1991 Trail Ranger

[ChrisRWG]

Well after many years of not updating forums, I have decided to start a new thread to document my actions and build going forward. After Photobucket trashed the two build threads that I had and forums seemingly died, I transitioned my content to Instagram (@gruneilius) and YouTube (Reckless Wrench Garage). I try to put tech into my videos when I can, but I like to use my videos more as inspiration and to motivate others to take the plunge and not be afraid to build their shit. The issue with videos is that they do not hold a good tech repository for searching and they are difficult to find exactly what you are looking for.

As I lurked here and saw other members return whose threads inspired my build and tech start flowing, I knew I needed to return.


First, we need to rewind back to 2006. I was 17 years old in my senior year of high school making $9 an hour and needed some wheels. My best friend had a Bronco II that I liked but I wanted a truck and I found a pretty mint 1991 STX Ranger on craigslist for $1500. It was a 4.0l, 5 spd 4x4 owned by a 1 armed lady. She had a court order to sell it because she got pulled over for a traffic infraction and the cop noticed she had a restricted license and shouldn't be driving a stick. I didn't know how to drive a stick at the time but dammit I knew I was going to learn. I had zero mechanical skills at the time, but I knew I wanted to learn that too and the truck was a perfect opportunity. I put a 2-inch body lift on it, some 31s, and a rear lock rite and thought I was pretty badass.

A year or so after high school I joined the Air Force and didn't touch my truck for about 10 months until I got it driven out to me in Little Rock, AR where I was living. At that point, I lived in a dorm (barracks) and had no tools, no garage, and no storage. I had to get creative and store my parts at various friend's houses and rent garage space and tools from the base hobby shop. This was my only means of transportation so I would frequently do weekend thrash sessions working on this to drive it again on Monday to work. I got some extended radius arms from a TRS forum member and some 2.5'' James Duff lift parts. I put that stuff on, built an explorer 8.8 with 4.56 gears and a Detroit, and locked my front dana 35 as well. I had some 34 inch LTBS from craigslist that I rocked for a few months until I deployed for 6 months and came back to the most horrible flat spots ever and got some new 33 inch BFGs which really were a tall 31 🙄

 

[YotaAtieToo]

Awesome. I've always wanted that exact truck.

I really hope you say you're going to put a D50TTB/10.25" under it.

 

[ChrisRWG]

Growing up in Washington, the concept of an offroad park was weird to me, but that is really all that there was in Arkansas. Superlift ORV park was about 1 hour away from me and that is where I got indoctrinated by rock crawling. I really only went camping and exploring in Washington, but once I saw what some purpose-built vehicles were driving up, I was hooked and quickly started planning how to evolve my truck further.

I finally moved out of the dorms and had a small garage and picked up a welder that I had not idea how to use. I started to learn by building a tire gate and some other small projects.

We are now right around 2011-2012 and I finally start getting some tools and a little bit of knowledge and I want to solid axle swap my truck. I find a 76 F100 dana 44 that is blown apart in a shed from a forgotten rebuild and get it for $100 as a project for myself to learn how to put together an axle. I also started hoarding parts for a DD machine doubler and then I got tasked to deploy again so no progress got made for quite some time. Once I return I bought James Duff radius arms, Ranger coil buckets, and their track bar bracket to do my solid axle swap. At the time, it was my biggest mechanical undertaking but in hindsight, I could probably complete a SAS on a Ranger with those parts in a weekend now. I also got my DD machine doubler put in and it changed my life ever since.

 

[ChrisRWG]

Shortly after going to 37s and having a doubler I ruined my bed at the offroad park and scrapped it except for the tailgate. I picked up a tube bender and with no real plan, I started making a tube bed. It was all 1.75 .120 DOM and I used plastic from circle track cars for the sides. I clearly didn't understand the concept of nodes, but it was my first tube project and I was happy with it 😅. I also built some sliders and a bumper in this time frame at some point. Going into 2013 I got stationed at Kirtland AFB, in Albuquerque NM. Now there are not any offroad parks here, but the open desert and rocks are amazing, and that is what started pushing me to the next phase of my build.

 

[ChrisRWG]

Awesome. I've always wanted that exact truck.

