It all started here with my first truck i bought it stock and put a 4 inch lift on it and my obsession with the ranger began.
85 Ford Ranger 2.8l v6
Then when i realized the running gear is not very strong i sold it and bought a newer ranger, just a little more power...
94 Ford Ranger 4.0 v6 std cab short bed, it came with a 4 inch lift and 33x10.5 bfg mud terrains on it but i wanted to go bigger and stronger.
So when i was contemplating on what to go with i found the New James duff 6 inch stage 3, so i began saving and soon i was on my way to Sequim to pick it up right from the source, shipping gets expensive, plus why not have an adventure.
When i got back this is what i ended up with...
So the build begins with the rear, i came up with a little weird jacking technique just because i knew when i got to the front i wanted the truck in the air but all the suspension to hang so i put a comealong attached to a couple of the trusses in the attic and cranked it in the air.
as you can see in the pic below the driveline is beefy, thats cause i twisted the old one in half and had one built by six states to make sure it wasnt going to happen again.
It took a portaband to get the seized leaf spring bolts out, then goes in the new deaver lifted leafs.
Then once the leafs were in i started the front, by tearing out old parts.
ALMOST DONE!!
A little backyard test...
Since the completion of the lift, i have recently taken out the james duff 6" coils and put in skyjacker 8" coils and modified the drop brackets to match the amount of lift, and added 35x12.5 BFG all terrains, which looks like this...
These pics are from hunting season in the gifford pinchot national forest...
Since these pics i have realized that until i can do a SAS the ranger front end is not designed to go bigger than 33s, i found this out by having to re do my wheel bearings all the time and my tires are wearing weird do to bump steer and the extreme angle on my tie rods, so to remedy this i went back to my 6" james duff coils and put another set of 33x10.5 mud terrains and got another set of drop brackets, the old ones are now 8" of drop. Then to help with the bump steer and make my tires last longer i got the Superlift superrunner steering kit which also made the handling a lot better. Then i made some coil shims to level the truck a little. Now i am in the process of putting in a new centerforce clutch, which was backordered so it will be a few weeks.... More to come....
New pics with new tires and no swaybar, which flexes a lot better....
Upgrades to come, remove bed and make a caged flatbed and bumpers and sliders, then onboard air and Then the straight axle.
