your questions would take a solid hours worth of typing for me to explain it all.
if you have a quesiton, go up to the search bar in the top right hand of your web browser and type it in.
for instance, "what is the best lift for my ranger?".....so in the search box, i'd cut that down a bit and type "best lift for ranger". this is gonna bring up a crap load of threads for all different types of rangers.
being that your truck is an 83, i'm guessing that you've got a dana 28 TTB axle up there. the TTB was replaced with IFS in 97-98. as crawlin posted, you have a few choices there.
for the TTB you can lift it about 2" with the factory pivot brackets, any higher and you need new, longer lift brackets.
go get yourself a 2" body lift for around $100 or a 4" rough country suspension lift for $400 and install. you'll easily clear 31's with a 2" body lift and could probably squeeze 33's with a 4" lift.