I really hope you say you're going to put a D50TTB/10.25" under it.

spoiler alert, prepare to be disappointed 🤣

I am considering a TTB build, but not on this truck now.

 

['84 Bronco II]

Awesome to see you putting up a build thread on here

I think it is cool to see the progression since the first time I had seen your truck it was looking like the last set of pictures.

 

[posford]

Glad to see this here. The pictures of it on 34 LTBs is what convinced me to do what I did early on with my Ranger

 

[ChrisRWG]

So after experiencing open desert wheeling and wanting more power and cool V8 noises, I started my V8 swap. When I initially starting gathering parts for the swap I had just moved to Albuquerque and had an apartment and a storage unit until I got my bearings and found a house to rent. The parts hoarding and assembling the short block was done in a storage unit right outside my apartment. Somehow I managed to not get complaints from the apartment residents that lived above my storage unit 😂.

I wanted to keep my Ford a Ford as much as possible. Initially, I wanted a 302 since that was what most of the other Ranger folk did and it had a lower deck height, but a 351W kind of fell into my lap.

I started with a 1989 Bronco with a 351W that was getting parted out. A friend of mine needed the transmission, transfer case and rear axle, so I got the motor from the deal. I was planning to just pull the engine and throw some gaskets at it, but when I dropped the oil pan there was quite a bit of crud. We then pulled the heads and found that someone previously did a head gasket job and installed the head gaskets backward closing the water jackets on the back of the block, so cylinders 4 and 8 were pretty toast. I have no pictures of this part of the build, but I blew the engine apart and sent it to the machine shop for a .030 bore, polish the crank, new bearings etc. I put a comp cams extreme 4x4 cam in, roller tip magnum rockers, some +1 cc pistons, and I gasket matched the heads. I picked up a Lighting GT40 lower intake (this was a PITA to find) and an Explorer GT40 upper intake. The efi is ran on a painless wiring harness and a SCT chip.

 

[ChrisRWG]

After being in Albuquerque for about 8 months I moved into a house with a garage and immediately started doing the engine swap. I made my own solid engine mounts by boxing in some adjustable 302/351W plates and bolting those to the factory cross-member. I went with solid mounts because previously with the 4.0l and doubler I had to chain the motor down to keep it from destructing the factory mounts.

I found a built C4 with a reverse manual valve body and I had a dana 300 that I traded some stuff for. I flipped the dana 300 and added a doubler from behemoth drivetrain. I also upgraded the dana 300 to 31 spline front and rear outputs. In hindsight, I wish of would have just bought an atlas (spoiler alert, I get an atlas a couple years later).

I offset the engine slightly to the passenger side for header clearance next to the steering shaft and I built my own headers from a big DIY header kit. When I first did the swap I did dual 3 inch exhaust and flowmaster mufflers. The major modifications I had to make to the truck was trimming and welding the firewall/trans tunnel pinch weld, and cutting clearance into my factory heater box. The engine was shoved as far back and as low as possible to the factory cross-member.

 

[Slander]

Sweet!! I dig your youtube channel!

 

[ChrisRWG]

Sweet!! I dig your youtube channel!

Thanks for watching! I hopefully will be making more videos again soon.

 

[ChrisRWG]

So once I finished my V8 swap I kept the truck like that for a couple of years. I dynoed the truck with the C4, doubler setup, and 4.56 gears and the motor came out to around 330 hp, 390 tq at the crank. Nothing impressive, but a good upgrade over the 4.0 and it was pretty fun to drive. I wheeled it quite a bit local here in New Mexico with that configuration. Eventually, I broke the input shaft and pump housing on the C4 and had to get it rebuilt, then I sold it. I also had issues with the doubler popping into neutral and I had to change the internals in that thing which sucked to do and no matter what it would always want to pop out on downhill descents which was terrifying. It got to the point where I hated only having the 3 speeds of the C4 on the street so I swapped in a ZF5 from an F250. It's a huge transmission and if anyone is planning to put one their RBV be prepared to cut significant amounts of the trans tunnel and firewall. I had to redo my headers and exhaust to clear the ZF5, so I scrapped my homemade headers and found that Hedman 88400 headers cleared the frame rails and bell housing nicely. I made a Y pipe and redid my exhaust to 2.5'' from the collectors, 3'' at the Y and dumps behind the cab.

