1999 on road to off road conversion

[thegreatdivide09]

1999 V8 SAS Ranger

Heres my 1999 ranger. Its the economical 2wd 3.0l flex fuel edition in green.

So what are the plans you ask?

From a 1999 or 2000 explorer

- 5.0L V8 Engine
- 4R70W Transmission
- Drive shafts
- 8.8 Ford rear axle

Purchased separately

- (4x4 is insane on a 4th gen, so maybe later)
- Moderately sized lift kit, not giant or small.
- Some cosmetics but ill pan that after the mechanics.

Ive got about a grand now for the explorer just gonna save up a little more and then im going to rebuild everything during the winter to get it top notch shape for the ranger and ill post pics of that.

So now for a few questions to the community. This is more of a crossover truck for both on road driving and off road fun. No crazy rock crawling just some trails that would be about the limit for an ATV to go on and some moderate mudding.

1. What would you recommend for rear axle ratio for my application?

2. Going to check tomorrow in the light if i have torsion bars or not but i really doubt it considering the 7.5 rear and its flex fuel. So i think dana 44 front is my best option. I should only be using front when 2wd fails me and i have to switch to 4wd. So could you tell me what you would use for the front if you had torsion bars and what you would if you didn't?


EDIT: 3rd question, leaves or coils? really im stuck on this. Yea coils would be good for the road but leaves are easier and would be better off road.

 

[wohlf 16]

question 1. This all depends on what tire size you are running. If doing a solid axle swap you also want to do your front the same as your rear.
question 2. Dosent really matter what your front is now because your gonna have to cut it all out anyways.
question 3. Leaves are not easier. Both are very complex when you think about what you are doing. you are making your own suspension system on a truck that never offered what you are doing.
My 2 cents, because you are adding the transfer case anyways, use a manual t-case not an electric. Im also not sure but I dont think that the bw 1354 will bolt up to that tranny.

 

[thegreatdivide09]

Thanks for the answers. The BW1354 needs an adapter plate to bolt up correctly. But i don't want to use the explorer's one because it full time awd and i don't want to try to cram one from an f150 into it either.

 

[Daniel C]

sweet man. I love these kind of builds.

 

[Fx4wannabe01]

I'm not hating on you or anything....but you've got these plans and you don't even know what your suspension currently is under the truck? From the picture and looking the the grille and mudflaps and bumper, you've got a coilspring truck.

Good luck

 

[thegreatdivide09]

I'm not hating on you or anything....but you've got these plans and you don't even know what your suspension currently is under the truck? From the picture and looking the the grille and mudflaps and bumper, you've got a coilspring truck.

Good luck

Yea i found that out today. Right now the getting the explorer and rebuilding the engine and transmission are my main concern.

I spent a while researching my front suspension and how fab a front axle into it and it seems not many people have done this with the 4th gen rangers. I've read about doing this with 2nd gen rangers and it seems that the cross members are different sizes so to convert them to 4wd you need to get a new cross member or mod the radius arms.

Does anyone have any information on putting the radius arms and such into the 2wd coil spring setup? If not ill have to get some from the jy and see what i can do.

 

[Ozwynn]

so what kind of set up are you trying to run? 4- link, 3 link, leaf?

 

[Fx4wannabe01]

Yea i found that out today. Right now the getting the explorer and rebuilding the engine and transmission are my main concern.

I spent a while researching my front suspension and how fab a front axle into it and it seems not many people have done this with the 4th gen rangers. I've read about doing this with 2nd gen rangers and it seems that the cross members are different sizes so to convert them to 4wd you need to get a new cross member or mod the radius arms.

Does anyone have any information on putting the radius arms and such into the 2wd coil spring setup? If not ill have to get some from the jy and see what i can do.

Yeah....front frames halves are totally different between coilspring and torsion bar trucks. Not many have done it...but a handful have and some are here, some on RF. I honestly can't name one that started out with a coilsprung truck. My understanding is that it's just the wrong frame to start off with. I've seen the prerunner guys cut out the coil bucket part of the frame, box it in, then build off that using coil-overs and such.

My best suggestion to you, is take a look at all the 98+ SAS swap threads. Most cover almost any question you'd have.

Good luck man. Sorry I can't really help you with the technical stuff.

 

[Chance]

Don't forget about steering...

You're gonna need a steering gear.

 

[Chance]

Oh, and I'll recommend a coil set-up. Not leaves. I want to do a coil set up... but... I already got everything for the leaf set-up and I'm not exactly rolling in cash... more like begging for it.

My main concern with leaves is the need for high steer (you will bind up without it most likely). With coils you can get a lil lazy. And you can get a better approach angle.

More reasons but it's 1 and I should sleep. Research the crap outta this. I've been looking for a year now and I'm still scared to start mine (although very impatiently waiting to).

