My 1997 Ranger 3.0 4x4

[Curious Hound]

Finally got a set of 33s for the truck! I still have some odds and ends to finish up before I'd consider the truck to be 100% after the lift install, but finding the time is the hardest part

View attachment 74204

Looks great.
BTW, they're never really 100%. Always something else in the back of your mind. A work in progress.

 

[97Ranger3.0]

I finally got around to finishing up the front brake hoses. I made a bracket for the passenger side hardline section for support. And I got rid of the metal brackets on the hoses as suggested by scotts90ranger. I also cut up some heater hose to wrap around the brake hose for some added protection from rubbing against the suspension. Then I just zip tied the hose to the spring in the center. The driver's side looks more or less the same but I forgot to take a picture.

Also, just for fun I made a custom intake setup. It's a cheap one from ebay for a 4.0 Ranger. I did have to buy a longer elbow for the throttle body coupler to keep the 3" tube forward and away from the pulleys. The elbow I bought is 2.75" on one end and 3" on the other so it would fit the throttle body better as well. And I made a shroud to support the whole setup better than with the crappy brackets the kit came with.

I did have to do some trimming to fit the 33s, but nothing too crazy. This is how I had to trim inside the fender flare at the rear of the fender. This spot rubbed the worst, and now it clears barely lol. I painted the exposed fender black to make it less obvious. I also had to trim the lower valance on the bumper a little bit, but honestly I think it's not even noticeable.

I copied ericbphoto's setup for the radius arms. I probably could've used something a little bit thicker to push the front axle forward a little more, it would've helped with tire clearance. But honestly I don't really want to take it all apart again. Either way, I would say some sort of small spacer is required if you're not going to use the OE plastic spacer on the bushings. When I didn't have this spacer, the threads on the RA lock nut would bottom out before compressing the bushings. The steering feel was terrible because the axle beams could move back and forth so it wandered like crazy. This fixed that problem though.

I got a nice and beefy Yukon diff cover which I installed after completing the break in miles on the axle. I wish that I had put thread tape on the drain and fill plugs before I filled it up, because they do leak just a little. But I will just have to remember to do that whenever I have to change the oil again. Otherwise I'm happy though, I wanted something a bit heavier duty and with drain and fill plugs.

Also, I changed out the speedo gear to try and correct my speedometer after going to 4.88's with the 33's. Mine had a 20 tooth from the factory, and by my calculations I would need a 22 tooth gear to correct it. But that doesn't seem to exist, so I settled with a 21 tooth gear. I used a GPS speedometer on my phone to check my actual speed. Before changing the gear, the GPS app showed my speed as 47 or 48 when my speedo read 55. Now it shows 52-53 when my speedometer says 55. So, not terrible. I'm curious how much worse it'll be at highway speeds though. Before changing the gear, the GPS app showed 63 MPH when my speedo said 70, so I guess any improvement on that can't be too bad lol.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

The speedo being out like it is will help avoid speeding tickets.

 

[Lefty]

Very nice!

When you painted the back half of the frame, were you able to reach under and do under the cab?

 

[97Ranger3.0]

Very nice!

When you painted the back half of the frame, were you able to reach under and do under the cab?

Yes, you can kind of see some of it in these pictures from the first post. I had the cab all masked up and shot everything I could reach underneath. I just tried to avoid things like the exhaust, transmission, transfer case, etc. while spraying it. I think I actually masked up the exhaust if I remember right. And since I had the bed off while I did it I also sprayed the underside of it.

View attachment 31182View attachment 31183

 

[97Ranger3.0]

I had originally planned on doing the F350 master cylinder swap since I went up in tire size. But I knew it was going to be a bit of work to make fit in my truck and I don't really like making brake lines, so I procrastinated on it lol. But now I'm glad I did because I came across the 99 Dodge 2500 master swap in Bill4's build thread. The ports have the same size fittings, the mounting bolt hole spacing is the same, the only thing that has to be done is some minor modifications to the pushrod. Then it just bolts right in like it was meant to be.

