‘94 4x4 Swap/Build

[bobbywalter]

Great work....topper and bumper are awesome.



I don't suggest a keeper bolt on the lockouts. I would rather them flop around and fall off with the wheel off. They break fairly easy with a locker.

 

[DRanger024]

Great work....topper and bumper are awesome.



I don't suggest a keeper bolt on the lockouts. I would rather them flop around and fall off with the wheel off. They break fairly easy with a locker.

Thanks man. If I ever install a locker in the front of my truck, I'll pull the bolts out. I hate it when the lock outs come off with the wheel.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Yes sir... cool little truck. Kinda makes me wish I had a standard cab. That bumper looks really good. Any idea of what it weighs?

 

[DRanger024]

Yes sir... cool little truck. Kinda makes me wish I had a standard cab. That bumper looks really good. Any idea of what it weighs?

Thank you. It weighs right around 60 lbs give or take 5. The stock bumper is pretty heavy itself.

 

[DRanger024]

Ordered a bunch of stuff for the truck yesterday. Camburg, Ruff Stuff, Tuff Country, Superlift, QA1 and a local steel supplier. Nothing too crazy but should be fun. I also have a disc brake explorer 8.8 and explorer leafs to play with.

 

[DRanger024]

 

[DRanger024]

So far I’ve gotten springs, lift brackets, pitman arm and rod ends. Still waiting on brake lines, tube inserts, jam nuts and the square tube which I ended up sourcing from a buddy instead of a supplier. Is ruff stuff always super slow to ship?

 

[09fx4guy]

Just went through this thread. Truck looks great, fantastic job with the bumpers. Keep up the good work.

 

[DRanger024]

Just went through this thread. Truck looks great, fantastic job with the bumpers. Keep up the good work.

Thank you. Should be more work over the holidays if it’s not too cold out.

 

[DRanger024]

Won’t be needing this anymore

 

[Snoranger]

View attachment 34395

You have really small hands?

 

[DRanger024]

You have really small hands?

Lol no not really. That’s a 1.25” QA1 rock end.

 

[DRanger024]

Got my extended radius arms made. Decided to keep the factory trans crossmember. The tube inserts are from Ruff Stuff. 1.25-12 thread for 2x2x0.25 wall square tube. The rod ends are QA1 rock ends. I built them to put the beams square with the ground with the weight of the truck on them. I had read somewhere that that should give me 5° of positive caster. Passenger side ended up at 89.8° and drivers side beam ended up at 89°. Not perfect and I’m not sure what happened but definitely manageable.

Tuff country 2.5” drop brackets

Rough Country leveling springs with a 0.75” thick stainless spacer below them. They actually ride a lot better than the stock springs but I’m sure the RA’s help a lot with that.

And the brackets for the arms. I drew these in CAD and burned them out at work. The outside plate is doubled up to be 0.5” thick. I have a newer style trans crossmember cleaned up and painted to go in but that’s not important right now. I’m going to pull everything apart in spring and paint.

The only thing I didn’t put on yet were the Camburg braided stainless brake hoses and I still need to do the rear which will consist of 4 door explorer leafs with a 1” zero rate block and the stock Ranger shackles.

The truck how it currently sits. Definitely going to need to run a wheel with a little more backspacing or rework the radius arms a bit in the spring. Major rubbage about a half turn from lock.

The front sits about an inch higher than the rear. Before I started, the rear was 1.5 inches higher than the front. I’d like to keep the rear 1-1.5 inches higher than the front for towing purposes. Tie rods are perfectly level with the Superlift FA400 pitman arm. I ended up swapping boxes with my spare after I broke my pitman arm puller trying to remove the stock pitman arm. Whoops.

Well there’s my update. I suck at stopping to take pics. I’ll get it in for an alignment next week after the rear is done. I don’t feel like doing it myself again. It’s a lot of frustrating trial and error.

 

[DRanger024]

Truck is done. I couldn’t stand the tire rub on the radius arms so I pulled them out and put a bend in them right where the stock arm is welded to the new 2x2 tube. Cut a 0.25” wedge out, beveled, bent them and welded up the three sides with the cut. Tires still rub a little at full lock but I don’t plan on keeping these wheels. Still need to put the braided brake lines in up front.

Little shout out to Ruff Stuff. Their weld in tube inserts are pretty nice pieces.

Did the alignment today and it came out pretty good. Set camber dead nuts at 0° on both sides. Caster is at 5° driver side and 6° passenger. I set the toe in to 0.06”. Truck drives really well, tracks perfectly down the road and doesn’t dive left when the brakes are applied anymore. Im happy. I did however find a split in the accordion boot on the front driveshaft. Splines are clean and everything inside looks great so I ordered a new boot. Purchased SPICER 211916X from Denny’s Driveshaft.

 

[Josh B]

Awesome build DR