Hello everyone, I've been a member of this forum for quite some time now and thought I'd put up a thread that shows all the progress I've done to my truck.

First off, I got this as my first vehicle, an eager and excited 14 year old boy. I never intended to mod it this much but I love working on this vehicle.

The truck is a 3.0, 4x4, XLT, flareside, and 4.10s.



First thing I did was get it a bug shield:



Rain guards:



Truxedo Tonneau Cover:



Chrome nerf bars:



The stock headlights were really yellow and not repairable so I got some clear ones:



Next I did the throttle cable mod (no pic).

I drove it around like that for a long time. I was really enjoying my first ride.



Next I tinted the tails (They look darker then they actually are in pics):





Took it out to my young minds version of off roading



Got a brush guard:





Not a day later I got some fogs the brush guard:



Got some roof bars and a roof basket:







Shackles and Tbar Crank:





20" Lightbar:





Kept it this way for a long time and just drove it around.

In the mean time I got a little more desire to do some trail runs and this is the result:









Not bad flex for a ranger:





Parked next to my dads truck:



Some pics with the new camera:

DSC00926 by JadenLeo, on Flickr

DSC00933 by JadenLeo, on Flickr



Then some bad things happened. First off the truck started overheating, I had no heat, and there were puddles of coolant on the garage floor. Oh, and the coolant reservoir looked liked this

:

Took it to the shop and it ended up being a head gasket, bad heater core, and a hole in the radiator. That was a pretty penny to fix.

Then the day I get it out of the shop the 4wd doesn't work. Knowing the 98-00 rangers had pulse vacuum hubs I knew those were the culprit. I ordered some rugged ridge manual locking hubs and installed them (no pic)

Along the way I got an ultra-guage, new speakers, and a pioneer head unit:



I just recently modified how the basket sets on the bars. It no longer sets on top of them but instead hangs from them, creating a much tighter and cleaner fit:



DSC01351 by JadenLeo, on Flickr

Thats all for now!

 

Looks good man. I saw your thread on the other forum, but it was waaaaaaaaayyy too long to read through all the BS, haha. I gotta ask though.. how did you mount the roof rack? And high five for no plasti-dip in this thread.

 

Thanks! I was not comfortable with drilling into my truck so I went ahead and got the roof bars that attach to the door seals. I don't have a pic currently but can grab one tomorrow if youd like.

I gotta admit, I did plasti dip my wheels and had them like that for about a week. lol. Didn't really care for it after that experience.

 

Nice start. Keep it up

 

Thanks!

 

Good for you... much respect brah

 

So happy to see someone else pulled off all their plasti dip because they think it looks stupid. Everyone on FRF should aspire to do the same!
Good start BTW

 

Thanks! If you think Frf is bad when it comes to plasti-dip, you don't wanna look at most facebook pages dedicated to rangers!

 

looking good! I like that you lowered the basket like that, looks much better!

 

Thanks. It made the truck flow a lot better and has reduced a lot of wind noise.

 

hah I bet!

 

Looks great. I love the roof rack. Have you considered some new rims yet? Lol

 

Thanks! As far as the rims go, I would like to get new wheels and tires at the same time. I'd like to run some 32s. But before that id like to get some #1 tbars to level out the truck a little more.

 

Get a body lift and run 33s. It will look much better

 

I could probably fit and clear 33s if I got some #1 bars. I just don't want to loose the brush guard, which I will have to do if I go with a body lift.

 

Just thought I'd do a little update on how the truck has been running since the the fixes done to it. So far its been good. However I have noticed an annoying squeak coming somewhere near the passenger front tire area. Im thinking it could be the swaybar end link? If thats the case I'll most likely just remove the sway bar.

I thought I'd also throw this here. The rake that the truck used to have seems to have gone down some. Idk if the shackles are squishing the leafs or what but I did a comparison to my brothers stock ranger, judging the rake difference. Keep in mind that its not flexing even the slightest bit as I've noticed this parked at different places.

Bros stock ranger


Mine

 

May have found the culprit to my squeak. However this is the drivers side and my squeak is coming from the passenger side.

 

That the sway bar? I wouldn't think that would squeak.. but you should feel some body roll.. well maybe to that side.

 

Yep, swaybar end link. A member from Frf said that the squeaking could be because the one other side has all the pressure. It actually doesn't drive differently from what I've noticed. I'll be taking the whole sway bar off this weekend to see if the noise disappears.

 

FRF blows and I'm glad you took off the plastishit. Truck looks good though! Kinda weird that your sway bar sheered off like that. But the other side could be squeaking because of that I would think. Update us when you remove the sway bar

 

I like some members from frf. Thanks for the compliment! I am most likely going to take it off tonight and maybe take off my door panels and see if I can make them stop rattling from my speakers. I like my music loud. Lol.

 

Sway bar is now off. That one side where it was broken was a pain in the butt. The ride quality improved while I didn't really notice any more body roll. Definitely happy. The squeak quieted quite a bit but is not gone completely.

 

Figured I should update this.

I ended up trading the Ranger for a 2013 Ford Focus SE equipped with the 201A package. I need something reliable and my truck was just the opposite.

DSC01460 by JadenLeo, on Flickr

DSC01470 by JadenLeo, on Flickr

 

Good color, congrats on the buy!

 

Thanks!