Stock pushrod:

Shortened and bottomed out pushrod:

And then it bolts right in!

There's no fluid level sensor though, so I will need to make a jumper for the connector to get rid of the light on my dash. To do this, you need to jump the two wires which are not the black wire. This picture was just when I was testing that this did in fact fix the light, I will come up with something better soon.

I love how the brakes feel now. I was honestly expecting this setup to feel overkill, but it's not by any means. It feels OEM, but when compared to my stock MC it feels more responsive and it takes a lot less effort to stop. I can also now lock the brakes up with 33s which I could not do with the stock MC.

 

[97Ranger3.0]

Been a while since I've posted anything here. I've mostly just been driving the truck, but here's a few things I've done since the last post. I swapped out the power steering pump for the newer saginaw pumps from a Jeep Liberty using the Proquipped kit.

It's much quieter, although not completely silent. I did originally use the overdrive pulley suggested in the kit, but it robbed quite a bit of power from the truck and at higher RPM you could hear a lot of power steering whine, so I switched to the regular Jeep Liberty pulley and that was solved. I don't feel the overdrive pulley was necessary in my case anyway, it doesn't feel any different to me turning the 33's with the overdrive vs regular pulley.

I did have one small issue on the install - granted the website does specify that the kit is only for 4.0 rangers so I knew it may not work straight out of the box. But when originally installed, and the pulley fully seated, the pulleys were very misaligned. In this picture, I cut an old spare belt I had from 6 ribs down to 4 so I could drive it in the meantime, but you can see the misalignment.

However Proquipped's customer service was excellent and when I messaged them asking about the situation, they sent me an extra bracket to space the pump back further. If I remember right, I had to also use some washers along with the two brackets but either way it works now. And they were quick to help me out!

I've been having issues with the clutch not fully disengaging again, and I finally had some time this weekend to take care of it. I decided to swap out everything again even though my clutch itself was good, and this time I went with a Centerforce Dual Friction clutch. I also bought an OEM slave cylinder and a Luk master because I couldn't find an OEM one. It was well worth buying the OE and Luk parts because the clutch disengages perfectly, better than it ever has. Shifts are a lot less clunky and I don't have to hesitate to put it in reverse so it wouldn't grind like I used to. It's so much nicer to drive now.

I also changed out the American Racing wheels for these Vision Manx wheels, same diameter, width and offset. And installed some Westin step bars.

I did also rewire my electric fan setup, I had problems with it blowing fuses over time. I completely redid the wiring - I bought new connectors and tried to wire it with as few crimps and splices as possible. Also used 10g wire for the main power wires, and used a fusible link rather than a traditional fuse. I also added an additional relay to kick the fan on low speed automatically when the A/C compressor is on. I used to have a switch for that in the cab so this simplified the wiring quite a bit. So far I've had no problems with the setup.

 

[SenorNoob]

I'm usually more a fan of chrome/silver on trucks, but the black trim and wheels looks REALLY nice on your truck. Good work.

 

[PrerunRanger02]

Where did you pick up the liberty pump? I’m trying to decide between a reman and a “new” pump. Even though I’m pretty sure there all the same with different boxes and price tags. Also are you referring to the PSC pulley they mention

 

[97Ranger3.0]

I'm usually more a fan of chrome/silver on trucks, but the black trim and wheels looks REALLY nice on your truck. Good work.

Thanks! Honestly sometimes when I see old pictures of it with the chrome American Racing wheels I do kind of miss that look. But I love how the black wheels with the chrome/silver fake beadlock look, I think it's a nice balance of black & chrome/silver.

Where did you pick up the liberty pump? I’m trying to decide between a reman and a “new” pump. Even though I’m pretty sure there all the same with different boxes and price tags. Also are you referring to the PSC pulley they mention

I bought a new unit from rockauto from what I remember. And yes I was referring to the PSC pulley - I don't feel it was necessary for my truck even with 33's, and it robbed a very noticeable amount of power. It just has a stock Jeep Liberty pulley on it now, and the OEM size belt fits just fine as well.