I love how when you pulled the tail light you said "oh the connector is brittle, I will have to replace that". we all know this means that you are going to rebuild the entire wiring harness for your gram's Truck. New connectors, new WIRES, new cable looms, yeah, we know how you are Sarah, and that is why we watch you!
Your ability to improvise is amazing. You have many experiences to draw on. Very impressive. Also, you're quite the soda blaster. Thanks for another entertaining video.
Run a cargo strap around the front frame where the legs of the lift contact it. You could also put axle stands under the rear axle to prevent a bad event from occurring.
You are a bloody mechanical genius. I think you can look at an assembly and see in your mind a "cutaway" view of its parts. That's a real gift and one of many reasons I enjoy your videos so much. That and your absolutely off the wall sense of humor. Finally, you are very nice to look at!
Happy Monday Sarah!!! So that's what you were up to Saturday evening. Saw the door open and vehicle parked with lights on, up against the shop, while passing on the main road. Would've stopped to BS, but don't want to interrupt your work. HF soda blaster works surprisingly well. Stay excellent!!!😎
I think anyone will agree that media blasting is one of the messiest, dirtiest jobs about restoration but the results are so effective and satisfying when compared to anything else. Just for reference I have to do the same wiggle to my 100lb sandblaster to get the last 25% of the sand to flow to the pickup. I think I'll get one of those soda blasters now that I see how well it works for stuff that needs less aggressive blasting . Something you might look into for cleaning smaller aluminum parts is a small blast cabinet to use with glass beads, it will make cast aluminum look brand new with a nice satin smooth finish. Love watching you go through your processes of figuring stuff out and discovering new methods to the madness!
If is the not too expensive yeah soda blasting is ok otherwise DRY-ICE blasting is way much effective because it has different nosses and is so much faster than baking-soda blaster it will not make any mess the only down side is it need electric current for the compressor, the noise is a bit too loud and must wear at least protection mask helmet & gloves.. DRY-ICE blasting is the best specially for cleaning intricate parts gearbox housing, removing rust and make the clean section looking like brand new..
As to "tooth" for paint attearance, an abrasive blasted surface, IMHO it is better than any other method of surface prep. You should also try some of the other "less abrasive" (not sand) media, "Wallnut shells" are one that come to mind, I dont know what is avalable where you live.
Looks like the little soda blaster works quite well. You know all the tricks when it comes to detailing and making a vehicle like new again. You don't miss a thing. Great job as always.
Love all ways on the vids , your one of the few who can actually get me to laugh out loud , nothing brightens my day better than to see a fresh vid of yours,,, rebuilding one of my bikes this winter sooo lots of alaminium parts and covers to clean up, and someone had previously use some wrinkle paint on parts of it might try the soda plaster myself,, an im affraid some of your cleaning habbits have rubbed off, i find some of my latest projects are coming out way better lookin than usual,, thanks🕶
Thank you, thank you, thank you for lowering the volume on the impact! When you put the bed on the donor frame, strap the frame to the lift before lifting it up so it doesn't fall off.
I love that Ford Ranger and the ground up restoration you are doing to it is just amazing and the emotional connection you have to it makes its extra special.
Seeing this danger Ranger get some love really makes my day. Might I suggest for anyone with long hair to tie it back if they're ever working with powered rotating equipment. Getting your hair snagged in an impactor will ruin your day.
One of my favorite restaurants serves “butter snails” in a round plate with small concave indentations full of butter and snails with a little baked bread crown on top! Yum! Impressed with your shout out to a fellow car girl RU-vidr… and especially her message we all need to remember. Thank you! 👍👍👍
Please try a sand blaster with glass beads. Not nearly as aggressive as sand but much faster and more aggressive than soda. It will actually remove the rust even in the pitted areas. It's a great tool for removing splotchy and discolored areas and creating an even appearance on many different metals as well. Plus you can use it to actually spray sand if you need that level of abrasiveness. Love watching your channel and your awesome sense of humor.
Great video, and seeing the mistakes and figuring out what you did wrong is a great service to anyone doing their own auto work. Also props on the t-shirt very sweet!
Great video, Sarah. I've never used a soda blaster (I prefer glass bead), but it seems to work perfectly for the job at hand. You're going to have a brand new (old) Ranger when you're done. Keep up the great work.
