Classic Hifi Care

Rex, I agree, no chemical treatment. I know a tech that uses a combo of fresh water and a light amout of compressed air. He has good success and I think I'm going to ask him to work his magic. I will also have the whole cooling system flushed at the same time.

Elton, from my days at the dealerships the techs would always flush their vehicles and put good ole' green antifreeze back in it. They would do that for me as well. That will probably happen here too.

Bill

My 2005 Ranger 4-cyl. uses a special Ford gold antifreeze. They are quite specific about it. The first change interval is at 100K and the second a bit shorter, like maybe 160K. I was lazy and let it go to about 180K before changing again. The only cooling system issue ever in 194K miles has been the thermostat; this engine is noted for frequent failures of them (they fail open, happily). Heat is fine; the temp gauge always sits in the same spot. I'm not sure what the gold stuff is but as I recall they warn about not using anything else and especially nothing orange. The little truck is a champion and I would gladly drive it forever if the rust would stop. In the old days Michigan entrepreneurs would head south, buy a truckload of pickup beds from scrap yards, and bring them north to sell as replacements. I haven't seen any of those in a long time but have been thinking about looking. Better than a new truck--they are all cab and no bed now, all automatics and no manual; all touch screen and no analog controls. Mostly cars, in other words.

Chris Campbell

Back to the original topic, The illumination of the instrument cluster was getting quite puny. It appeared that 3 of the lamps were not lighting. I removed the instrument cluster this afternoon and cleaned all the lamp contacts and all of the flex circuit contacts and their corresponding plugs. I got everything back together and got a piece of cardboard and cut a small hole in it to put over the cluster to see if it was working. I also disassembled and cleaned and treated the battery terminals and connectors and replaced the headlight to relay connection for my relay bypass system. That much is now ready for winter.

Were the bulbs bad or were they not making contact?

They weren't making good contact. High resistance connections.