Thinking of improving need some advice

[Jnevrotski]

I hate the pulse vac hubs in my 1999 xl 4x4 they don't even engage. The 1 I bought a year ago for dealer only item went off like a grenade one day. I seen on YouTube a manual conversion. What would be the best ones to get and how involved is it? I noticed that I have the harness for front abs I only have rear abs can I change the wheel bearing to one that has the harness? What else is involved besides that? There's a few others as well that I want to ask about but let's start with this since stopping is important lol

 

[sgtsandman]

Since you have a '99, ever considered just going with the live axle the newer Rangers have and just delete the engage/disengage system all together. The fuel savings from unlocking the axles is so minuscule, if it does show up, it will only be 1 mpg of drop.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I doubt it would even be a whole mpg, I bet it's under 1/2... if it was more than a few tenths they never would have gotten rid of the disconnect...

I'd be torn between getting some non disconnect and hubs, for one I like having 2wd low, but on the other hand I've read some things about people breaking the manual hubs... I've abused my Explorer with I believe the same front axle that does not have disconnects since it was AWD, I have no idea if the front diff has oil in it (I only put 50k miles on it, if it was a problem it would have stopped turning by now... ), not sure it was meant for low range and a V8 but it's done a couple tractor pulls now and keeps going...