to back, so I guess it had some traumatic coming together with something heavy. I've fixed the roof and replaced the quarterlights now, so a little bit of filler there and some sanding and it's ready for primer now.

Whilst I was waiting for the paint strippers to not work I decided to get going on the driver. I think he may still get a hat - it just seems right to me somehow, but I'll have to see. Anyway, that's where I'm at now, other than looking at what to do with the grill (that's another story) so I'll post more when I've go the primer on

 

[Grastens]

You will not be beaten! Really looking forward to seeing this come up with your effort - bet it will be a treat  

[Crash Cramer]

That bit about the yellowed battery box "finally got it looking ok ", THAT is a gross understatement only passed up by the bodywork to get all the way down to the blue plastic, WOW, what great looking work thus far. I will be watching, but it sure would be nice if someone made replacement fender wings or perhaps you called them sidelights?? I could use one or more on some Blackfeet/Ranger bodies and I am pretty sure I am not alone in that boat.

[jonboy1]

thanks for the kind comments guys - it's good to know I'm not suffering entirely from paint stripper fumes and have gone completely nuts trying to restore this 

Crash - I think I may have misled with my nomenclature - i mean the little bar that splits the door windows vertically. I've always called them quarterlights - i have no idea if that's right though, I could well have just made it up. They were a pretty straightforward fix with a bit of very small U channel plasticard.

Are you talking about the rear light clusters that hang of either side of the rear tailgate? If so, I could model some up and pop them on shapeways if you'd like?

 

I realised I mentioned the driver and forgot to post the picture - here he is - needs a little tidying up still but 95% there

[Crash Cramer]

Looks like a good driver there. I see what you mean now, your "Quarter lights" would be what I have called "Vent Windows" as they only pivot while you open them, rather than roll up and down. They were good for venting in fresh air when someone was smoking in the cab. My father had one of these old Fords for a couple years back in the mid 80's and where his was not a step side bed like the Tamiya Ranger, it was essentially the same, very spartan inside and the vinyl seats were a bit warm in the hot Texas sun.
Onto the fenders as I called them, it would be the FRONT fender and I think you might call them wings??? It is where the front grill is attached with Tamiya's parts of chrome grill and blue body. They almost always suffer some damage and I am afraid making them on Shapeways may still be a bit course over molding them and popping out replacement panels. Oh well, I can dream that I will be good with plastic filler and such some day.

Keep up the great work.

[jonboy1]

Hey Chris - that's the things. My mum had an Austin Mini van which had forward/backward sliding window panels and also had vinyl seats, only here in the Gloucester UK sun they only got modestly clammy  I've been to Houston a few times for work though, so I can appreciate what the Ranger would've been like - not pleasant!!

Got what you mean now - wings are fenders, yes except for when we're talking about airplanes or guitars of course 

You're right, Shapeways probably wouldn't work very well for this, at least not in my hands, maybe someone better at surfacing could? But then to be fair, if I had SCollins handy like you I don't think I'd be worried!!! 

Loved your FAV btw - really sweet!

[casethejoint]

Superb, gentle restoration.

The radiobox looks amazing! What did you use to wetsand - micromesh?

[jonboy1]

Thank you! Your kind comments make the temporary lack of finger tips worthwhile!! 

I started off with 800 wet and dry to remove all the deep scratches. Had to resort to 600 in a couple of places where it was really bad. It is at this point I looked at it and thought "What have you done??!! That's an original unbroken radio box you've just ruined!"  Anyway, once it was all evenly scratched.... I went and repeated with 1000, 1200 and 1500 grit, all wet. This got it to a light cloudy sort of finish. Getting very concerned by now I dug out my chrome polish Autosol which I think you can get anywhere: 

https://www.autosol.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=1000

this ended with it having a faint haze. So then i went at it with car polish, not wax, and then - i tried both and not a lot of difference so pick whichever - a good healthy spray of furniture polish (a bees wax one is ideal) or a coat of Autoglym Bumper Gel https://www.autoglym.com/bumper-trim-gel

either of these gave it a really deep clear shine.

