What did you do to your 2019 and up Ranger today?

[Robertmangrum.rm]

I need to go there some time.

It was at Old Stone Fort. No real wheeling but some awesome hiking. We also spent a day at Rock Island and Fall Creek Falls. Since they are within 30 miles of camp. Best part was hardly ant cell service and no wifi. Nice to unplug with the family

 

[RumPunch]

Little late Friday field call on the girlfriends family farm dozer for a decel issue.

 

[Uncle Gump]

It's 5 o'clock somewhere....

 

[HenryMac]

Higher pressures?

Tire pressure is adjustable for ride, handling and wear. You don't inflate the tires to the max listed on the sidewall. Good practice is to inflate to what the vehicle manufacturer recommends in the manual or on the door sticker. Best practice would be to calculate it. The sidewall of the tire gives a max pressure for the max load rating of the tire. Divide those 2 numbers and you get a recommended pressure per pound of load on the tire. If your truck weighs 3600 lbs, divide that by 4 and you get 900 lbs per tire, for example. Then multiply that by the psi per pound that you calculated from the sidewall. Now you know how many psi should be in that tire. You can adjust that as needed. An empty truck may have more weight on the front and less on the rear. So, maybe try a 60/ 40 bias with the higher pressure in the front tires. You may find that these numbers come pretty close to what the vehicle manufacturer recommends. You can also check the contact patch of the tires and adjust pressures to get the amount of contact you need or want. Offroad, lower all the pressures to get smoother ride and bigger contact patch so you don't sink into soft ground as far or to help the tires grip rocks better.

I inflate the tires based on the tire pressure specified by Ford for the given truck and tire size.

@sgtsandman has a pretty good memory... for the 265/65/17 LT tires on a 2019 Ranger 4x4 the placard reads 38 psi. But for the 265/65/17 non-LT tires the placard would read 30 psi.

I ran the numbers though, based on your data above. Here is that data:

I'll stick with the 30 psi as specified by Ford. Can you imagine only running 16 psi pressure for anything other than 4 wheeling?

 

[Blmpkn]

Did some articulation testing comparing a hooked up sway bar to a disconnected one.


On a sketchy scrap wood ramp


I'll post the video once it uploads. Enough difference to spend the time disconnecting it before you hit the trail for sure.

 

[Curious Hound]

I inflate the tires based on the tire pressure specified by Ford for the given truck and tire size.

@sgtsandman has a pretty good memory... for the 265/65/17 LT tires on a 2019 Ranger 4x4 the placard reads 38 psi. But for the 265/65/17 non-LT tires the placard would read 30 psi.

I ran the numbers though, based on your data above. Here is that data:

View attachment 83532

I'll stick with the 30 psi as specified by Ford. Can you imagine only running 16 psi pressure for anything other than 4 wheeling?

No. I wouldn't run down to 16psi on the road as a common practice. But you see how, with an empty truck, it doesn't take as much pressure. At full load, it might add another 4 or 5 psi to those numbers. For safety reasons, Ford is going to assume you run fully loaded all the time. Plus, they'll add a safety margine above that. The door sticker numbers are good ballpark numbers to use and I mentioned that as a good practice in my recommendations above.

My truck is so light I will often run my tires in the mid 20's on the road. I don't even see a sidewall bulge at those pressures - 35" BFG Mud Terrains. I aired down to 14 at the TRS trail ride in September. I went down to 12psi a couple weeks ago at the local park and that's what I'll probably run in Kentucky later this month in the Red River Gorge.

 

[JohnnyO]

We fought the strut and the strut won. @sgtsandman

 

[sgtsandman]

We fought the strut and the strut won. @sgtsandman

Yeah. A definite fail on our part. We would be able to get the strut out and back in at factory spec but with a 1.5” spacer attached? We threw in the towel before Johnny didn’t have a truck to drive home in.

 

[JohnnyO]

Yeah. A definite fail on our part. We would be able to get the strut out and back in at factory spec but with a 1.5” spacer attached? We threw in the towel before Johnny didn’t have a truck to drive home in.

Real life ain't like the YouTube videos. 'Twas a gallant effort but this thing just doesn't want to come apart.

 

[Robertmangrum.rm]

Real life ain't like the YouTube videos. 'Twas a gallant effort but this thing just doesn't want to come apart.

I've seen where some people are taking the lower control arm loose. Wished I was closer. Mine went right in. I did have to loosen the nut on the cv axle on driver side only to get it low enough to get the strut back in. What issue are you guys having?

 

[JohnnyO]

I've seen where some people are taking the lower control arm loose. Wished I was closer. Mine went right in. I did have to loosen the nut on the cv axle on driver side only to get it low enough to get the strut back in. What issue are you guys having?

Collapsing the strut enough and/or pushing the lower control arm down enough to get the strut out. Nearly had it out, probably could have with a little more pry bar action on the top, but we didn't like our chances of getting it back in with a spacer on top. Sgtsandman's spring compressor was starting to bend. I'm thinking the lower control arm is going to have to come off but then you're really into alignment issues. As I mentioned to sgtsandman, most of my life I've only owned one vehicle and I can't afford to F things up such that I can't get to work the next day if I can't get it back together. I don't know that knocking the axle out of the hub would have helped since it seemed to be bottomed out already and the sway bar was laying on the ground.

 

[Blmpkn]

Real life ain't like the YouTube videos. 'Twas a gallant effort but this thing just doesn't want to come apart.

I'd be willing to bet a lot of those youtubers prepped by pretty much taking everything apart and snugging it back up slightly before taking the video so it went as smoothly as possible and they look like super awesome mechaniczz.

 

[Blmpkn]

Here's my test from yesterday

 

[Curious Hound]

I'd be willing to bet a lot of those youtubers prepped by pretty much taking everything apart and snugging it back up slightly before taking the video so it went as smoothly as possible and they look like super awesome mechaniczz.

Some of it needs to be done that way, but disclosed either by showing it all in high speed or bytelling the viewer " this is how we did it. It took us 2 hrs. But this method works."

Not many people would watch a full hour of someone struggling with one rusty bolt.

 

[Robertmangrum.rm]

Collapsing the strut enough and/or pushing the lower control arm down enough to get the strut out. Nearly had it out, probably could have with a little more pry bar action on the top, but we didn't like our chances of getting it back in with a spacer on top. Sgtsandman's spring compressor was starting to bend. I'm thinking the lower control arm is going to have to come off but then you're really into alignment issues. As I mentioned to sgtsandman, most of my life I've only owned one vehicle and I can't afford to F things up such that I can't get to work the next day if I can't get it back together. I don't know that knocking the axle out of the hub would have helped since it seemed to be bottomed out already and the sway bar was laying on the ground.

I had to loosen the wheel nut to get it back in but not to get it out. That being said I have the cast spindles.

On a second note you will need an alignment either way. If you take the bottom control arm just take a sharpie and mark the original settings on the cam bolt before you remove it so you can get it back to close.