hey guys last year sometime i bought an 88' Ranger off craigslist for $500 it was lifted and looked like the ideal offroad truck. When i went to pick it up i glanced real quick and said id take it..trailered it home and slower discovered that the previous owner had done everything WRONG with this truck so the rebuild began..

When i first brought the truck home:


The D28 had a broken shaft and was stuck inside the third member so i decided to replace it with a D35:


The reason the axle would not come out of the housing:


The previous owner used full size ford lift coils,hillbilly coil buckers and huge homemade drop brackets to lift the truck :


So i got a D35 from my buddy who was doing an SAS on his ranger and found a Third member with 5.13's and a Detroit EZlocker already installed:


I then ditched the 7.5 and found a complete 8.8 with disk brakes from an explorer for $50 on CL and cleaned it up flipped the perches and installed 5.13's:


For the front i ordered 6" skyjacker coils and found some 4" drop brackets throughout the forums and installed ne front brake lines along with f250 shock towers and bilstein 5125's:

due to the stock driveshaft being rewelded and horribly unbalanced i replaced it with an aluminum one piece shaft from a 2001 ranger (the huge muffler is gone btw) :


A new exhaust was welded up:


Heres a shot of the truck with the new front,rear and some 35's:


Got a front DS:


Fender Flares installed and how the truck sits today:


Thats enough for tonight and sorry for the long post..the truck has a 2.9l and is a 5-speed and moves well with the 5.13's...eventually id like to make some rock sliders,bumpers and some cage work.

 

nice job man keep it going

 

88? gen 2 swap on the front?

 

yeah its weird..it was an 88' interior and the title says 88' and the vin #s match but the front end is a gen 2..your guess is as good as mine lol.

 

good work, gotta love correcting someone elses screw ups.

 

looks much better now, nice job