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Gunslinger
Joined: Sat Nov 4th, 2017
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In other news, the diff held it's fluid over night. The brakes are now bled and appear to work just fine. I took it around the neighborhood even, but not quite for the reason I wanted.
There's a bump in our driveway, and I decided to use it to help the suspension components settle in. The rear end is nice, quiet, and solid. No complaints.
The front is a different story. The driver's side front makes a destinctive rattle noise, but not a heavy clunk. I went underneath and made sure everything was nice and tight, but I was unable to find any lose components. It's my suspicion that with all the new components together, they need to settle in by being driven. An alignment also needs to be done still, which I considered also to be a factor, given I threw the parts together, knowing I wouldn't be able to get it close myself. It's possible a washer or something happens to be in just the right place to make a noise.
Ball joints (upper+lower), tie rod end, torsion bar (control arm side and frame side), etc, all appear to be as they should. I'm a bit befuddled, but not overly concerned. My thoughts are the noise is something stupid, as is usually the case.
Keen eyed viewers will notice that the passenger side inner U bolt appears to be kicked out a bit. I noticed that as I took the photo and fixed it, so it's no longer like that.
Ordered some vinyl floor from Rockauto to replace my carpet last night, so when that comes in, carpet comes out. This should look a lot nicer and be much easier to keep looking nice than the non automotive carpet I have in there now.
When I first bought the truck, it had tan carpet loaded with stains I couldn't lift. So I bought some cheap indoor outdoor carpet to replace it with, cut it to shape, and laid it in. For a guy on a budget, $20 for new carpet was a steal. But, with a bigger budget, this stuff is going away. It holds onto everything....
The F150 I've been driving has this same flooring in it, so I've had a chance to live with something similar. No more floor mats, no more clingy carpet.
So, once that comes in, I'm going to get some more SEM dye, and this interior is going to turn black as coal. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with the door panels, though. There's a hole for the manual crank, which doesn't exist anymore. I thought about plugging it with a marker light, sort of like how the Explorer does, or replacing the panel all together. I guess that all depends on what I can find and/or how much new panels would be.
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1999 Ford Ranger XLT - 3.0 V6 4x4 - Loaded (Totaled) 143k. Rest in Peace, Gold Dust.