Free or cheap mods for beater truck

[Chris J]

Hi all,

I have a beat up 89 ranger that stays out in the desert. as of now, it is bone stock, 4cyl, 2wd. Does anybody know any good simple, cheap, or free things i can do to improve its off road performance? I don't mind losing street-legality or doing anything that would look ugly, its already pretty thrashed and it doesn't need to be used for transportation or anything.

thanks!

 

[sloue]

may be new set of shocks.scrap the rear stabilizer,crawl under it and tie up any thing hanging down . fab up a piece a scrap plate steel for a skid plate .put you seat belt on and have fun in that baby. spend some time on the tech page and reading though the forums . you will find that most of cheap and free stuff has been fabbed by their owners. welcome to T.R.S.

 

[Chris J]

thanks
new shocks sound like a good idea, the suspension stops are definately getting flogged.

sorry for the non-prerunner post, this seemed like the best forum.

edit: will removing the front sway bar improve performance? (if it has one.. i haven't really crawled under and looked).
also, im considering adding f150 coil spacers in the front and add a leafs in the rear.

opinions?

 

[Chris J]

One more
can i flip the rear shackles without modifying or replacing other parts?

 

[CopyKat]

Yes you can flip the shackles, but your going to loose about 4" or more in height.

 

[ckblum]

If you put the add a leafs in or make up a leaf pack and experiment with different leaves you might be able to retain closer to stock height maybe a bit lower and still run the flipped shackle.

 

[Gui]

my bro has a beater same year as yours and we fit f-150 springs/shocks,we just had to cut a bit off the top of the spring and put a u-bolt and plate to secure it in the tower.we had to do this because the camber cams were maxed out for the least amount of positive camber.we also put spacer to lower the f-150 shocks as much as possible to add droop