Redneck Rebuild

[94 4.0 5-spd 4wd ranger]

ah man! it ended here lol i was really getting into this build! lol I really like what your doing with it though. So what kinda gearing is in it right now? Oh nd if your looking for a cheap but strong pair of lift shackles i bought mine at a pepboys near me. They were only $40 They were advertised as chevy drop shackles. It gave my 94 about 2.5"s im guessing the leaf spring width is the same on your ranger but you would know better than i would. well goodluck with it, it looks to be coming along great!
alex

 

[Loanranger]

Don't worry, this is far from the end of this build. Everything is being done on the cheap, so it just takes time getting all the parts and ideas together. The gearing for now is the stock 3:45s, I know, really tall for these tires. But beings that this is a cheap trail rig, they'll do for now. I know about the chev drop shackles, as that's what I have on the back of my ranger, but I'm looking at lifting the front up first, cause it already sits pretty raked.

 

[94 4.0 5-spd 4wd ranger]

oh yea forgot about the other ranger you have. Any way with your skill you'd probly be better off just going with the chevy 63" leafs when you need to do the back so you can get more flex. The shackles kinda just have the same affect as blocks without extra wheel hop, you know?

 

[94 4.0 5-spd 4wd ranger]

any updates?

 

[Loanranger]

Just a little update, we ended up adding some washers to the front for now, to get rid of the rake, leveled it out pretty good. I also welded the rearend up last weekend. I've still got to allign the front after the washers, and I'm thinking it might get a front bumper in the near future. My dad is going to bring it along on a run up to Elbe hills this weekend, so I'll try and get some pics of it out on the trail.

 

[94 4.0 5-spd 4wd ranger]

sounds pretty sweet, best of luck on your run!

 

[Loanranger]

Alright, time for an update. We took the Fordzuki and the Rearanger out to Elbe, along with 2 other Rangers, and 2 other zuks, and had a great day. Casualties of the day included a bashed in bedside and a bent up tranny crossmember on my dads ranger, but all in all, it did great. I'm glad I welded up the rearend, it helped him out quite a bit. The bedside was an easy fix, just stuffed a 2x4 up there and got it out enough, but the crossmember was another story. The driverside was bent back a good 2 inches, and the passenger side was back a tad too. It was the dreaded dogbone style, with the bushings on the outside of the frame, which I knew we were going to have to upgrade, I just didn't know it would be this soon. We weren't into the first trail maybe 50 feet when the ranger crashed down onto a big rock, and somehow blew the fuse to the fuel pump. I tried reseting the inertia switch, but it didn't help, so that's when I pulled the fuse, and it was blown. So a new fuse went in, started it up and drove up off the rock to find the crossmember ears on the frame bent back pretty good. We lucked out, and it didn't break the trans mount, and wasn't making any funny noises, so we kept on through 3 more trails.

The only pic I got of it out on the trail.

So after the day was done, we got home, and a couple days later, I started in on what I thought was going to be a routine swap to a 2wd crossmember from the donor truck that got sacrificed to make Fordzuki. Well, the crossmember had other things in mind, and I soon found that becasue it was a 2wd crossmember, it didn't have clearance for the front driveshaft. So I made up a new crossmember out of 2x4 rectangle tube, and a section of another crossmember I had drug home from work.

I originally planned to make it tuck up into the framerails, for a flatter bottom, but would have had to notch for the cat and the front driveshaft, as well as make a 1 inch recess for the trans mount, plus with the trans crossmember up out of the way, the first thing to hit would be the transfercase skid and transfercase, so this will help to keep the brunt of an impact off of those.

Being tube, it should slide over rocks easier than the hat channel original, and it's a bit thicker at .190 wall. It basically bolts to the bottom of the framerails, with a 1 inch tall by 5 inch wide section of an old crossmember welded to the top, and holes plasma'd out to get a socket up to the trans mount bolts. Simple yet strong, and no more outer bushings to worry about.

 

[Hahnsb2]

Looks good! I love Bobbed beds for some reason! I want to do something similar for my tranny crossmember, I've had it hold me up on logs and I've bent it a bit too.

 

[Loanranger]

Got a couple of winches today, one for the ranger, and one for my Fordzuki. We started by taking the stock bumper off the ranger, and started building a winch mount to set it on top of the front rails. Got the majority of the mount made, one piece of 4x4 1/4 inch angle, and a piece of 3.5x 5 3/8ths angle. Got both pieces welded and bolted to the frame, and drilled for the winch, tomorrow night we have to make the side plates, and gusset the shit out of it all. I'll get some pics when we make a little more progress on it. The winches are the new xrc8, they now come with a 5.5 horse motor that's series wound instead of the old permanent magnet ones. Definately a nice winch for the money.

 

[Loanranger]

Alright, it's all mounted up and wired. Here's some pics.

My massively awesome gear reduction 3/4 inch drill. It takes about 5 minutes to come to a stop after shutting it off.

 

[Loanranger]

Alright, it's update time.


First came this, we were headed for another trip through the busywild, when one of the ears on the drivers side stub shaft let go. So after searching around for a new shaft, and finding 3 junkyards that wanted $45 for an outer, and another $45 for the inner, the d28 came out. It actually served it's time well with the abuse my dad gave it on 33's.

And of course the replacement for the front wasn't geared the same as the rear, so the obvious choice was to do this.

This is all being done with the knowledge that full widths will be going under it shortly.

Today was a day of collecting parts, thanks again Dogboy for the D35. We also picked up the 99 ranger 7.5 that I had welded up and horsetraded off, only to horsetrade the old 7.5 from my dads ranger (correct width for the guys truck) to the guy for the wider 99.

The suspension will be mixed up a little when the axles go back in, dogboy also gave us the explorer leafs, which may end up the full leafs in a 3/4 ellip setup.

The front will have custom drop brackets, and I'm thinking of extending the radius arms as well.

Other additions will include sliders and exo, a flatbed, toolbox, spare carrier, and maybe some cupholders.

 

[Loanranger]

Oh, and as far as the body goes, the old doors, bed, and fenders had seen their share of rocks, stumps, trees, dirt, mud, my LJ a time or two....

So the doors and fenders are being replaced with the ones from the donor ranger from my Fordzuki build, and we're gonna wrap some tube around it this time to slow the destruction.

 

[Sunk]

Awesome, looking good. You actually ran the Busy in that ? Were the axles open? If so I'm impressed, I know of a group that got stuck BAD on the Busy this time a year or 2 ago, it looks intense.

 

[Loanranger]

Yeah, my dad wheels the piss outta this thing trying to keep up with me in the zook. The rear I welded, and the front was still open. It's gonna go back to this configuration for now, not sure if we'll bother getting a locker for the front. Aside from the body damage, the ranger makes it through the busy no problems. There's only one spot near the begining where we usually have to winch.

 

[BlackBII]

This style of picture has become a standard for any TTB biting the dust.

Looks good, I like it!