A word of advice - if you decide you have a spare couple of weeks with absolutely nothing better to do than sand plastic, do 1 side at a time - ie: do the outside first, then do the inside. I did the bottom all over at once and it got really hard to tell what i was sanding and if I should stop or not. And it really can take a long time (depending on what you start with of course) the motor cover and the front receiver box were in ok condition so they probably only took about an hour each. The main cases probably have 12 hours in them, which might not seem too bad but when you consider you are talking about something you can hold in your hand.... it gets very tedious. Make sure you have good music!! 

[jonboy1]

Just a quick update: following a brief chat with Crash Cramer I realised the front lower sections of my front fenders/wings were missing. So I built these back up with some plasticard and putty. I haven't put the holes in for the bumpers as I'd prefer to keep a slightly more "scale" look to it. I might put a couple of little tabs on the inside so the screw holes on the grill/bumper pop onto them to give a little support. I also realised that some of the post mounts on the inside of the body were either wrecked or missing, so I reinstated these with some plastic tube and epoxy.

Finally it was time to give it all a good clean and get some primer on!!!

After a couple of coats all my sloppy sanding was highlighted  so I spent last night with a pack of wet and dry and micro mesh sticks smoothing everything out. Everything looks to be beautifully smooth now, so I gave it a quick coat of primer and have left it over night so it'll be ready for another quick sand before more primer.

Starting to see an end to this which is great!!

In other news I also got my Unimog body cut out and painted for my CR-01. Got a few things in mind for this, so I'll post some pictures of this when I've got a bit more done.

[mongoose1983]

Oh, I like what you're doing to that Ford Ranger body. Good job!

[SRB Bloke]

Nice work on that shell, I wasn't sure what you meant by 'micro mesh sticks' and thought they sound handy, so I looked them up. I've been making my own version buy sticking different grades of wet & dry on to lolly sticks and McDonalds tea stirrer's for ages.  Didn't realise you can buy them

Looking forward to seeing the finish on your paint..

[jonboy1]

So, there has been yet more sanding and more priming, more swearing when i find yet more flaws, more sanding and more priming.

Eventually I decided enough was enough and I put some colour on it 

I did the bed cover in semi gloss black - which highlighted some more unevenness in my prep, but I just couldn't sand it again. I probably will in the next day or so, but I'd just had enough by then. I also went around the bottom edge, arches and the detail area behind the cab with semi gloss too, my hope to be I can add a bit of depth and tonal change. We'll see....

After a day or so drying I taped off the bed and got a first coat of colour on:

 

I think I'll give it one more coat (I'm getting very conscious of losing detail under all the paint layers) and then flat it all back and see where we're at.

 

[jonboy1]

So since my last update I've sanded back the body a couple more times in an effort to get rid of some imperfections. I also ended up reinforcing the underside of the bonnet (hood) around the front post mount as - feeling very chuffed with the finish - I popped it on the chassis to see how it looked and promptly got reminded I hadn't opened up the hole for the post and saw a crack appear in the paint 

Finally I'm happy with the paint on the body, so bar a little flatting back it is ready for clear coat. I'll come back to that in a mo.......

 

In between the tears of cracking the body and getting it repaired, I decided I really needed to look at the grill. I'd been putting it off as I was really struggling with how to go forward. I'f bought a bumper set from a re-re blackfoot as I needed a rear bumper and had thought I could use the new grill if needed. After looking at the grill insert I knew it was never going to fly - it looks horrible. My next option was to cut the insert out of one of the original grills and stick it in the new outer. I REALLY didn't want to do this as I didn't like the idea of me being responsible for hacking up a vintage grill and a new grill and ruining both. So the next option was to modify the new grill to look more like an original one. This got bumped to last place as I think it would involve a loooot of work to get it right, and to be honest, I couldn't be ar*ed....

So the primary option became to restore the original grill as best I could.

I'll skip all the details otherwise i'll be here all day, but here's a before and after pic - I'm actually quite happy with how it came out in the end - took ages to get there but good in the end.

