Hello

[idontknowwhatimdoing]

Looking forward to what this site has to offer. And giving advance warning, I'll have questions. I hope none of them seem too silly. Have a '96 Ford Ranger XLT supercab, 4L, V6, 4wd. Love it. Would love it more if it was a 4 door, but that's on me. It's my periodic home for extended periods when I'm able.
Ahhhh...

 

[Josh B]

Hello idkwid and welcome to TRS

 

[dvdswan]

Welcome to the site. The only silly question starts with, "If I hold your beer, would...

 

[James Morse]

Welcome, your truck almost a twin to mine. Color? Miles? Photos? Rear doors weren't available yet in '96, you'd have to go to the next gen and lose the good stuff your gen has (in my biased opinion). Also rear doors you often have to replace the cable guides (I did on my '99) and the seals often come loose, plus, you have no hump behind the seats which later gen does have (which has nothing to do with doors, it's just nicer). That said, rear doors are cool, but I have a cargo box to put all the stuff I used to put behind the seats, plus more. So no rear doors, I fretted about it a bit too at first, but not like you could have searched more and found them, in your year.
I'd be interested to get a photo of your door jamb sticker because mine was missing and I've tracked down all the door jamb info except the weights and yours might be the same or real close to what mine should be.

 

[Josh B]

I never gave the center hump much thought James, so had to go see.
I knew it had the front one but had to go look in the back, and there's not one back there

 

[idontknowwhatimdoing]

Aw. Didn't know about the doors for this year. Had a ranger prior to this, forget the year, with the 4 doors, but no 4wd. I'd love to have the 4 doors, I spend weeks or months at a time in it when able and 4 doors would be REALLY convenient. Picked this up in Vegas, I'm 3rd owner. 2nd owner had it from 20k to 90k, but was towed behind an RV so not sure how many actual miles were on it. I've got it to 180k now. Been very, very happy with it. I turn key once, it starts. Have zero qualms taking it 20, 30, 40 miles down dirt on the Colorado Plateau or in the Mojave.
Couple pics for ya.

 

[superj]

Welcome!!

 

[MSGia]

Welcome

 

[Josh B]

Aw. Didn't know about the doors for this year. Had a ranger prior to this, forget the year, with the 4 doors, but no 4wd. I'd love to have the 4 doors, I spend weeks or months at a time in it when able and 4 doors would be REALLY convenient. Picked this up in Vegas, I'm 3rd owner. 2nd owner had it from 20k to 90k, but was towed behind an RV so not sure how many actual miles were on it. I've got it to 180k now. Been very, very happy with it. I turn key once, it starts. Have zero qualms taking it 20, 30, 40 miles down dirt on the Colorado Plateau or in the Mojave.
Couple pics for ya.
View attachment 88362

View attachment 88363

Aw. Didn't know about the doors for this year. Had a ranger prior to this, forget the year, with the 4 doors, but no 4wd. I'd love to have the 4 doors, I spend weeks or months at a time in it when able and 4 doors would be REALLY convenient. Picked this up in Vegas, I'm 3rd owner. 2nd owner had it from 20k to 90k, but was towed behind an RV so not sure how many actual miles were on it. I've got it to 180k now. Been very, very happy with it. I turn key once, it starts. Have zero qualms taking it 20, 30, 40 miles down dirt on the Colorado Plateau or in the Mojave.
Couple pics for ya.
View attachment 88362

That's a nice looking truck man

 

[idontknowwhatimdoing]

Thanks Josh. I like to take care of it.

 

[James Morse]

Truck looks good; couple questions, are you running 31" tires, I would assume so they were almost for sure oem size for that truck.
Is the pin striping original as far as you know? Should be code on door jamb sticker for it if it were.
If you can get pic of door jamb sticker sometime I would appreciate it, you can block out VIN part if you're worried about that.
Is that a winch holder and/or hitch up front?
You put a good number of miles on it. I also am third owner of mine.

 

[idontknowwhatimdoing]

Yeah, 31's we're on it when I got it. Has a lift to it, forget the brand of parts. It's exactly as I got it still. Plus a little desert pinstriping that's not really visible in the pic. That's the tow bar up front, came with the triangle piece that previous owner hooked it up to their RV with. I've tried to get that off, but it seems seized in the pipe it slides in underneath. Truck was originally purchased in Alaska.

Can't seem to find what the BW X for springs mean. Must not be using right keywords in my search.

 

[James Morse]

Thanks that's helpful to see the sticker. I'm trying to figure out if there's any relationship between the weights to reconstruct mine. My Gross is 4920 I believe. So something is different about yours at 5120.
There are 5 things weight-wise: The gross, the front gross, the back gross, and the reserve accessory weights (near bottom right, F0008 is front axle, T0149 is total reserve). I don't know what it means exactly. Somehow this all has to tie together but I have no idea how and I don't know why yours would be heavier (I've seen this on 97's too).
As to the springs the codes tell you what springs are in it and somewhere there must be a chart that tells the capacity of those springs so the gross weight difference could be due to that.
31" was stock tire for you as you know.
I have the decode for '97 in the shop manual but your sticker isn't even in the same format as mine and I'm pretty sure some codes are different so I won't confuse things by trying to decode it per '97 and it wouldn't really help you because you know what you have... except springs. Usually springs is two letters , I can't hazard a guess about yours. I don't think the "X" is DSO (dealer special order) or it'd be up on a different line.
Probably your truck is raised 2" oem to fit the 31" tires.
I thought, being the same gen, that your sticker/truck would be very similar to mine but turns out not so.
There are several guys on this forum who will know more about this and have access to more info that could help you. But my Oasis sheet doesn't say anything about springs (kind of odd).
I've been looking on my truck to see if I could find tags or stamped numbers on the springs but so far I don't find them.
I'm thinking that there are a variety of spring choices and that could well influence gross (and other) weights.
Sorry I can't help more but if you get a shop manual for your year it will tell you the spring codes. I do have a B for rear and W for front decoded but then the code should be WB not BW unless they reversed the order. I also have an X for rear, but why you have three letters in that box, I don't know, and I'd hesitate to use '97 decoding for it. Things are different, for instance I don't have code for your paint code. I have things on mine you don't have (different format) and I don't have the code for your tape striping.
Might be good to search out a set of shop manuals.

 

[James Morse]

Ford Ranger Leaf Springs, Replacement Leaf Spring for Ranger (sdtrucksprings.com)

that might have useful info as they have x-ref to the oem part#'s
so if you could find the part# on the spring.... then you could know the specs
alternative to decoding the sticker, maybe
someone with a '96 manual can decode that sticker though

might be something here in TRS but I don't know where

edit: that site shows you how to identify which springs you have

 

[Eddo Rogue]

I learned a lot just from shopping for leaf springs. I think stock is 1100 lbs and then there's 1250, 1350 and then jumps up to like 1700 or something.

I read the heavier capacity springs work good, but ride harsh when the bed is empty.

There's a bunch of different springs arch and leaf count varieties out there too.

Rock auto gives good details and specs on their options. There's places like 4wheelparts and james duff as well. Shop around.