As soon as we got her home we added some fresh gas and gave the battery a jump and to our surprise she pretty much started right up. Some smoke, some awful gas fumes, and a bit of a rough idle but not much unexpected for a truck that had been sitting for 3 years. We gave her a quick power wash to get some of the dirt and grime off of her and then immediately went to work removing the headlights, grilles, taillights, bumpers, hood, and the rear bed. Within an hour or so we got to see an even better look at what we had in store for ourselves. Lots of surface rust and about 30 years of grease, grime, and general nastiness had accumulated in just about ever crevice.

Finally Found One

After months of searching we finally located a 1st generation Ranger in fairly straight condition for the cool price of $700. This has been my younger brother's "dream truck" for some time. His Uncle (we are step-brothers) had one when he was growing up and so I think there was a bit of sentimental value to this year and model. When he first asked me to find and restore one of these trucks, I can't say that I fully grasped the reason why; in fact I may have tried hard to talk him out of it at various periods. However the more research I did and the fact that all the parts are still fairly readily available, I finally said "what the hell, lets do it!"Here she is the day we rescued her from a backyard in Pamona, CA. She had been sitting for about 3 years but the previous owner told us that she was indeed a running truck. We didn't care too much at the time because we knew we were going to spend a bunch of time getting her back into pristine condition.