My Wife Calls my 71 Ranger Hooptie!!! So this is the Hooptie Build.
 

So about two weeks ago I picked up a 71 Ford Ranger XLT with a Drive line out of a 1976 Ford Pickup. It has a 390 FE Four Barrel, C6 Tranny and a Ford 9 Diff and I think the gears are 3.25/1. So far I have removed the Door Bell Switch he was using for the horn that was zip tied to the steering wheel. Wish I had taken pictures of that but since then I have been fighting wiring issues ever since. Maybe time to replace the whole harness. I have replaced the Radius Arm Bushings, Adjusted the Steering Box and then found out that the biggest problem is that the Drag Link is Broken on one end and that is where most of the slop is coming from the steering. I put a Quick Fuel 1957 600 CFM Vacuum Secondary carb on it and it runs great. I am going to start doing body work and cleaning and painting the engine bay shortly. I plan on painting the truck Gun Metal Gray and Silver with the Gun metal above the bodyside molding and the Silver below. The bed is in amazing shape, I guess the guy drove it most of its life with a camper shell on it and it shows. Anyway here are a few pictures of Hooptie as my Wife has told me is its name. I think I had better spend some time on her 67 Mustang Coupe or she will probably shoot me.
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Here is a Picture of my 74 F100 Explorer. That truck is now residing on the East Coast in Delaware. I still miss that truck...
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Hooptie build! love it. Hey what intake and carb where you running on the 74? That engine bay is ridiculously good looking.

The intake was the original 360CI cast iron 2 Barrel manifold that was leaking like a siv so I took it off and cleaned and painted it silver. It had a Motorola 2 Barrel carb on it and I think it was a 500 CFM carb. I did a rebuild on the carb and it ran great except I never did get the low end stumble to quit on it. Pretty much everything on the truck was stock. The truck only had like 47K miles on it and the compression on it was absolutely perfect. The back two cylinders were 115 instead of 120 and the rest were 120. I was told that is very much normal on these FE motors.

So today I got Hooptie from the Alignment shop and it drives so much better. The Engine seems to be missing under load but runs absolutely flawless while in Park. It feels like what I would think of as a burnt valve or something like that. Once you get it up to speed it is smooth as silk but when accelerating it sounds and feels like its missing. Has anyone had a similar issue with your Truck and if you did how did you fix it?

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Put a mechanic's vacuum gauge on it. That can tell you a lot.
I would give it a full tune up. check the vacuum advance to be hooked up and it's rubber diaphragm not ruptured. While the plugs are out do a wet and dry compression test. Warm engine while doing the compression test.
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So here is My Wifes Car and she will be going on Sebatical from work here in late September and she has informed me we are going to finish her car (1967 Mustang Coupe) during that Sebatical. We will be living in our Motorhome while this is happening because our House is being gutted and Renovated. Not much going on around here. Then I threw Hooptie in the Mix (My 1971 Ford F100 Ranger XLT) so I am trying to knock it out quick. Here are a few pictures of My Wifes Car which for some reason she didn't name like she did Hooptie.
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Looking at the 1st pic my 1st reaction was call it Pig Pen. :-X03}> From Peanuts. ;)
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Then seeing it painted I came up with calling Her "Candy". From Candy Apple Red.
I am assuming you have 1.7 ratio roller rockers with poly locs under those valve covers? And maybe even some rocker arm stud girdles?

It was at a Body shop and we have been cleaning that dust out of everything since we bought it. My Wife Chewed my Butt over that car when I called and told her about it and that Night I took her to see it and she told me that was her car and I was not going to turn it around and sell it. She never did appologize for chewing my butt. Oh Well, the other fun fact about that car is its painted IH Red, as in International Harvester Red and its Emron Paint. It was single stage and it didn't have enough shine to it so my Son and I shot several Coats of Emron Clear over it. We let it set too long before we started color sanding it and it was like rubbing two rocks together when we were sanding it. We sanded for almost a month to get it as flat as it is. Sorry to hear about the Loss of your Car to a Divorce... So many times I hear that and it stinks!!!

Actually that is a Internally Balanced Roller Motor and yes its the original 289, and will probably be pushing in upwards of 300 HP to the Rear Wheels. Lots of Ponies for a 2800 LB Car. I'm Afraid the Cop Shop will be writing lots of tickets.

JRB64 your shop looks kinda like mine. i also have a 67 f-100 swb. and a 67 Mustang coupe. my car is a factory 289 c-4 ps factory air. the engine in my car is not the og. it was gone when i bought my car. the engine that i have i ran the casting number it came back as a K -code 289.

Yeah, Our Stang was really loaded, even Front Disc Brakes. I still have all the original parts but I have replaced the entire front end of the Engine with a Serpentine System and Vintage Air. It was originally bought in Phoenix Arizona and there is absolutely no rust on that car anywhere. It was a heck of a find.

I tore the Top end of the engine apart today and I have some valve not closing all the way and it looks Like I might have some burnt valves. Kind of surprised it was running as good as it was at Idle. The torque values on everything was all over the place, some were so tight I almost had to get a cheater bar to brake them loose. Some were so loose I hardly had to put any effort into loosening them and this includes the Head bolts. I think I need to find a new set of Rocker assemblies because these are acting like they are broke. I have taken a set of these before and these were like they were flopping around when I was holding on to them. NOT GOOD. The Cylinders have absolutely no ridge at the top of the cylinder and the Cylinder walls all look really good. I think that maybe the previous owner had a bottom end job done and bolted the Top end on this Engine without having anything done to it. Well the heads are going to the Machine Shop tomorrow. I think the seats are really bad in these heads. They almost look recessed. Anyway here are some pictures for your Viewing Pleasure.
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You are prolly right on the rebuild of the engine at one time or another. I don't recognize those pistons or head gaskets. So I'm thinkin' they are aftermarket. Now since the valves are recessed those heads might have gotten a valve job also. If someone did, and the seats were pretty bad, they would have had to cut kinda deep in the heads to clean up those seats. Which would recess the valves. Then they would have cut the tips of the valves shorter a bit or put in shorter pushrods. Trouble is, 1972 was the 1st year Ford put hardened seats in the heads. I don't see any in those heads.
While you are there you might check the stroke to make sure it really is a 390. Spin the engine so #1 piston is at TDC. Timing mark at TDC. #4 cylinder all the way down at BDC. Measure the depth of #4 piston. 3.78" is a 390. 3.5" is a 352/360.