My First Truck

[frankenstein95]

picked up a 1995 Ranger 2.3L 4 banger 2WD for 200 bucks from a friend from church, the thing was rotted to heck from years of boat dropping in miami salt water, had four mismatched tires, sagging headliner,etc. decided to take on the project with some help from dear old dad.

 

[frankenstein95]

im trying to figure out how to get my pictures to come up if anyone can help

 

[Andres629]

If you have photobucket, that's the easiest way to put your pictures up. Upload your pictures to photobucket, then use the

share code.

 

[Ranger Kip]

use imageshack, photoshare, or my favorite, and easiest to use (including video hosting too, and unlimited uploading), www.tinypic.com

 

[frankenstein95]

to start just washed so you cant see paint peeling on hood frrom sun baking

 

[frankenstein95]

began by taking the bed off to asses the extent of the frame rot

looking like swiss cheese

rotted completely through all the way to the rear leaf spring hangers, started to rot those too

the frame was in pretty bad shape

 

[frankenstein95]

started to grind down what could be salvaged of the frame, coat it with some osfo and then paint it

 

[frankenstein95]

put on a 2" front coil spring spacer to level out

 

[frankenstein95]

painted the rust covered old steel wheels black after going at them with a wire brush head on a drill

 

[frankenstein95]

decided since it needed a paint job anyway i would paint it how i wanted it

finished paint job with new rims and tires

and tinted the windows at home
i think it looks pretty sick

 

[frankenstein95]

bought a 4" suspension lift kit off eBay from rough country suspension systems
arrived a week later

came with new radius arm bracket mounting points, new shocks( front and rear), 3" block for rear with new U-bolts, new I-beam pivot points, drop pitman arm.
C approx.$450

 

[frankenstein95]

I wish i had the pictures from when we installed the lift, the truck was in pieces in the back yard, but I broke my phone while lifting one of the I- beams, it cracked my screen, but it was a waiting game, first we had every thing in and they sent us the kit for a 4x4 so it took a week to get those pieces, although they let us keep the 4x4 pieces so were looking for a 4x4 of the same era .
Then, they sent us the wrong U-bolts because the 4x4 has a 2" block in the rear from the factory or something like that, so it took another week to get those u-bolts but we didn't wait we went down to home depot and bought some 5/8" sleeve spacers to make up the difference. since we had the whole front end dismantled for two weeks we took the time to grind and get rid of all the scaling on the I-beams and radius arms and all the other front end components, we put in new radius arm bushings and replaced the bumper brackets which were rotted and making the bumper sag. this attention to detail got rid of all the front end noise we were experiencing before and new brake pads and turning the rotors now have my truck stopping on a dime, we greased all the bearings and re-assembled the truck with the new parts. it ended up sitting a lot higher than we had anticipated but I'm not complaining.

 

[frankenstein95]

Here it is right after we pit the lift on

 

[frankenstein95]

ran into some trouble with a power steering leak so we replaced the line for 15 bucks, now it works great

 

[chvlfrk]

Curious>>>

and tinted the windows at home
i think it looks pretty sick

=========================================
Is that a colored primer or sealer, or is it a drab/flat color?

Done a NICE job on it IMO!

What did you do to the rear of the frame that was so BAD??? One pic looked like the rear leaf spring hanger didn't have much left to attach to on the frame..................