1998 Ranger SAS Project

[CyberTech]

The bike is a Yamaha 1000 (according to my cousin who is looking over my shoulder.....it use to look good...but it's been wrecked so much you can hardly tell what it is.

 

[CyberTech]

Well - I received the new coil springs from SkyJacker....I placed them bad boys under there and they will work really well - I have clearance now!!! BUT.......now that the truck is a little higher than before I have to take the OEM bottom Radius arms out and throw them away and have custom made (out of steel) lower arms....I can still use my OEM upper radius arms. I can also use the brackets we custom made for the lowers.....not to bad...just a little more work..but hey! I want to do this correctly.

The only other feat we have to come up with after we get all the arms welded up is the drive shaft.....not only was it a little short (which I knew)...now with the lift it won't come down all the way to line up with the pumpkin (by about an inch).....not too bad...it is fixable...just a pain.

 

[dangeranger01]

Your probly gonna need to get the Superlift shaft, or have one made with ujoints instead of the goofy CV setup the 98s and up use.

 

[CyberTech]

Yeah, the drive shaft is going to be re-engineered somehow. We stared at it for about 30 minutes yesterday scratching our heads.

 

[JohnnyU]

What are you using for a driveshaft? You'll most definitely want a double cardan shaft for the angularity.

 

[beaujt]

Hey Cybertech, do ya think you could take some pics of your radius arms, i wanna see how yours turned out. I'm trying to get a better visual of what it will look like when i do my truck. especially as i'm planning on having my ranger lifted about 6-7" after i do the SAS, and the driveline is gonna be a must

 

[CyberTech]

What are you using for a driveshaft? You'll most definitely want a double cardan shaft for the angularity.

Well - I'm not going to damage my brain thinking about this part until I get everything welded up and off the lift. Once I get to the driveshaft - if anybody has ideas, I'll listen....I'll take pictures to give you an idea of what I'm going through when I get to the driveshaft.

 

[CyberTech]

Hey Cybertech, do ya think you could take some pics of your radius arms, i wanna see how yours turned out. I'm trying to get a better visual of what it will look like when i do my truck. especially as i'm planning on having my ranger lifted about 6-7" after i do the SAS, and the driveline is gonna be a must

Yeah - tomorrow I'll be working on the radius arms....Matter of fact I'll take pistures of the stock radius arms to give you a feel of why I'm customizing them. I will then take a picture of the new radius arms we build to give you an idea of how it will look.

 

[AKBroncoII]

They make a conversion setup for the front output on those year trucks. It was around $100 which isn't cheap, but it allowed me to cut down a 92 explorer double cardan front shaft to a single joint at each end and run it. That way it only cost me maybe $130 as opposed to buying a new shaft all together. You could also shorten and explorer shaft which would work also. Honestly, I see no need for a double cardan in the front on most rigs. My brothers BII scores close to 750 on a 30 degree RTI and his front shaft doesn't bind. It's a single joint at both ends.

 

[CyberTech]

Thanks AKBroncoII - I'll definately consider your input when I get to the drive shaft....As for this weekend...I did not do very much to the arms as I was in need of a metal lathe. Unfortunatley living in a small town - NOBODY was open on the weekend. So......I decided to tackle the steering box and make it fit into the Ranger's Original steering (coming from the firewall). Well, that took in all of about 15 minutes....a little grind work and it slipped right in. I was very happy about that. Today, we will be getting the 2 1/2", 2" diameter pipe lathed out in order to occomodate the bushings. I'll be taking more and more pics as we get further along here. Hopefully have them posted either tomorrow or Wednesday.

 

[CyberTech]

Here is a picture of the fabricated lower arms built from 1/4" square tubing and 1/4" round pipe cut 2-1/2" in order to accomodate the new bushings and the fabricated brackets that will weld to the frame.

Here is a close up picture of the lower arm fitted inside the bracket which houses the bushing.

This is the side view of the truck with the upper and lower arms tack welded into place on the frame.

Here is the picture from the front of the truck looking back at both upper and lower arms tacked into place.

 

[Toreadorranger]

your going to have to limit the travel I bet. With such short arms on top and such long ones on the bottom your going to have some interesting pinion travel.

 

[bobbywalter]

not so much pinion worries as caster steer/wobble worries....


but the down travel pinion issues may be a pia too.


i think i would just lower the rear link mounts as its not a hard core wheeler so it handles nie on the road.

 

[Sasquatch_Ryda]

Or just make it like a jeep long arm set up run the upper arms back to the lower arms.

 

[Hahnsb2]

Or just make it like a jeep long arm set up run the upper arms back to the lower arms.

Yeah, I don't understand why you'd run a factory jeep setup with extended lower arms.