1998 Ranger SAS Project

[CyberTech]

UPDATE on Project

This past weekend was excellent. We got a lot of work done. Right now everything is on the truck and welded except the steering gear box. We are tackling that for the next couple weeks. We lifted it up on the lift about 10 feet in the air......everything extended the way it should and did not block or hit anything. I'll have pics posted later this week.

I know there are planty of you out there scratching your head figuring out how this is actually going to ride......well.....me to . I did have the opportunity this weekend to bring in a couple of guys (before everything is welded) to look at the project and give me there expert opinion. They have built extreme offroad vehicles before and I thought that if they saw something out of the ordinary, they would enlighten me.

After biting through my finger nails they finished checking it over and came to the conclusion (for what this is being built for) that everything looks good. I've known these guys for a long time and actually could not wait to fill them in on this project so they could look at it and virtually beat me with the Do's and Don'ts of doing something like this. So now everything is welded solid. The truck sits straight and semi-testing the suspension we noticed we had plenty of travel and nothing was coming close to hitting anything it was not supposed to.

Yeah - I'm still curious how this thing is going to handle regardless of expert opinion. Only time will tell.

 

[CyberTech]

Okay - Picture time.... Here is the underneath vies with Radius arms. Everything is together here good enough to get it on the car lift and luckily....everything held together fine.

Here is the front of the truck on the lift with the sway bars mounted...we are welding everything together at this point.

Here is a picture of the side view with Coil and the shock now mounted.

Here is the truck on the lift - showing the whole front of truck

Here is the underneath view - Yup I'm confident it won't fall on my head at this point.

 

[CyberTech]

Now - for this week I have ordered a Pitman arm from skyjacker. It needs the 2 1/2" drop in order to work appropriately. I am beginning the race downhill to the finish. I am running the brake lines now and will finish mounting the steering gear box. Hopefully by Saturday we will run our first suspenssion test under the trucks own power. The only thing I will have left to do is have my front driveshaft fabricated...got some peeps lines up for that already. A friend of mine will MIG weld some of the steel Sunday (makes it look better.)

 

[CyberTech]

Alright - it is FINISHED....I have a couple of hoses to put on and will fire it up today...I'll post results and pics of the steering that was just completed in a few days. Cross your fingers!

 

[CyberTech]

Oh - The only thing left to customize is the front drive shaft still.....I'll do it later...it is not going to effect the initial first time test.

 

[CyberTech]

Final PRODUCT - !!!

Inside looking at gearbox from a 95 Ford Ranger

Outside looking at the gearbox mount plate

 

[CyberTech]

SUCCESS!!!! The truck drives and handles better than I actually thought it would. I still need to do a minor steering alignment (no biggy) but all in all the truck did very very well. I am a happy camper. We drove it from the shop where it all started back to my house (about 15 to 20 miles) up to speeds of 75 mph.....no problems.

 

[CyberTech]

I'll do the paint and minor touch ups to it this week plus a steering allignment.....also need to get the front drive shaft customized.

 

[Chance]

What size tire do you plan on running? Or did I miss that part already?

 

[CyberTech]

I'm looking at either 33 10.50 or (33 12 50 w/ offset rim)....nothing above that.

 

[CyberTech]

Well I got the steering alignment done....it's primed and painted....just tweeking other minor things as I go. I've been driving it around town and it's running very well. I'll be checking on the drive shaft either today or tomorrow.

 

[CyberTech]

Well....crap - I took my truck to the machine shop to have them look at the front drive shaft. After talking about it we came to the conclusion that I need to cut the tranny brace and re-weld a piece of thisk flatbar to it. This would give it alot of clearance then he could lengthen the drive shaft. So....that's what I'm gonna do. It shouldn't be to painful....i hope.

 

[escort_gts]

do you have any pictures of your steering linkages, and track bar?

 

[CyberTech]

Yes - I'll get the pics posted of the steering linkage as soon as possible......One thing I did run into (and fixed) was that the tie rod end from the cherokee does not fit very snug into a pitman are from a 1995 ford ranger. You will have a lot of play in your steering....however I just ran down to the auto parts store and for about $20 I purchased the tie rod end for the 95 ranger. Surprisingly it fit into the jeep steering linkage and snugged up into the pitman arm....problem solved.

 

[CyberTech]

Today I purchased new front and rear shocks....the old ones were worn slap out. I'll post pics of everything soon.

The biggest problem I'm running into is getting a different set of rear leaf springs....NOBODY makes them.....for some reason all the bigger manufacturers (skyjacker, etc) skip the year 1998.....welll doesn't that just figure. I can't even find an add-a-leaf method of getting my rear end up in the air. This was very shocking....rear leaf springs for crying out loud...FORD - What the heck were you guys thinking on the 1998 ford ranger!!!!