Just bought my Ranger two weeks ago. 2000, XLT 4x4 stepside, 3.0, 5 speed, nice clean truck with 126K miles.. Around 50 miles into the drive home after purchase I noticed that familiar howl from the right front.Ugghhh!!! So far I'm $600 into new hubs, cv axles, ball joints, control arms and tie rods....then off to the alignment shop. Best part is the guy that I bought it from gave me $8000 in receipts from the 4 years he owned the truck, at the same shop. Including, but definitely not limited to, new upper and lower balljoints, tie rod ends, and a $300 wheel bearing that happened to be the noisy one. They even flushed the brake lines 3 different times at $60 a pop. The "new" rotors they installed late last year have wear grooves in them that the pads do not have. Nothing that I disassembled looked any newer than any other part under this truck. Think they found a sucker with the previous owner.

Anyway. This site is great, and has already been a wealth of information while trying to figure out the differences in the front ends of these trucks...for that,Thanks everyone:)