I have a 93 ford ranger that i stripped down to the bare frame. I am going to sand blast and paint the frame to stop any rust. Upon rebuild i am installing a dana 44 into the front. I dont want a huge lifted truck but i want it to flex to the max. Is there anything special to this beside putting the coil buckets as high as you can? i am planning on using the bronco graveyard 4" superflex coils and dont have any clue what to use for shocks. i am going to use the stock radius arms and beef them up some and add johnny joints or some kind of joint that is similar to it with DOM tube welded onto the original threaded shaft. Along with a solid axle i am going to upgrade the engine to a 302 or depending on the availability a 351 cause everyone loves horse power!
Question i have:
1.What is the best way to have a good flexing truck but still has a low center of gravity.
2. What shocks will offer the best articulation in both directions that aren't to pricey.

This is my first project and am not to experienced in this stuff. I am in college and dont have tons of money. I want to do this right but cant afford the best right now. I did strip the entire truck myself (with the exception of some heavy lifting) and am planning on doing most the work myself so i am open to any suggestions and ideas. This is open to anything since i am working with a bare frame right now.

Thanks everyone.

 

haha nice work! keep us posted!

 

Will do. these arent the most updated pictures. it literally just a frame with leaf springs sitting on the ground right now. My next step is to get it sand blasted and painted and have my dana 44 stripped down and painted also. i will have someone replace the bearings and seals due to the lack of tools on my part. After that i can start to reassemble

 

this is the current state of my truck....

 

holy crap. thats what im saying, if ya want it done right, than do the damn thang. look forward to the progression.

 

Ya it will take awhile tho. i can only work on it on weekends and when i have a job. internship just ended so i am looking for another job. I will keep you all posted tho.

 

please, im painting mine as we speak and cant wait to show it off, keep me posted brother, PLEASE!

 

wow, frame off on a 93. that's not something you see everyday.
please don't put those stupid hood scoops back on or that visor or the racer back. just too tacky. k.i.s.s. my friend. keep it simple...

 

those rear shackle mounts look new haha. gonna be a sweet build. probably take a while though with no money and limited time, but the end result will be nice!

 

ya the shackles are new. was going to take the bed off awhile ago and realized my leafs were sitting on the bed. i have no idea how long it had been like that.

 

the visor and racer back is off for good. i never removed the scoops cause there would be holes in the hood and glue marks.

 

This is my new rear bumper that still needs to be painted. I designed it and my father and i welded it all together. I payed 50 bucks for the metal and made myself a heavy duty bumper capable of pretty much anything i throw at it. Tell me what you think of it.

 

nice work on the bumper. looks nice and strong

 

if you want it super flexy than link it instead of the radius arms,
but depending on the year the wedges may be cast in to the tubes, instead of weld on, so you cant cut them off
if you are going to use the radius arms extending them helps with flex and ride smoothness,
and like you said puting a joint on the frame end instead of bushings helps also
as far as best shocks and springs you could convert it to coilovers

 

how're you gonna mount up the bumper? i was thinking of doing something similar for my truck and don't know exactly how to go about that.

 

we are just going to line it up and mark the holes that are already one the fame and drill it out of the bumper then bolt it on. It probably would be a good idea to weld a plate on to the fame to get it some strength. but we will see. as of now the frame will break before the bumper will.

 

for now im not going to link it. once i get all of my own tools such at welders, torches and my own garage i will make drastic upgrades to the truck. i do believe i can cut the wedges off but that will come later. I am going to be extending the arms some, i haven't decided how much yet. I will probably end up converting to coils in the future as part of my drastic upgrades. i eventually want a truggy type truck.

 

I was Lucky this weekend and found a 302 engine and a 9 in. rear axle all in one. i think i only have to pay about 150 for everything. the engine runs good. they are out of a 82 or 83 ford van. I still need a manual transmission tho. any suggestions? and will they all mount to my stock transfer case?

 

a zf tranny would be a great tranny but any manual you find the shifter is going to be really far forward through the floor.


the only tranny that is damn near perfect is the 5 speed from behind the f150s with the 4.2L but good luck finding one of them in a 4wd

 

here are some better pictures of my bumper and where its going to be mounted.

 

What vehicles have the zf? It seems like allot of people like the borg warner t-5, anything wrong with the t-5? And with the shifter you can always make a custom shift stick and cut the floor however i need.

 

This is a set of rims and tires i got for using on the road. I will be painting them black.



I still need some rims for my off road tires.

 

looking good.. thow id be more worried bout the frame than the bumper! haha

looks nice keep it up!

 

Im sure the frame will hold up. Unless someone jurks really hard on it with a chane or something it will be ok. I use stretchy straps when retreaving it anyways so everything should be alright.

 

The T5 is a nice trans, but not for 4WD. They are hard to find with the transfer case adapter since they only came in Jeeps and some S10's. Plus from everything I have read the 4WD version are Non-World Class which makes there power capacity very low. Advance adapters used to make a conversion for a World Class T5 from a mustang but that is long out of production.