 

[ChrisRWG]

Around 2017 my friends and I wanted to go up to Moab and wheel for a week. To get ready for the trip my wife insisted that I put some type of cage on the truck (she's much smarter than me). I ordered 120 feet of 1.75 DOM and got to work. I decided to do an exo cage and took a lot of inspiration from WHITE RHINO in my design. I tried to keep it as low profile and tight to the body as I could.

During my Moab preps, I inboarded my leaf springs and took my wheelbase from 125'' down to 118''. I used brackets from ruffstuff and it was pretty simple, nothing fancy here. I sold the 8.8 and cobbled together an F100 9 inch. Grizzly locker, strange dropout, 4.56 gears, and 35 spline Moser chromo shafts. The final thing I needed to change before driving this pile to Utah and back was the transfer case. I didn't want to chance the behemoth doubler setup popping out of gear and me careening off 400 foot cliff, so I bit the bullet and got an Atlas 4.3.

Two of the best upgrades that I ever did on this truck was putting the wheelbase to 118'' and getting that atlas. The wheelbase makes maneuvering this on the trails very nice and it climbs and descends so nice 👌 The atlas is just great to have the peace of mind, although sometimes I admittedly miss the gear choices of a doubler.

 

[ChrisRWG]

Going to Moab for that first trip in 2017 was some type of awakening for me. It was kind of like back when I first went to an offroad park and saw rock crawling for the first time. I drove my truck about 450 miles from my house to Moab and stayed there for a week wheeling. It was definitely an entirely different wheeling experience from what I have done before. The traction was weird to get used to, but the scale of the canyons and drop-offs took the cake. My truck performed great the whole week, the only issue I had was popping a hub on the "Trifecta" trail when I was bumping a ledge. Driving home felt sketchy after beating on the truck for a week, but it made it back without any issues.

 

[Thatg9659]

Man that third pic reminds me of pat aka Totalled He had a sweet v8 B2 did you wheel or know him when in washington?

I used to tag every ferd that came in the shop when I did that work.

 

[ChrisRWG]

Man that third pic reminds me of pat aka Totalled He had a sweet v8 B2 did you wheel or know him when in washington?

I used to tag every ferd that came in the shop when I did that work.

I knew Pat and his B2 from the forums but I didn't get a chance to meet up with him before I shipped out of washington.

 

['84 Bronco II]

I am impressed how low you were able to sink that 351 in there. The 5.0L with a truck intake was a fairly tight fit in my old beater Bronco II even with a 3" body lift.

I know you've completely changed your rear suspension since these last pictures you've posted, but why did you inboard your leaf springs? Trying to get more flex out of the leaves you already had? Did you notice much of a change in off-camber stability?

 

[ChrisRWG]

I am impressed how low you were able to sink that 351 in there. The 5.0L with a truck intake was a fairly tight fit in my old beater Bronco II even with a 3" body lift.

I know you've completely changed your rear suspension since these last pictures you've posted, but why did you inboard your leaf springs? Trying to get more flex out of the leaves you already had? Did you notice much of a change in off-camber stability?

I think the main reason was so I could shrink the wheelbase down to 118". If I kept them mounted to the frame I would have had to cut out the rear cab mount, my slider mount and a large chunk of the crossmember brace that is incorporated into the cab mount. At the time I was building for the trip, it was quicker to mount under the frame rail.
Those springs were some skyjackers and they performed pretty awful, so I did want to inboard them to get more leverage. I didn't notice any change in offcamber stability to my recollection.
If I built a leaf setup again I would definitely spec a better pack and try to re-engineer the cab mount.

 

[rattle_snake]

Nice rig and build progression. What is next? Bigger tires, more power?

 

[ChrisRWG]

Nice rig and build progression. What is next? Bigger tires, more power?

That is my plan. I have been running 37s for a long time and I am considering going to 40s. I really want to pull the motor and make it a 408 and slap on some heads that will let it breathe.

 

[ChrisRWG]

At this point in my build process, I started taking a lot fewer pictures and I recorded everything in video format. If there is a part of my project you want to see more of, there is probably a video of it on my youtube channel.

