‘94 4x4 Swap/Build

[Uncle Gump]

That's what I was trying to say.

Really good deal for a clean bed and tailgate.

 

[DRanger024]

Oh, that was your rig. I thought it was a meme.

So, we see the Ranger bed strapped to a pallet. But is the bed and pallet strapped to the truck in any way? Looks dangerous in the picture.

The orange straps went through the pallet and hooked into the anchor points in the bed of the F150. It survived 40 miles at 75 mph.

 

[DRanger024]

Here are the few random pics I took.

Cleanest ranger tailgate I have ever witnessed in person. That’s usually the first thing gone here. (Bottom lip if the gate is at the very top)

I think the truck was spun out the very first time it saw snow in Wisconsin and went straight to the junk yard. Dents on both sides.

and the one dent in the tailgate. Whatever happened, it tweaked the hinges a bit.

Truck looks pretty goofy two colors but I don’t care. The bed is solid for the first time in a long time.

Mud flaps don’t do much

 

[DRanger024]

And a glimpse of what was wrong with the original bed. The whole drivers side of the truck was wiped out at one point.

There was a hole like that on both sides that the shackles protruded from when the truck was slammed. Wheel tub has rust perforations at every spot weld on both tubs and you can see where the spot welds and seam sealer let go towards the rear of the bed rail.

I had started putting lath screws in the bed rail seam to keep it from making noise

The seam below separated completely, or rusted out. The bed side is completely detached from the front half of the box.

All of that plus the rotten wheel arches and other rust problems and this box is junk.

 

[DRanger024]

Quick update.
Finally got the correct driveshaft in the truck. Got rid of some minor vibrations and the noises associated with them.

Also did some spring work while I was back there. I had to reset the pinion angle so everything was apart anyways.
Removed the overload, and added the Icon add-a-leaf from my buddies Tacoma. I wanted to put Chevy leafs in but to do that, the bed needs to come off and I have unfinished projects inside the house that will most certainly put me in the dog house if they’re ignored.

Flexed it out as much as my stump will allow. The extra springs helped tremendously in forcing the front to work a little more.

And ordered 4 of these

I set the truck up to run the same shock on all 4 corners. A stock length 4x4 Ranger rear shock.

Had to clearance the lower tabs on the front a little bit so they wouldn’t contact the shock body.

Holy cow did the shocks make a huge difference in how the truck handles. It actually feels connected to the road and feels solid vs. bouncing around and swaying uncontrollably. I took it down a washboard gravel road and it soaked up the bumps instead of bouncing over them and tossing the truck sideways. By far my favorite “mod” yet.

 

[Uncle Gump]

How did you mod the coil bucket to take an eye vs. Stud upper shock monut? I really like the idea of doing that..

 

[DRanger024]

You can either use F250 upper shock mounts Here or I made my own out of 1.5” square tube.

Can kind of see it here.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Hmmm..Hmm... after all the time I've spent looking at the tech library... I guess I missed that one.

 

[DRanger024]

I find new things in there all the time! Usually Google brings me to them.

 

[DRanger024]

Pulled the CB out today. Going GMRS. My CB has FM which is now open to the public but seems to be widely unused. GMRS is much more reliable for the money.

 

[DRanger024]

Ordered a new set of BFG M/T KM3’s today. They go on this coming Friday.

 

[DRanger024]

Finally has a real set of tires on it.

I’m really impressed with what BFG has going with the road manners of this tire. It’s quiet, stable and very smooth. I have all four corners set at 30psi for now. We’ll see what I think of them off road in a couple weeks.

Also took care of all of my valve train clatter. At 27X,XXX miles on the 4.0 in this truck, it only had two bad rockers and one bad push rod.

Rocker on the right has a worn ball cup. You can see it started to wear into the oil passage.

rocker on the left had wear at the tip from the valve stem. I’ve never saw this before. Stuck valve at some point? They all move freely now.

And the one bad push rod (left) that went with the rocker with the bad cup. Good push rod on the right.

Both rockers came from cylinder 4 which is interesting.

That’s all for today.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Isn't number 4 cylinder the last set of rockers on the oil feed line?

VW air cooled engines with aftermarket high ratio rockers have similar rocker arm to valve tip configuration. We use to put hardened "lash caps" on the valve stem with a much larger surface area to prevent that kind of rocker wear. Of course the rocker shaft had to be shimed up and custom length pushrods cut to keep proper geometry.

Happiness is a fresh set of tires...

 

[DRanger024]

Isn't number 4 cylinder the last set of rockers on the oil feed line?

That I do not know. It looked to me like the whole assembly is oiled from the center pedestal. I know PlumCrazy added some oiler lines to the heads on his truck and explained why at the same time. I might have to dig into that.

 

[lowspeedpursuit]

Crossmember out...
And installed in my truck...
I slit it front and back and bent it to get it between the frame rails. Then used a floor jack to push it back together. Welded it and plated it. I didn’t want to spread the frame rails the 3” you’d need to get it in.

Hey, I know this part of the build is years old, and I'm leafing through the thread right now to see if there's anything else about it, but I think you're one of very few people out there to document a 4x4 crossmember swap.

Do you have any more info, or maybe a picture, about how you plated the 4x4 crossmember after the cut? I'm sitting here with my 2x4 crossmember out, frame cleaned up, and the 4x4 ready to go in, but I can't decide where to cut it in half and how to plate it afterwards.
Did the straight cut hold up over time? Was it a pain to plate across that bend in the crossmember? If you can remember what you did I'd really appreciate it.