Ranger repairs

[Clare Snyder]

After 6 years of ownership, and putting over 50,000 additional Km on it (now reading 358,000) I've run into a few repairs. I finally replaced the ORIGINAL rear brakes (the OP gave me the shoes and springs when I bought it - I bought new adjusters and cyls) last week. I've been noticing drips on the driveway for some time - had the transmission shop replace the plugs in the shift rail bores on the tranny (cost me $200) and yesterday I started smelling hot antifreeze and found the rad tank seal had let go on the left side - I tried recrimping and just made the leak worse - - - Out, recrimp, and back in, on the driveway, less than 90 minutes. One of the easiest vehicles I've changed a rad on in YEARS!!! Will order a new rad Tuesday morning (long weekend up here) for about $170 and hopefully I'm good for a few more years and another 50,000km

- - - In 2 weeks I've spent more on repairs than I've spent in 6 years but I'm definitely not complaining!

[hubops]

Too bad you don't put more miles on - I'd like to see what it takes to wear out a Vulcan motor ... I scrapped 3 or 4 Taurii with perfectly good motors. Starter and alternator replacements were quite easy on these. John T.

[Clare Snyder]

It's not a vulcan - it's a mighty "cologne" based 4.0.

I've seen them go 500,000km

[Terry Coombs]

  Kinda off topic because it's a Toy , but our '99 4Runner V6 has 304,000 miles , that's right damn close to 500,000 km . Still runs like a top ... the key factors here are #1 modern CNC machining of components and #2 modern computerized engine control systems . With any reasonable amount of care 500k miles is going to be the new normal . I remember when one didn't buy a car with over 50 or 60 thousand miles because it was near the end of it's life ... I got this Toy with almost 250k and figure it's probably broken in now .

[Clare Snyder]

Maintenance is the critical thing with Toys.

Maintain them and they will go virtually forever. 500,000 km is nicely broken in

100,000 miles used to be totally worn out after one or two rebuilds. I used to do a lot of valve jobs, and ring and bearings as well.

Used to do a lot of "in chassis" rebuilds.(Old chevies with rope seals you could replace the main bearings and seals without pulling the motor or transmission)