86 gen 1 sas build

[NEVERDONE86]

I aquired my 86 gen 1 after my grandfather passed. i drove this truck for 4 years then parked it for five. tired of fixing my superduty everytime i wheeled it and something broke, i decided to modify my ranger. i read countless articles on sas swaps and still have a couple of questions.

i want to keep the original 2.9l, sas with 63'' leafs, use full width dana 44's, run 35'' tires.... i want to drive on the road to get to the trails but dont know what gear ratios to run. is the 2.9l going to be efficient enough for this? its never going to be on the highway so it dont need to go fast. maybe 55 mph comfortably.

any comments or suggestions would really help.

 

[inuyasha2875]

like the paint job good luke with your build

 

[jhammel85]

I think with the right gearing in the axles that 2.9 will do OK. Just keep it cool, whatever you do.

 

[4.0B2]

4.88's! or do a 4.0 swap and 4.56's. either way. i just prefer the 4.0 b/c i wasted money on a 2.9 and didn't get the performance i wanted, so i did the 4.0 swap. i'm satisfied with it stock.

nice ranger. like the old school camo paint.

consider a 90-95 taurus 3.8l v6 fan, its a 2 speed fan that moves A LOT of air! and its electric so it'll take some strain off the motor.

 

[NEVERDONE86]

thanks guys. 40 bucks and 2 hours spaying and i finially got the look i was going for. im not trying to make an extreme crawler, or mudder, just a truck that can do mildly agressive trail rides and be able to dive home. im doing this on a tight budget, so im not expecting it to be done for a while. the 2.9 runs great but leaks oil. i just picked up a complete engine seal kit, and started the pulling the engine today.

btw gravel garage floors suck!

 

[NEVERDONE86]

Took some time but im back on track!

Wow, scrounging craigslist was getting me nowhere for my axles. I found a friend of a friend that had a 44 front that would work. I'm 2 bolts away from having my engine out and I collected all the parts for the overhaul on the 2.9l. This weekend I'm going to be busy cutting the old axles and susp out, and working on the engine.
I just about gave up on the project, then the axle showed up and gave the ambition to stick with it.
Ill post some more build picks tomorrow.

 

[Bennybooster]

you will want 5.13's or mebbe 5.38's

 

[wohlf 16]

In your first post you said a sas with 63 inch chevy springs. Your not plannin on sas the front with 63's are you? 63's will be way to long. Keep coil sprung front and use chevys in the rear imo. I sas mine with 87 chevy front superlift 6inch lift springs but I was torsion bar control arm front. Good luck and have fun. It took me 2 years to complete mine cause I was on a tight budget and time was hard to come by. It was deffinetely worth it tho!

And I agree with benny 5.13s or better even on the road. I get better fuel mileage in my ranger on 38s with 5.13s than my ranger with 4.10s and 33s and the power difference between them is insane.

 

[NEVERDONE86]

I got bored friday and had a few hours to burn and finially stripped the engine out for rebuild. im still slowly collecting parts for the sas. now i came across a set of 6'' chevy lift springs just have to make the drive to get them. i might start cutting the suspension out sunday night.
heres some progress pics

 

[4.0B2]

hey, what are you doing? 4.0 swap!!!???

 

[NEVERDONE86]

the 2.9l is still good, just leaks oil so i am going to throw all new gaskets in. when it blows up im thinkin 5.0l.

 

[4.0B2]

ahhh ok. but my 2.9 was good when it came out lol. it had about 60k miles on it since rebuilt by a machine shop. but it came out anyways... and i had a guy offer me $500 for it, so it was sold

 

[NEVERDONE86]

2.9l should be fine?

I thaught about a monster engine, huge tires, and it just seemed like I would be speending bigger money then what I had. I see all these huge toyotas and zukis with original engines running 40's and doing very well on the trails. I figured it couldn't hurt to try. After gearing I should be ready to crawl but never go 70mph, wich I don't mind. I just want to drive there, play, and drive home. Eventually when work picks up again ill dump some money in some key areas.

 

[NEVERDONE86]

Update

UPDATE:

I had a ton of issues to deal with but I finally got to go out in my garage and got the engine torn down. For an engine with over 200k id expect it to be nasty inside, but my gramps and I were changing the oil religously every 3k miles. I wish I could have done more but I lost my torque bit to get the heads off. But I get to go tool shopping! (Silver lining) I just got photo bucket and ill try to load pics.

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I have tons of room without A/C!

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More to come soon.

 

[Boggin]

looks good bud. i want more pics of the superduty!