My name is Josh and I own a 2009 Ranger XLT with the 4.0 SOHC and 4x4. My first vehicle was a 1996 Ranger XLT 2.3L 4x2. I absolutely love these trucks with a passion and would love if they were brought back to USA production.
A little about myself!
I am 20 years old now and have been working in manufacturing since before I graduated High School. I went to Laurel Oaks CDC campus in Wilmington Ohio and studied Pre-Engineering: Welding and Machining. MY first job that I landed was as a lathe operator at Ferno-Washington INC. I worked there for 10 months and was offered a welding job at TFO Tech Co LTD. Sadly it is a company that makes car parts for Honda, not Ford, but it is fairly close to home and is a good line of work. My job is to weld and repair the press dies that go through forging crankshafts, hubs and pulleys.
I bought my first truck off of my cousin. He owned it for about 4 or 5 years and left it with his brother when he moved to Louisiana. I asked him if he would sell it to me and he said sure thing! Only problem was he thought it needed a new clutch. Fortunately he sold it to me for $700, not too bad for a first truck. When we got it home I got under it to size up the work of removing the drive shaft and transmission. To my delight, I immediatly noticed that the problem wasn't the clutch at all. It was the carrier bearing on the shaft! Instead of a serious repair, it only cost $28 for the new bearing, and I was on the road.
The truck served me well up until April of this year. I found what would be my new and current truck at the dealer down the road from me and took it for a test drive. It was everthing that my old red Ranger wasn't. It was hard to get rid of my faithful companion, but I made a deal with the salesman and was out the door with my new set of wheels. Since I've had it I have only bought new tires, a set of 31x10.5 BF Goodrich AT KO's. It gives the truck such a nice stance and a look of aggressive off-road. Everything else is factory stock. It has no lift and no aftermarket suspension parts. It is my daily driver and my "fun-mobile".
My other hobbies other than driving my new beast of a small truck include hunting and playing electric guitar. My Idol is the one and only, Edward Van Halen. If not for him, I would have never picked up my first guitar. I have been playing since the winter of my senior year of High School. I have been hunting, however, since I was about 8 years old. I have gotten many a squirrel on our land, and just a couple weeks ago got my first white-tail deer. And if not for my truck, I would have had to carried him 200 feet up a rather steep hill.
Well that's about all I have time for. I look forward to talking to many of you and I hope I can help anybody out if they have any questions for me.
Thank you for reading