The Lone Ranger – Kage’s ’94 X-Cab Leaf SAS and Bed Bob

[kris97ranger]

so are you just cutting the front of the bed to get the wheel wells in the right place and thats it? or are you going to bob the rear afterwards as well

 

[Josh40601]

so are you just cutting the front of the bed to get the wheel wells in the right place and thats it? or are you going to bob the rear afterwards as well

ya know, i was kinda wondering the same thing....

 

[Kage]

so are you just cutting the front of the bed to get the wheel wells in the right place and thats it? or are you going to bob the rear afterwards as well

ya know, i was kinda wondering the same thing....

I suck at the photoshop, so here's my best Paint trial:

No I'm not planning on bobbing the rear of the bed (towards the tailgate) as I don't think it'll be worth the efffort for what it'll gain me. But who know's how it'll work out in the end.

 

[kris97ranger]

is this thing going to any street time? or used as a truck time? because if not i would bob the rear it helps your departure angle alot.

i edited a pic of my old 97 to show. this is with the wheelbase moved up to where yours is and the bob at the tailgate

 

[Andres629]

Shore is stumpy!

Dunno, don't think he'll be able to do that as he's using leaves.

 

[kris97ranger]

should be able to maybe not that big of a bob but close. i think itd still be about 3.5-4 ft of bed more then enough for camping equiptment and a 24
plus theres the the extended cab portion to store things in. actually the more i look at that pic the more i want to do it to my next truck

 

[86 slo-vo]

have you checked prices on getting your springs rearched in your area? i didnt even ask when i went in thinking it would be like a few places i saw on the internet at about $90 bucks...

pulled out $100 and he said $30 and some change, was deffinantly suprised since i had to keep them after quiting time to get them done.

might be worth looking into instead of doing it twice.

as for my garage....i often forget what the floor looks like im a bit of a packrat....doesnt matter if i have 1500 sq.ft or 15K sq. ft i could still find junk to fill it with

 

[Kage]

is this thing going to any street time? or used as a truck time? because if not i would bob the rear it helps your departure angle alot.

I don't disagree, but with leaf's I can't really bob it that much unless I don't want to run a bumper. And I run into stuff enough that bumper is needed

Also, this truck still needs to be used as a truck so it needs to be able to hold stuff my wife needs moved. (I don't have anywhere to store a small trailer to haul stuff).

If it becomes too much of a hinderance, I'll bob it further an link the rear, but I'm just not seeing the need for it with the wheeling I do out here. But that's subject to change at a given moment

Shore is stumpy!

Dunno, don't think he'll be able to do that as he's using leaves.

From what I can tell, you're correcet. using the setup as a refrence, it only looked like I could cut 3-4" out of the rear. seemed like quite a bit of effort for that much of a gain. Maybe If I lived out west, there would be a bit more justification for it.

should be able to maybe not that big of a bob but close. i think itd still be about 3.5-4 ft of bed more then enough for camping equiptment and a 24
plus theres the the extended cab portion to store things in. actually the more i look at that pic the more i want to do it to my next truck

I'm resisting the temptation (kinda dig the look too )

have you checked prices on getting your springs rearched in your area? i didnt even ask when i went in thinking it would be like a few places i saw on the internet at about $90 bucks...

pulled out $100 and he said $30 and some change, was deffinantly suprised since i had to keep them after quiting time to get them done.

might be worth looking into instead of doing it twice...

Hmm, I've got no idea who would do this locally (St. Louis Spring pops up in google, may have to give them a call). I had no idea it could be done that cheap either

I've got an update coming here shortly with a setup that I think I'm giong to rock. If I want to change it later it "shouldnt" be that big of a deal to flip the shackel and do a spring arch. Right now I'm on a time crunch as the tag's on the XJ expire at the end of this month, so I need to make it go away soon. Which is making me rush a few things.

If I wind up re-arching them later, you can tell me "I told you so"

...as for my garage....i often forget what the floor looks like im a bit of a packrat....doesnt matter if i have 1500 sq.ft or 15K sq. ft i could still find junk to fill it with

Its sad really. I built myself a nice welding table, and a nice work bench. yet I still weld on the floor and use the top of the trash can as a working surface. Why you ask? Because that stupid trashcan is the only horzontial surface in my life that remains clean (you'll notice that its starting to show up in a lot of my small part pictures do to this fact).

Update coming soon!

 

[Kyle M.]

I suck at the photoshop, so here's my best Paint trial:

No I'm not planning on bobbing the rear of the bed (towards the tailgate) as I don't think it'll be worth the efffort for what it'll gain me. But who know's how it'll work out in the end.

SO it will look like mine.....but neater

 

[wahlstrom1]

You could do a shackle setup like the U.A. CJ-17 where they mounted the shackles around the rear bumper.

 

[Kage]

Rear Test Fit #2 and Leaf mounts

After farting around trying to figure out how to make everything live in harmony (body mounts and leaf mounts) it turns out I had a bit of luck. Just this past week, we got our Torchmate running at work. Since I got to help set it up I made up a few “test pieces” that were identical to the front leaf mounts I used. At the time I wasn’t sure that I could use them or not, but I figured why not.

It turns out that they work awesome when I flipped the orientation and butted it up against the body mount:

So I burned some mounts together and burned them home (I’ll post the measurements later).

Here they are on the only clean horizontal surface I have in the garage right now.

Tacked on the truck:

Then I went ahead and burned them on (Still need to add the gussets):

After the front was done, I slapped the springs in place and took a guess at where the rear hangers needed to be. For these photos I’m using the holes left over from the spare tire carrier.

This is at 115” (ish) wheel base. I’m not going to burn the rear hanger on until I get some weight on the back. I’ve got a feeling that I’ll wind up dropping the mounts down a smidge. But as it sits, it looks perfect:

On its own weight:

Rolled a tire in place (need to bore out the center some more):

I've got a feeling that these 63's will give me more than enough flex stock. If not, then I'll re-arch these to get them where I want them to be.

So it looks pretty likely that I’ll have this really sitting on its own weight by Tuesday this week. I’ll probably wind up pulling the tranny and Tcase this week to start the doubler fun shortly there after.

As a side note, the bed took off today to head over to a friends house. He decided to save me from my own body work and volunteered to do the body work on the bed bob:

That’s about it for now, thanks for the comments guys!

 

[Kage]

SO it will look like mine.....but neater

As I said before, Your truck, Bray's and Slo-vo's helped push me to the "Dark side" that is the Ford Ranger. I dig the way you did the bed on yours, and I'm hoping mine works out that well.

You could do a shackle setup like the U.A. CJ-17 where they mounted the shackles around the rear bumper.

Yup, but then I still have the springs venerable out there in the open. Look again at the XJ, I use my armor HARD! But that could be because the brakes suck so much on it that its just easier to run into things than to actualy drive

So I think for the springs sake, I need to keep them behind the bumper.

 

[wahlstrom1]

Never saw it mentioned, but how wide are the Nitto's your running? I'll be stuffing some 14.50 wide Iroks onto my H2's here soon....

 

[Kage]

Never saw it mentioned, but how wide are the Nitto's your running? I'll be stuffing some 14.50 wide Iroks onto my H2's here soon....

They're 37x13.5xR17's I don't know what the true measurment is, but I'm betting its every bit of 13.5" as the tread profile is very flat/square. They're a wee bit wider than I wanted to run, but the extra width will probably help keep the hubs out of the rocks.

 

[Josh40601]

how much did you guys pay for your H2's? I think i want to run them was well, only i would really like bead locks....