Never Dies

I had my Ford Ranger for 11 years and sold it last month so I feel that I am well qualified to review the 88 ranger. My Ranger had the 2.9L V6 engine with EFI and a 5 speed manual transmission. It was a 4x4 and had the extended cab.

I was the second owner of the truck and the original owner lived in the far north of Canada in the Yukon Territories(think of Alaska) so it was exposed to the coldest weather that cars could possibly sees. I paid $8000 for the truck and it was already about 4-5 years old.

The truck was roomy enough for my family of four when we bought it. Both my 12 year old son and 13 year old daughter were able to fit in the sideways mounted rear seats when we went camping. It was also good at pulling my 14 ft "Holiday" camper. I took good care of the truck until my son turned 16.

When my son turned 16 he became the primary driver of the truck. From what I observed my son was very hard on the truck from the very first day he started driving it (I also suspect that my son was driving the truck before he was 16). I know for a fact that my son went "Off-Roading" the first night he had his license. I also found some pictures my son had of the truck stuck in the mud and one of the pictures showed my son jumping the truck. It looked like it was probably a couple feet off the ground!

Some of the problems that the truck had I blame mostly on my son and not the truck. It started going through a set of rear tires every year and the clutch burned out twice while my son was driving it. The U-joints in the front axle broke quite frequently. The limited slip rear differential didn't seem to work properly during the time when my son was driving it so I pulled the cover and found that the differential was full of muddy water. After that the rear differential made a growling sound but it never ended up breaking.

At one point my son did a body job on the truck because the front fenders had rust holes in them. The rear fenders rusted a couple years later.

At around 150 000 kms (100 000 mi) some small things started to go wrong. The alternator quit. The starter broke. The fuel pump relay broke. The fan clutch seized. The coil went. All of these problems were repaired by my son and the parts were never more than $100.

At about 180 000 kms the water pump broke. Unfortunately my son was driving the truck while this happened and all the coolant drained out of the engine onto the ground. My son thought that It would be better to drive the truck home than to get it towed and he severely overheated the engine in the process. The engine still ran with the new water pump installed but sounded horrible. We drove it like this for a couple months until I found a decent engine at the scrap-yard for $400 and had my mechanic swap engines. The labor was about $500. The scrap-yard engine had about 120 000 kms on it when we put it in the truck.

One story that I would like to tell about the ranger is when I tried to put a 5 ton rock in the bed of the truck. I drive heavy equipment at a Steel plant and noticed that there was about 6 large sandstone rocks in the steel plant dump that must have been dug up for some reason. I decided that these rocks would be good for landscaping so I went and got my son and the ranger. Using one of the forklifts from work and with my son directing me I started to load one of the rocks into the back of the ranger. I could see that the truck bottomed out almost right away but I still hadn't let all the weight of the rock down. As I was lowering the rock even more I noticed my sons eyes were getting bigger and bigger until he started to wave frantically for me to lift the rock back up. It turns out that the front wheels of the ranger had come right off the ground. The tailgate was bent pretty good and the only other thing that broke was the front leaf spring hangers The cab and the box didn't line up properly after that, but the truck still drives without dog-tracking and the steering is still on center.

The mileage on the truck was at 290 000 km (180 000 mi) when I sold it. My son bought himself a 92 dakota V8 and I didn't need the truck myself. It still doesn't burn much oil and it's still running on the original tranny. The guy that bought it was more than happy to pay $1200 for it and I pretty sure that he would have paid more but I didn't feel that the truck