ForOffRoadDriving's 94 Ranger Build

[88gt]

read about your black friday ordeal, you werent the only one. wife was in town shopping and i get a call to come to lunch. park thr truck as far as humanly possible from idiots and get her int he store. make our way to the jeep just to have it die right there. i came back to town later and it turned out the battery had a bad cell in it. So me and my brother in law changed out the battery for a new one in the khols parking lot...tons of fun... BTW, just spent he past two hours goin thru your build thread. AMAZING! You did a incredible job on bringing that ranger back to life. KUDOS!

 

[MountainMike]

Hey man didn't you have a set of i-pikes

By the way I'm putting you up for a truck of the month nomination

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

35psi seems to work much better in this crap, im still thinking about maybe throwing some junk small-block heads in there for weight though. the mud tires arent wearing unevenly, they were worn that way when i bought them. i only intended on using them as a mock up tool to help determine where the truck would sit when i got my new tires, but money has been tight and i have been forced to run these longer than i wanted too. i do have 2 of the ipike tires and i want to get 2 more, but im having trouble finding 2 or 3 more 15" gen2 wheels to mount them on. the junk yard wanted $50 a piece for some corroded ass wheels and for that price i could just buy more cragar soft 8s (the only reason i dont just get the ipikes mounted on the cragars is because the rims are too wide). thanks for all the kind words guys, once i get some good pics of the truck all cleaned up in the snow ill post up some pics in the show off your truck forum.

 

[Downey]

just run the muds add more weight and be easy on the skinny pedal. i would install a l.s in the rear too would help a ton. Im not trying to bash you or anything but my muds were the best tire i have ever run in the snow. I have run bfg a/ts in the snow and wasnt that impressed. get the pressure right add some weight and l.s and you will get around great for a 2wd

 

[jaymegriffiths]

just run the muds add more weight and be easy on the skinny pedal. i would install a l.s in the rear too would help a ton. Im not trying to bash you or anything but my muds were the best tire i have ever run in the snow. I have run bfg a/ts in the snow and wasnt that impressed. get the pressure right add some weight and l.s and you will get around great for a 2wd

without grip a l/s is useless. weight is necessary. are u seeing much ice?
if its just snow than l/s is good money spent. imo like was mentioned, awesome build, i check it out every once in a while and im always impressed.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

im getting used to the muds now, since i dropped the pressure and the sneaky ice has melted they are doing great in the snow. ive got the trac-lok in the 7.5 and it has definately earned its place under my truck. i was going up this icy hill earlier this week and i couldnt get any traction, it was to the point where i was in 1st gear trying to idle up the hill so the tires wouldnt spin but my trans was making the 'too slow' growl so i said F it, i got big side lugs and i slid myself into the curb and used my side lugs agains the un-icy curb to claw my way up the hill. if those would have been A/Ts i would have probably destroyed them.

 

[Flash Gordan]

Easiest way to get the weight you need. Go to a heavy duty truck shop and try to grab a pair of the brake drums that come off a truck. Just one drum alone weighs in around 100#.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

yesterday i cut out the pedal plates and ialso did a side job for my neighbor, replacing his radius arms, shocks, and bushings on his 95 2wd extended cab ranger. i noticed the holes in them about a week ago when i was removing a rattling heat shield on it. i put about 7 hours into it and also threw on a new blower motor and PCV valve that i hadnt had time to do the last time he was over.

after i test drove his truck to make sure everything felt right i took thumper into town to get some pizza (about a 18 mile drive both ways) and he started acting up on me half way through the trip. my tachometer kept dropping to zero everytime the engine would miss so im thinking its either the distributor again or something in the engines wiring harness causing the voltage to spike and fry the pick up module. this is getting frustrating, and to top it off the rescue ranger is leaking coolant, has 4 different exhaust leaks that i know about, has a vaccum leak which causes it to idle funny, and its still got the worn down cooper cobras on it which made it a fun ride in to work this morning on snow covered ice (i threw 6 bare small block chevy heads in the bed when i got to work to help me get home so i can put the snow tires on it). if its not one thing its always another, plus im supposed to go xmas shopping today, i want to just say F xmas, its cancelled!

 

[Andres629]

Ahh buddy, I know what you mean! The M5OD in my DD just started giving me the gears. HAHAHA. Anyway, it's all acting up and I don't have the money to fix it now (after doing all my Christmas shopping. GO FIGURE. ) so I'm hoping it pulls through 'til I get some cash! Hope you get it all figured out, and Merry Christmas!

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

well at least the M5OD is a simple trans so it should be easy to fix. have you checked your fluid level lately? you might be experienceing the notorious shift plug leak.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

i got the rescue ranger fixed last night (it was a cracked vaccum cap causing it to leak, and there was a small hole in the 3/8 bypass hose that runs down the side of the valve cover, so i replaced it with some 3/8 trans cooler line, hoping that it holds up longer than the 3/8 fuel line that was on there from a previous in-a-pinch fix. i also put my 14" snow tires on it and greased up the all the joints, ive got 700 more miles to go before its due for an oil change, but since its a back up truck it probably wont see 700 miles until spring (i hope thumper isnt broken for too long).

 

[Andres629]

well at least the M5OD is a simple trans so it should be easy to fix. have you checked your fluid level lately? you might be experienceing the notorious shift plug leak.

I checked the fluid level yesterday actually. Stuck my finger in the fill hole (har har, yes I get it) and it was RIGHT there. Took it out... oh wait, this fluid ain't red. *sniff sniff* UGH! GEAR OIL?!? FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

The douches that owned it before me have been running gear oil in it for I don't know how long. I've been driving it for about 2000km (about 1300 miles or so) with that in there. Now I'm faced with trying to clean out all the gear oil and replace it with ATF. Maybe that's why it was sticky and hard to shift in the cold...


Anyway, good to hear the Rescue Ranger is back up and running! Best wishes on figuring out the problem with Thumper. I hate when trucks are broke!

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

for the gear oil i would say drain out what you can through the drain plug, get some cheap ATF and fill it to the fill hole, drive it 100 -150 miles and dump it back out. check the color when you drain it and repeat this process until it looks clean again. atf is high in detergent and will help clean the gear lube out of the small passages that it is probably currently clogging up. once you are satisfied with how the fluid is coming out refill it with mercon V or another synthetic ATF of your choice.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

yesterday i got a set of BII wheels from a guy i know so today i had the tires dismounted and then ran each wheel through the spray off machine to clean them up. of the 4 only 1 came out very clean and the others are decent for being over 20 years old.

i ran thumper all day to see if i could get him to act up for me, but i couldnt get anything to go wrong, so i pulled him back into the garage to see if i could find my mystery clunk in the front end. i didnt see anything that was suspect other than possibly the sway bar links, so i decided to remove the sway bar and the noise is now gone. of course, no sway bar removal is complete with out poser flexing pics, so i made sure to take some.

im still thinking about pulling the dist. cap off to see if theres anything noteable goign on in there.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

i took the cap off last night, but it didnt look as bad as i expected. the last time the distributor pickup quit on me the posts inside the cap were arc-burned about half way through, but this one only had minor arcing so i used some emery cloth to clean up the contacts. my hood prop rod clip had broken a few months ago and since i removed the sway bar earlier to get rid of the clunking, i decided to make a hold down to stop the rattling.