I am so glad to see you spending all of this time on your grandmother's pickup. Big respect to you for honoring her memory in this manner. Plus, I like those old Rangers. They were still fairly small back then. I remember the first foreign Ranger I ever saw was in the very late 70s, I think it was made in Taiwan. It was smaller than the Toyota small pickups. I had a 1980 Chev Luv (Izuzu) in 1985. That thing run forever, it was easy to fix. I wish Toyota would make small pickups again. Tacomas are NOT small. It freaked me out that the parts truck you got from Farmington was the same color!!
Lol, I just started following you on Instagram because of this ranger, then looked for a review on the portable soda blaster, and you were one of the first videos to pop up with the ranger included👌
Thank you for reviewing the soda blaster. I wondered how effective they can be for small jobs I have, definitely will get one. You're doing great on the truck.
Sarah, if you had your own shop I’m sure you would have many many customers for you to fix their rides. You are thorough, clean, and you don’t cut corners.
Oh, that’s the difference! Sarah, I noticed the rear sway bar mounts are timed differently in your Grams Ranger as opposed to the new chassis’s rear axle, perhaps that’ll correct the short end link problem Nice work, I knew you’d stay later and get some work done !
Sarah you can put the truck bed on your frame if you support the rear axle with jack stands to help distribute the added weight from the lift to the floor.
Sarah…. love your quirky sense of humor. You are fun to watch. Love to have a couple of the cars your recently completed. The Quatro and the TT. I had a 02 TT roaster, but always wanted a coupe. The one you gave away was a great snag for someone as you have already gone all the way through it. As I don’t have the knowledge, skills, tools or shop that you do, acquiring an older TT coupe is always going to be a roll of the dice. Cheers….
Soda blasting is great. I had a mobile media blasting company come and soda blast my last project car so that I wouldn't have to do all the sanding by hand. It was awesome, they did the whole car in about an hour and it saved me so much time by not having to hand sand the intricate surfaces like the door jambs, and the under the hood areas like the firewall. It cost me about $500 but was so worth it in the time savings by not having to sand all of those areas. It doesn't deteriorate the metal like sand blasting does, and the cleanup is really easy.
I know I'm several years late, but I use wheel and tire cleaner to remove oil and road grime with a stiff brissle brush. Decades of crud and grime will melt off with this stuff. Rinse with water and dry with air gun. Hope this helps in future! 👍
Excellent work as always Sarah; always love your sense of humour :D I'm sure you're going to anyway, but please show the basic maintenance tasks on the engine? I would find that very helpful :)
As a suggestion for your baking soda mess issue, I recently bought the battery powered "shop Blower" from Ryobi and i think it would do wonders for that mess, and you will enjoy it! It like a frisbee sized leaf blower, but it is super powerful!
I took our '98 Ranger XLT bed off a few weeks back. It's probably 200 lbs max. My 16 year old son and I can lift it ourselves (but not really maneuver it well). 3 of us can easily remove it. I'm not sure if yours is a long bed, that one might be heavier. BTW, it's the easiest way to change fuel pumps (taking the bed off). Way easier than draining the fuel and dropping the tank, so you might want to replace the fuel pump before putting the bed on (or you can replace it the same way later when it fails). Kudos for the content Sarah, always a fan!
Love this nutty channel. As you've already discovered, soda blasters are a lot of work for not much return. But I love that you tried it out. Needle scalers are cheaper and far more effective :)
I bought the pressurized habor freight unit that works great.. it seems the weld that are panted rust. Thats great for soda blasting. Cleans rust stains off chrome really well!
Hey 👋 Sarah I have a tip for you. If you have a pressure washer and you can get an adapter for sandblasting but this time with water and it comes with a bonus. It doesn’t even warp the metal! 😉 I have had auto body repair in high school and college. Keep up the great work and have a blessed day!
Now you have me thinking about trying to figure out if I can take a rear sway bar from a later model and get it mounted onto the '92 that I am working on. I've had two of these older ones kick out on the rear end on me. Might be worth looking into.
Great video Thanks for posting. Another reason to go with soda blasting is there isn't the environmental issues sand blasting can have. My garage is near a creek so I have to watch what runoff is created. There is also no risk from silica.