After I got back from Moab I wanted to build a rear 4 link and get some coilovers. I found some brand new 16'' king 2.5 coilovers on the market and picked those up, the guy also sold me a bunch of link brackets he was planning to use. I put a universal truss from barnes4wd on the rear axle, boxed my frame as best as I could without pulling the motor and cab, and built my 4 link suspension. After testing and tuning I ended up with 100/150 lb coil springs, this thing was pretty light in the backend. Once I did the rear 4 link, I removed the coil springs upfront, added 14'' 2.0 coilovers, but all of the core support off, and build a tube frontend.

 

[ChrisRWG]

After linking the rear and doing the front coilovers I just wheeled it (went to Moab again) and continued to make small changes and improvements here and there.
My YouTube channel starting taking off and that enabled me to be able to go to a few events like WE Rock and KoH as media and really that kept driving me to keep building and trying new things on my truck. I found a spidertrax axle with the same WMS and ultimate knuckles that I bought and stored for a year until I was ready to 3 link the front and ditch the radius arms.

 

[ChrisRWG]

After collecting parts for over a year I was ready to build the 609 and 3 link up front. For the axle, I found a used older spidertrax housing and ultimate knuckles that was already tabbed out. It needed hardware, new uniballs, and a cleanup. I built a Tru Hi-9 center section with 5.13 gears and a Yukon Grizzly locker. The axle shafts are also Yukon 35 spline chromos, Branik cut the custom inner shafts for me. I used the Yukon hardcore u-joints, some new-in-box spidertrax superduty unit bearings, and the hardcore locking hubs to build it out. For brakes, I went with a spidertrax rotor, trail gear brake hat (spidertrax doesn't support the older style unit bearings anymore I guess), and Wilwood Dynalite calipers.

The three-link was fairly simple. I sold my James duff Trac bar bracket and used a universal DIY bracket on the frame. In the teardown, I discovered that my frame was folding/cracking where my bump stop mounted on the passenger side, so I ended up plating the frame up front too, which I should have done years ago.

50 degrees of steering angle looks awesome! I don't have axle shafts that support this much steering angle or lower links that do either. One thing I am thinking about doing as a future upgrade is having the axle shaft ears milled out for steering and moving the frame side lower link mounts inboard to allow me to take advantage of that steering angle. I did weigh all of the axle components and the total weight including brakes is about 350 lbs

 

[ChrisRWG]

The next project I undertook was building my own set of trailing arms and adding bypass shocks. I bought cut files from diyoffroad.com and had a lot of fun building them. They are 39 inches long so they swapped right in where my lower links were. I added some tube work to the rear and built new upper shock mounts to hold the coilover and bypass. I am still using a 16 inch coilover, but a 14 inch would be ideal because there are 2 inches of travel that I am not using on the coilover due to the motion ratio of the trailing arm. In the middle of this project, I changed my old 22-gallon cell to a 32-gallon cell and I built a tire basket thing to hold my spare and move more weight rearward. A friend of mine sold me some lightly used bilstein 3.0 4 tube bypass shocks for a great deal. When it was all put back together I ended up strapping the rear at 20 inches of travel. I have about 9 inches of up travel from ride height.

 

[Will Scarlet]

At this point in my build process, I started taking a lot fewer pictures and I recorded everything in video format. If there is a part of my project you want to see more of, there is probably a video of it on my youtube channel.

So why not embed the video's here on your thread in addition with your pics?

 

[arse_sidewards]

So why not embed the video's here on your thread in addition with your pics?

Because that wouldn't drive up his youtube views

 

[Will Scarlet]

Because that wouldn't drive up his youtube views

Not true:
https://www.alliedpixel.com/2019/09/do-embedded-youtube-videos-add-to-the-view-count/

And that's just one link that dispels that myth.

 

[ChrisRWG]

So why not embed the video's here on your thread in addition with your pics?

Well one reason is that I started making videos 3 years ago and I didn't really know what I was doing, so I am not happy with the quality of the older stuff. I have spent a lot of time improving the media aspect of it, so I will probably post the more recent videos that are my favorites.

Because that wouldn't drive up his youtube views

Yeah, except they do drive up my views...:rolleyes:
I do not want to be one of those guys that posts crap everywhere "look at my new video"

 

[WHITE RHINO]

Looking good

 

[Arickvan]

oh shit i didnt know the reckless wrench was on here