 

 

Going back to the body - I got the decals on!!!!  can finally see an end in sight!!

Just a little teaser shot - I'm not going to add the full set of decals, I think I'm going to keep this one subtle and sophisticated 

 

[Crash Cramer]

O MY GOOOOOOODNESS, that looks stellar. You did know that PintoPower has a grill insert, if you wish to try your hand at hacking the new grill up.

https://www.shapeways.com/product/9QK2KYQBS/027001-00-f-150-ranger-grill?optionId=60455141

If you go that route, he has a complete lighting kit too, but you might not want all of that.

 

[jonboy1]

Hey Crash, thanks for the appreciation 

I didn't know that.......  ah well - to be honest, I don't really want to think about seeing another Ranger grill any time soon, but I'll bear it in mind for the future 

 

[mongoose1983]

Love it. GREAT piece of work there!

[jonboy1]

very quick update - got a little started on the trim detail - lots to go but I think it is really starting to come together now 

in other news.... I have been thinking about what to do with the Frog I bought a while back. I couldn't decide whether to keep it as a buggy, or put a differnt body on it - convert it into a blackfoot/mudblaster type of thing - completely lost for ideas. Anyway, I figured if I got it all stripped down and cleaned and ready for paint it might force me into a decision. It is a re-re which came with no radio gear or motor, but other than a couple of broken front spindles and being a bit dusty it was in nice condition. So I got it apart, cleaned and sanded and a coat of primer on the chassis rails.

I'd toyed with the idea of going white, as I really liked how my Grasshopper 2 came out, but I found myself leaning towards a Brat rather than a Frog and couldn't see a white chassis looking right on that to me. Black didn't really appeal to me as it is a bit meh. I knew it would be a dark finish in the end, so I put a black base coat on and hoped for inspiration:

In the end I decided on a Aluclad Steel finish, which is a bit like a gun metal grey but not so flakey or metallic if you get my meaning.

I wanted a contrast on the suspension parts and gearbox, plus some bling would definitely be needed (a picture was forming.....) so out came the dremel and polish. A couple of hours later I had some shiny bits - and the metal came up nice too. The black plastic needed attention now, so that all got primed and painted gloss black. I initially gave it a coat of aluminium, but it just looked wrong against the polished metal - so I decided to give it a colour. The body colour made sense, but what would it be......

 

I'm nothing if not consistent........

[jonboy1]

Been doing the trim details on the body this week - still got a couple more bits to do but nearly done now.

the eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that between pictures the side window frames disappeared. Two things happened: one, I got fed up of sticking the things back in every week when I broke them picking it up and moving it and secondly once I've got the silver on them I really didn't like how they looked.

So, off they came - need to finish off tidying up the body where the repair was done, but I've started on the mk2 version. Hopefully this will look much nicer.

As I've been waiting for paint to dry I built up the Frog chassis:

 

Once the Ranger is finished I'll get started on the body for this.

 

[Crash Cramer]

That looks AWESOME, I can't wait to see more and more of this, perhaps Mk2 has some of the detail you and I spoke about??? That ought to be real nice.

[jonboy1]

Cheers Chris, yes, hopefully it will  got the bits on my workbench now so just got to see how it looks in place 

Thanks again for the help with the info - proved invaluable 

[Crash Cramer]

That sounds great, glad I could help. It wasn't hard really.

[SRB Bloke]

Some nice work there Jonboy, looking forward to seeing that Ranger finished...   But I'm also interested to see this mk2 version that you and Crash are discussing, details ?? thats got the mind going....

[jonboy1]

Ah, no not quite that interesting - it's not a mk2 Ranger, just a mk2 version of side window. Sorry to disappoint 😉

I am but a mere man, I can only achieve so much 😉

plus I've got to start on the Brat body and you haven't seen the mess that's in!!

[Crash Cramer]

Ah, don't be so modest, show me ANOTHER one done that way on TC. I just bought me some NEW re re wheels from the Brat to put on my eventual Ranger.

[RushRebel]

Gorgeous!