I Have A 95 Ford Ranger 4x4 4 Cyl. Manuel Tranny. First I Would Like To Ask Anybody Know A Air Intake That Can Be Used Or Have A Write-up On How To Make One That Works? Also I Want To Get A CB. Anybody Know A Place To Get Em Cheap And Know A Good Mounting Place In The Truck For It?

 

Look on ebay for some of thier cheap makeshift intakes, or fab a k&n to fit thats close to the same year. CBs' aren't very expensive anymore, you can get them from jc whitney or summit at a decent price. With cell phones, there's not a big demand for cb's except for maybe truckers. I haven't a clue as where to mount one. Someone on here may have one and can help.

 

I've got a CB mounted to the ashtray in my '97. There's a pic of it in my gallery.

It's not at all an ideal location, since every once in a while the weight of the radio will pull the ashtray open, and get in the way of the gearshift, but it was the best place I could find to put the thing.

 

I installed a cb in my 89 jeep comanche, the only place I could find was on the passenger side of the tranny tunnel with the dials faceing up so I could look down from the drivers seat and see my settings. The mic was attached to the side of the cb.

 

Word of advice, you are probably going to have a buzzing noise in the CB when you install it. It's typical, and Ford issued a TSB on it, I have the service bulletin somewhere. It's coming from the fuel pump, and there is a noise suppessor you need to install to fix it. It requires dropping the tank and installing the supressor on the fuel pump. I think it's part number E7PZ-9B357-A.

 

That sounds like a bit of a hassle, maybe a cell phone doesn't sound so bad ha ha.

 

Or you can just crank the squealch and only talk to people real close by...

 

Thats what I do. It works okay with a decent radio and antenna.

 

what's the range of a good cb?

 

I had one in my '92 in the ash tray spot but I had more noise coming from the wiper motor when it was running

 

A buddy of mine can talk to people about 40 miles away on a clear night.

Any radio and anntenna (besides cheap handheld ones) should be capable of 5-10 miles, depending on weather.

 

that could be pretty handy.

 

That sounds like ford trying to make money to me, if you have a noise issue, you can buy a $5 inline noise suppressor and do the same thing in about 5 minutes.
As to where to get a CB, try a truck stop if you have one anywhere near you, you can by a Cobra 29 for right around $100 and they are a pretty decent CB, I have 2 of those, although I recently bought a Galaxy for my pickup most people don't need to spend the money (I didn't have to actually pay for it, I get reward points for buying fuel at Pilot, 1 cent for every gallon just saved points until I had enough to get the CB for Free, and when you buy 180-200 gallons a day it's pretty easy)
Typically on a unmodified CB, and a good antenna the range is about 5 miles, one of my Cobra 29s is peaked and setup with ham radio finals putting out almost 10 times the stock wattage, and I can reach about 15 miles on a clear night. claims of 40 miles are greatly exaggerated unless skip is real strong. (then you can talk to other countries at times)
Biggest thing on a CB is have the SWR checked and set by someone with a meter, if it's not matched you can and will burn out the finals in the radio in short order.

 

They'd be a lot handier if it was easier to convince your friends they need one, too. (They argue I need a cell phone... ).

Mine did save my butt one night; I was driving down the Maine Turnpike around 11:30, and a northbound trucker radioed that there was a crash about a half-mile ahead of me and everyone should get in the left lane. Cops weren't on-scene yet, and it would have been difficult to figure out where to go to avoid the wreck if I'd come upon it with no warning at 65 mph, and I could have ended up on the same patch of ice that caused the crash.

 

That's what I thought. I tried it, it didn't work. It still had as much noise as before. I've tried three different inline noise suppessors and none of them did anything.

The easiest thing to do is just turn the squelch up and just bring in the close people.

About the 40 mile thing, I might reword that a little, I made it sound like it happens all the time. He claims it does it, but only occasionally and it's no out of the box CB.