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My 88 Danger Ranger - for dunes and desert


Holmzy

Member
Joined
Apr 2, 2017
Messages
6
Reaction score
0
Vehicle Year
1988
Make / Model
Ford
Transmission
Automatic
I thought I'd share my current build on a 1988 Ranger standard cab. Its a 2wd with the 2.9l v6 and a whole lot of miles. I bought it from family, (its now been owned by 3 generations of my family) with the hopes to let it live out the rest of its life in truck Valhalla, amongst the dunes, and in the desert as a prerunner.


Here it is in all its "former" glory"



I'll preface this by saying I have no idea what I am doing. This was something that I had considered, and although I have some experience wrenching (my daily driver was a 1986 mustang SVO) I had never owned or worked on a truck or even spent much time on the trails.

So I threw caution to the wind, and started at the only place I knew, stripping it down.


I removed the front fenders, side view mirrors, grill, all bumpers, pulled the bolts on the bed and tailgate for starters. I knew what had to be done first with a truck. Always start with big A** tires and go from there. So I began craigslist shopping while taking care of some much needed items.

New Wheel Bearings

The truck is old, and I mean old and beat, so first things first, redoing the front wheel bearings which turned into a wheel bearing, rotor and brake pad job. The originals were beat and needed some love.



Further review showed how badly the bearings needed to be changed, and I spent quite some time trying to beat out the original racers to install my new ones before deciding I ought to replace the rotors as well.


Imagine my surprise when I found the new rotors came with racers already seated. I could have saved myself two hours and one trip just buying the whole set. The install went smoothly and now I had some new shiny metal in the front end.


Adding 33s

So I chased down a screaming deal on craigslist and bought a set of off road rims and 33 inch A/T tires that a jeep owner didn't need. These things had almost no miles and still had the factory molds on them. I mounted them and sat back to review my first major change.


DIY Bodylift and Mounts

You will also notice that the bed is sitting a little higher. After having reviewed TRS I found this tire fitment guide:


and used it to decide on purchasing a 3in body lift using nylon pucks. Because this is a budget build, I went cheap and got a set that really just covered the bare minimum neccessities.


While taking a look at the new bodylift needs, I figured I might as well replace the bodymount bushings and purchased this kit.


I have successfully installed the new mounts and pucks, and now have the truck sitting rather pretty, with the first milestone completed.


I will be posting a DIY bodymount and bodylift article at a later time, at the moment I am just sorting my thoughts and making sure I have enough pictures. It was a bit of a challenge with such an old truck and having never gone through the process before. Hopefully, the future post will help others looking for information on th process.

For now, thanks for reading!
 

RonD

Official TRS AI
TRS Technical Advisor
Joined
Jun 2, 2012
Messages
25,364
Reaction score
8,425
Location
canada
Vehicle Year
1994
Make / Model
Ford
Transmission
Manual

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