To start this off, I am no expert with what i am doing here. Ive had help here and there throughout this build, and ive done the best research i can to supplement. However, most of this is new to me. About a year and a half ago i bought a 2000 ford ranger with intention of driving it as is for a while and then doing a SAS build with a dana 44 and 9 inch. I bought the axles, rebuilt and regeared them, and about 9 months ago i started my build. I only had about a month to finish it before shipping out to bootcamp for the Marine Corps reserves, and in the last few days before i shipped out, I realized i wouldnt make it when i ended up breaking the return nipple on my power steering pump. Now that im back from training im ready to finish the project but im trying to find a steering box that will work with the truck. Id like to get a box that sits outside the frame with a rear facing pitman arm. Does anyone have any suggestions for a box?

 

Here are some pictures of the truck

 

Go with a toyota ifs gearbox. Very easy to get parts for. Look for a 95 4 runner

 

Thank You!

 

It's been a long time since I've posted on here but the solid axle swap has been completed for the time being. I figured I'd post this up just in case anyone is out there looking at this. The truck is sitting on high pinion dana 44 and 9 inch rear. I'm currently running a posi up front with 4.10 gears and 4.86s in the rear. I just did the rear this past weekend and waiting on gears for the front, not using 4wd in the meantime. I'm running warn premium hubs, mid 90s Toyota steering box, custom built DOM tube drag link, 1 inch add a leaf rear springs, slightly taller shackles, and stock 78 f150 suspension up front. The front is far too stiff for me to get any real flex out of it so I'm looking at going with a few more inches of lift with more suitable springs and James Duff long arms. I also have a 3 inch body lift because at some point in the future I'd like to swap in a 4bt Cummins/zf5 if possible. I also went with raceline assault 16x9 wheels with 35x12.50 toyo mt's a few weeks ago. Lastly, from scratch I have built a custom front bumper out of a stick of square tubing, 15x1ft of 1/8th inch plate and a few feet of 1/4" and some angle iron and other tubing I found in the scrap bin at the family construction company. I'll try and post some pictures of the finished product here in a little bit as well as a few in progress pics.

 

 

 

it's a start but I want more flex. The front springs are far too stiff

 

I figured i should show some pics of the bumper build. Sorry for the snapchat captions. They're all I have.

 

The bumper did end up being pretty heavy, but not so heavy that I couldn't throw it around myself and I'm about 165. I mounted it to the stock bumper mounts with 4 grade 8 bolts and it's plenty sturdy for me to stand on top of it without it budging. Anyone have any thoughts about this? Also thinking about bedlining it. Would gunmetal gray be a better option or should I just stick with black?

 

Hi, I have a 98 with 2 lifts, 5.0 swap, 33 tires and I'm planning a sas down the road with a dana 30 from a buddies jeep. It has coils with 4 link suspension but I plan to go radius arms. Which means a lot of aftermarket and modifying. My problem also will be what coils to get for it to sit where it does now. It's got about 9 inches of front lift between 3 in body, 4 in susp and aftermarket keyways that give almost 2 in. Looks like u did a great job, any advice?

 

Sorry about being so late in replying, I am rarely on here. To be honest, I am no expert in spring rates or anything of that nature. My best advice to you is to is do what I didn't but should have from the get go, in going on YouTube and watching a bunch of videos from guys who do know what they are talking about and run coilovers. I have found a ton of helpful videos from king suppliers telling you what measurements and calculations you need to do. I really regret not running coilovers, and especially with you going to all that work to set up your axle with radius arms, you might as well spend the extra money and run them. It'll free up a bunch of space instead of running shock mounts AND coil mounts, and itll look way better. You really won't have to spend a ton more money on mounts and coils and shocks when you buy them already set up as one unit. I'm gearing up for coilovers in the front and rear, long arms in the front, and I'm planning on 4 linking the rear

 

Update on the ranger, it's been a while since I posted on here or really did any work on the truck but I finally got around to fixing my speedometer issue. As you guys probably know, Ford axles usually run tone rings with the speed sensor in the housing. With the 9 inch swap I needed to relocate my speed sensor and stumbled on a solution on the internet. I bought an industrial sprocket, took it to my machinist and had him punch 4 holes in it at 1.75 inches from center so it would bolt up between my drive line and transfer case. The ID on the sprocket was 2 inches so it fit perfectly over the centering dowel on the transfer case. I also used a 2 inch piece of pipe to extend the centering dowel into the drive line. I then built a small bracket to mount off the transfer case to run my speed sensor up close to sprocket. If anyone is using this for reference on how to set up something similar, you don't need the teeth count on the sprocket to be perfect but I found less teeth is better. I will explain this near the end of the post. I found out through trial and error using a sprocket with 40 teeth running 4.88s and 35s. With 40 teeth I found that the truck thought I was going 95mph when I was only going 60 and I was hitting the speed limiter or governor. Switching to a 30 tooth sprocket helped take care of that problem. I cut the wiring to the sensor over the differential and found the twisted red green pair inside the drivers side frame, and reattached my sensor from there to the t case bracket. Finally to finish setting up my speedo I attached a Dakota digital sgi5e speedometer "recalibrator" behind my instrument cluster to the gray black wire. Using a GPS speedometer I was able to recalibrate my speed nearly spot on. Hope this helps if anyone is looking for a way to get their speedo back after an axle swap. Pictures to follow

 

 

Also added in my glowshift gauges and autometer pillar pods cause i was having issues with the stupid stock "go, no go" gauge