 

[UrbanRedneckKid]

Yea i found that out today. Right now the getting the explorer and rebuilding the engine and transmission are my main concern.

I spent a while researching my front suspension and how fab a front axle into it and it seems not many people have done this with the 4th gen rangers. I've read about doing this with 2nd gen rangers and it seems that the cross members are different sizes so to convert them to 4wd you need to get a new cross member or mod the radius arms.

Does anyone have any information on putting the radius arms and such into the 2wd coil spring setup? If not ill have to get some from the jy and see what i can do.

Whoa whoa whoa. Don't get ahead of your self. your talking about to completely different animals there.
1st, 2nd, and 3rd Generation Rangers all have the TTB front suspension
The 4th Gens have SLA front suspension

There are huge differences on the factory set-ups, and how the SAS is performed. But they do all turn out very similar in the end.

I would suggest you do a lot more research before attempting such a major modification. I researched and poked around with it for a year and a half before I started mine, and my 3rd gen isn't as involved as doing a 4th gen.

 

[thegreatdivide09]

this may seem like a stupid question, but how similar is the explorer's front suspension to the ranger's considering they are the same year? Maybe i could convert the explorers to the rangers.

EDIT: Man there is just no forgiveness on turning this to a 4wd machine. The fabrication doesn't really scare me but the measurements and angles for this to work right do. Once i find out that i measured slightly off it will be too late and will need fixed. Not to mention that there will not be any lift kits out there that will go on without modification. So maybe sometime later 4x4 will be done but for now im just going to buy a winch and pull myself out if i get stuck.

Otherwise i still plan on the 5.0V8 and everything else. Pretty the PA 3" body lift will help me out when installing the V8 then im thinking 2.5" front lift and a 1.5" rear lift both from fabtech. Im running 30's on 15x7 rims now and i like the look of them a lot so i hope its not going to lifted to the point that it looks like the tires are too small.

 

[kroussinoffroad]

find a good explorerand throw your truck body on there

 

[jaymegriffiths]

I'm not hating on you or anything....but you've got these plans and you don't even know what your suspension currently is under the truck? From the picture and looking the the grille and mudflaps and bumper, you've got a coilspring truck.

Good luck

its funny cause you said im not hating on you and then continued to bash him. im not disagreeing
"the great devide 09" needs to do a frikken tonne of homework.
i would suggest you start with
1. finding a good place where you can store/work on the truck for numerous months.
2. read every tidbit of info you can on sas 3 or 4 link setups. even check out jeep forums they have lots of good info that is universal to rangers/jeeps.
ask/search and read some sas build threads and decide on some coils/ lift you want.
read up on the tranny/ tcase you wants gear ratio's and factor in your rearend and size of tires and decide how low you wanna go. with the extra power you dont need any crazy low gears unless your running bigger than say 35's in which case a d44 is undergunned.
also, can you buy parts via ebay or online parts stores? could help cut serious costs.
next, figure out a budget and if you can snag up good deals to save money, cause lsat minute buys are always way more costly then pre-decided purchases. other than that all i can say is read lots and good luck dude lookin forward to seein it. make sure this is really what YOU want and your ready to go through with it before bustin open a rbv and turning it into a pile of parts

this may seem like a stupid question, but how similar is the explorer's front suspension to the ranger's considering they are the same year? Maybe i could convert the explorers to the rangers.

EDIT: Man there is just no forgiveness on turning this to a 4wd machine. The fabrication doesn't really scare me but the measurements and angles for this to work right do. Once i find out that i measured slightly off it will be too late and will need fixed. Not to mention that there will not be any lift kits out there that will go on without modification. So maybe sometime later 4x4 will be done but for now im just going to buy a winch and pull myself out if i get stuck.

Otherwise i still plan on the 5.0V8 and everything else. Pretty the PA 3" body lift will help me out when installing the V8 then im thinking 2.5" front lift and a 1.5" rear lift both from fabtech. Im running 30's on 15x7 rims now and i like the look of them a lot so i hope its not going to lifted to the point that it looks like the tires are too small.

if your doin serious mods like a 5.0 is a sas really that much extra? and youd have to run bigger than 30's cause a sas is a minumum 6" lift according to members here...

find a good explorerand throw your truck body on there

or find a good explorer and keep it. haha

 

[thegreatdivide09]

how is the 5.0 a major mod? as far as the tech library says, if i were to get an explorer from 1999-2000 then everything will be bolt in and connect wires except the rear axle which needs spring mounts welded on the other side.

Really the only things i need to know as of now are if my coil spring setup changes things at all because all the pictures show it with torsion bars but it say nothing about it being an issue and what i need to do to make the driveshaft go from trans to rear axle without the transfer case but thats probrably solved using the existing ranger driveshaft or getting a longer one.