Armadillon's FW Ranger D44/Ford 9"

[armadillon]

Got my pitman today from PlumCrazy. Gonna ream it out and put it on. I think I'll start drilling my lower coil pad/perch/pedestals today.

I have 79 Bronco RAs with EB caps. The 79 pedestals have the holes too far apart and the EB too close, so I have to do a little wallering of some holes.

After the perches are on I'll start the buckets and then get the thing sitting at ride height.

 

[armadillon]

Another update.

I reamed the pitman out perfectly. Unfortunately, a few days ago I accidentally over-reamed my first 2233L because I wasn't paying attention. Ordered another from RockAuto for like 13 bucks. Re-reamed it and paid attention this time

I also "safely" jacked it up using the old radius arm crossmember and put the jack stands on blocks so I can actually mock up the coil buckets at a near-to-ride height. I'm kinda glad I haven't removed it yet.

Also did some ghetto trimming of the engine crossmember today. I fear I may have trimmed too much, but we'll see how it goes. I'll clean it up with a grinder so I don't slice myself up later.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

I did the same thing so I cut the middle out and built a removable section. I was able to raise it up 3" higher than stock. I'd suggest rebuilding yours because mine cracked in 4 places due to my trimming job.

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[AgPete139]

Rowdy, that's a really good idea. I actually haven't seen anyone else make a removable engine crossmember with a higher clearance. It makes sense though, and should you ever need to replace your oil pan gasket, well, you're golden.

At first, it looked like it would make the already weak frame less rigid, but then I saw the vertical bolt at each bracket. Do you have another shot from underneath the cross member?

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

Here's the passenger side

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Here's the driver side

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Because of the way the original cm is shaped I made mine to slip over the top of the driver side then slide up into the passenger side.

 

[AgPete139]

Very nice. Much more helpful. Thanks! Very creative with the setup to compensate for the crossmember.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

You bet! Glad I could help.

 

[armadillon]

I woke up to my brother's text regarding my trimming job "You have zero structural integity now, lmao". So it's perfect that you posted those photos Rowdy. I think I'm going to copy that idea.

Rowdy, for the ends of your cross member, did you just cut out pieces of plate and weld them to shape, then heated/bend? or did you start with some channel?

It looks like they've been bent a bit to conform with the curves of the original CM but I just wanted to check

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

I built the ends from plate steel. It's all .25 thick. A lil overkill but it's what I had. I cut them out, clamped them all in place, drilled the holes, bolted them in place then tacked them together. Pulled it out and welded it up.

 

[armadillon]

Thanks Rowdy. Ill start on my crossmember later today.

I started cutting my coil buckets down.

 

[armadillon]

I drew up a design for my coil buckets. I'm fullwidth and wanted to space my buckets out about 2" on each side. Thoughts?

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

I don't know the width of your frame but on my 1st gen I spaced mine out 1.5" then moved my lower coil retainers in by another 1.25"-1.50" and spun them to match up to the end of the coil. They're shaped to fit together a certain way so I smashed the centers flat with a 2.5lb hammer and alined them how I needed them.

 

[88_Eddie]

Differenter........haha nice

 

[armadillon]

I've been working on the coil buckets. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have way too much lift when I mount them. I see on other rigs people have used the EB coil buckets and bolted them directly to the frame. I cut mine down enough to where the top of the bucket will be about at the top of the frame. We'll see how much lift this gives me, but it may be way more than I meant to have.

Maybe I'll just have to cut the fenders and put 40" tires and turn it into a big stupid mud truck. Or fix the buckets


Oh, and I know the welds look terrible. These are NOT final. I haven't welded anything in 10+ years.

Now keep in mind that I have to space these off the frame as I'm full width. I'm choosing not to move the perches in.

 

[RangerSVT]

Keep this in mind, you can unbolt the lower cups and rotate them on the arms 180*, this will move the lower mounts in about an inch or so. This will allow you to not stand off the frame as far, reducing frame flex (less fulcrum to twist the frame). On your welds, looks like your trying to do a vertical weld, try and rotate the part for a horizontal weld. Looks good otherwise


SVT