Bronc Rev 3.0ish

Hi, I've spent about the last 9 months or so working on this as time and funds allowed. Here it is, ready to test on the trails.
4.56 gears, No slip locker in rear, E locker in front. Fabbed longer radius arms. Fabbed bumpers and tire carrier, winch in front. Jeep XJ 6" coils. F-250 shock mounts. Supperrunner steering. All new bearings, seals and brakes in both axles. 8.8 rear, dana 35 front. Painted leaf springs with leaf spring liners between each leaf for less friction and more flex. It's sitting at about a 4-5" lift, no body lift, trimmed fenders and 35's. Cooper Discoverer STT Pro tires. Pacer flexy flares. Modified the stock inner fenders by trimming them and then riveting 40 mil pond liner to make up the difference. Removable mudflaps. It all turned out pretty good I think, especially the bumpers.
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bronc said:

It all turned out pretty good I think, especially the bumpers.

Click to expand...

You got that right! I do like those bumpers a lot.

Good work!!

nice work it looks really good man. I like mild wheeler/trail builds

bronc said:

Hi, I've spent about the last 9 months or so working on this as time and funds allowed. Here it is, ready to test on the trails.
4.56 gears, No slip locker in rear, E locker in front. Fabbed longer radius arms. Fabbed bumpers and tire carrier, winch in front. Jeep XJ 6" coils. F-250 shock mounts. Supperrunner steering. All new bearings, seals and brakes in both axles. 8.8 rear, dana 35 front. Painted leaf springs with leaf spring liners between each leaf for less friction and more flex. It's sitting at about a 4-5" lift, no body lift, trimmed fenders and 35's. Cooper Discoverer STT Pro tires. Pacer flexy flares. Modified the stock inner fenders by trimming them and then riveting 40 mil pond liner to make up the difference. Removable mudflaps. It all turned out pretty good I think, especially the bumpers.

Click to expand...

This thing is ****ing awesome.. Especially loving those bumpers. 3 questions on the build if you have a chance:

1: Whats the plate thickness on that bumper metal?
2: What kind of bearing/pin did you use on that tire carrier hinge and does it have any sag?
3: What was the process on that front spring and radius arm to keep the camber correct?

Hoping to do some similar things upcoming summer, thanks for all the detailed pictures.

Thanks for the compliments. See below.

Aldo94 said:

This thing is ****ing awesome.. Especially loving those bumpers. 3 questions on the build if you have a chance:

1: Whats the plate thickness on that bumper metal? Everything is 3/16" except the "wings" on the front bumper are 1/8". I wanted the center section of the front bumper to be strong for the winch obviously. For the rear, the whole thing needed to be strong basically because of the torque on the hinge when the tire carrier is swung out. The wings of the front bumper is still strong enough to jack on with a high lift and lift the truck up.
2: What kind of bearing/pin did you use on that tire carrier hinge and does it have any sag?I bought the kit below. You can also buy the hinge individually.
http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/R2126.html
There are also other site that supply them like: http://www.tmrcustoms.ca/roll-cage-chassis/bumper-builder-parts/tire-carrier-hinge-pivot.html
Search around. Just beware there are some light duty ones. I think mine is a 2000 lb trailer axle spindle and bearings, there are lighter duty ones. Make sure to gusset that thing up. It does sag a little but I'd say it's pretty good, maybe 1/8" or so. I bought a small sheet of 1/2" HDPE or something equivalent that is very low friction. I bevelled the edge and put it in the receiving end of the carrier so that when you close it, it is smooth and lifts the carrier up to the proper level. Also prevents noise. I can probably get a close-up of that if you need.
3: What was the process on that front spring and radius arm to keep the camber correct? I searched around a lot. 4x4Junkie had some good posts on various forums. Camber I sort of guestimated. I looked at the bushing and noticed they were quite outbound, or correcting for negative camber which meant I could afford more height and still be in spec. Also there was a rule of thumb somewhere in the tech pages about the beam pivots should ideally be about 1" above the centerline of the wheels, and again that showed I could afford about another 1" of height. After eveythinng was done, I had positive camber but the shop was able to bring it in spec. I did some rough measuring before taking it to the shop and was about 2-3° positive which I figured they could bring into spec. In the end, camber was in spec after alignment. Also originally I put the front end together with poly jeep coil spring isolators in place but they lifted it way too high wouldn't have been able to get into spec, I was about 4-5° positive. I ended up pulling them out so now the springs sit right on the steel floor plates that I used as the new larger lower mounts. Works fine although the front end does make a little noise as it cycles. As for caster, basically the top part of the axle should be horizontal and the front vertical part of the axle should be vertical. If you do that, you can get your camber in spec (4-6°). Get a good digital angle finder, got mine from harbor freight. Take a whole bunch of measurements of the truck sitting at ride height. Put the truck up on stand on the frame at ride height, take the front end all apart, put the axles on stand at ride height. Build your mounting brackets, cut the radius arms, cut the DOM to the approx. length, then start building the arms and tack in place to get the beams in the right spot. I'd also push the front axle forward about an inch if I was to do it again. I was also putting in longer springs, I estimated that they would give me about another 1/2" to 1" lift. I did a rough calc using some trig to see with 1" of additional height what the affect would be on caster and found it to be basically negligible with the length of the arm I was building, so I ignored it and build everything at the current ride height. It all worked out as the shop was able to get it in spec, instead of 1.5-2° before, it is now about 4.5°. Also with these coils, be sure to strap them in place, I found out with this much flex it is fairly easy to pop them out. Luckily they were also easy to pop back in.

Hoping to do some similar things upcoming summer, thanks for all the detailed pictures.

Click to expand...

bronc said:

Thanks for the compliments. See below.

Click to expand...

THANK YOU for the ridiculously good explanation on all of that. Gives me a much better picture at what ill need to deal with. I'm hoping to try and play around with my existing Skyjacker lift components and different springs to get a little flex because the spring setup is a hackjob from the PO... First time touching these TTBs..

Some more light reading for you Aldo.
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2985
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=499
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/ford/497995-rockcrawling-ttb.html
http://www.therangerstation.com/Magazine/Fall2003/MaximumFlexForTheTTB.htm
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117985
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34439
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162427&highlight=superrunner+steering
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/ford/1092305-ford-ranger-ttb-build.html

bronc said:

Some more light reading for you Aldo.
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2985
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=499
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/ford/497995-rockcrawling-ttb.html
http://www.therangerstation.com/Magazine/Fall2003/MaximumFlexForTheTTB.htm
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=117985
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34439
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=162427&highlight=superrunner+steering
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/ford/1092305-ford-ranger-ttb-build.html

Click to expand...

Just finished the second thread..On to the third. I thought you said "light" reading Thanks for the links! Always helps to have the information before buying all the parts...

Looks amazing. What were those original tires? 32s? 33s? My only complaint would be to add captions to the pics ; )

By the way, those bumpers look amazing. Wish I had the ability to do that. Great look!

Lastly, what type of bedliner did you use and how do you like it?