Hey all!

Due to a series of events, I am now the owner of my grandfather's 1996 Ranger. He is the original owner, and it only has 90K miles on it. It got in an accident, destroying the headlight, fender, and hood, but is mechanically sound. He then gave the truck to me, and while searching around I decided to do a FiberWerx Ranger to Raptor conversion. I am in no way new to building cars, but trucks are new to me. As such, I will need all the help I can get when building this up. I've set aside plenty of money to build this, so that isn't a huge problem, but I'm not looking to build a full-on race truck with high travel suspension and all that, I just need something to throw around in the dirt and drive around with some flair.

My main question is: What fortifications need to be done to the suspension and drive-train to deal with a 81" track? If possible I would be fine running some spacers and wide wheels, but will it be possible to use this to fit an 81" track? Again I'm used to lowering cars, not lifting and widening them, so any advice is welcome here. I will not be racing this or doing any serious offroading, mainly just for fun and the experience of building it, plus some light off-roading. I'll be doing a lift kit, but any recommendations as to height and brand are welcome.

Additionally what is the widest setup you can reliably run on the Rangers with nothing besides a lift kit, spacers, and offset? Obviously my fenders are going to be trimmed way back so I'm not concerned with rubbing, just wear on the bearings/axles/etc.

I look forward to building this with all of you, and I cant wait to get started.

 

Bump.

 

I'm currently working on a similar project. Turning a 96 2wd ranger into a thrasher truck just to mess around in.

Right now I'm running a set of 33 inch Cooper Maxx tires with 2 inch wheel spacers. The spacers give it a good clearance when it comes to turning but I can barely fit a quarter between the top of the tire and the bottom of the fender so I need to level it. Since you plan on cutting out your fenders then you shouldn't have a problem. My overall width is still only around 75 inches now which is pushing the limit structurally.

I know a stock Ranger is around 70 inches wide so even with 2 inches of space on either side your still going to be 7 inches shy of 81. I can't think of any vehicle that can take being widened 10+ inches over stock without some serious work. The 96 ranger has the double I beam style suspension also so its not like you'd be able to swap in a set of wider A arms.

Don't quote me on this but you might be able to get a set of axles off an old 4 wheel drive F150 and swap those into your ranger but I don't even want to begin to image the amount of fabrication that would need to go into that.

 

Yeah that's more or less what I've been seeing. I'm just going to throw some oversized tires and spacers on for now, and then go full PreRunner a little down the road. It basically requires a full long travel suspension kit and a lot of work to get it that wide. About 6k or so. So I'll just do a little work now on the fenders and tires and call it good until I decide to do a full build on it.

 

I know Rough Country makes a 4 inch lift for around 500 bucks for a 96 ranger. That'll give you a good amount of space to work with.

You might already know this but make sure to get hubcentric spacers and try not to go over 2 inches. You might be able to squeeze another inch of width on each side with the right offset rims too. Anything more than that and the first curb you accidentally clip might snap you wheel off.