Macneil87
98 Ford Ranger 1/2 ton SAS and ‘15 CTD
Wicked plow idea! Nice shop too!
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Opiebennett
XJ_Ranger
I hadn't seen your build previously. Thanks for taking the time to copy it over here.
P93Suafilo
New member
- Joined
- Feb 17, 2022
- Member Number
- 4843
- Messages
- 4
I've read your rangerstation build thread probably too many times. It really has inspired my RBV addiction. Thanks for sharing it.
fordpickupman
Bacon Creek Metal
I followed you on Pirate. But it was great to read the summary and see that it's still a project.
Bray D
Well-known member
Thanks for chiming in guys. Glad to have you along for the ride.
We headed back over to the Badlands for a day trip last Sunday. A couple guys were arriving a bit later in the morning, so a few of us decided to do a quick loop before the rest of the group arrived.
Storms rolled through earlier in the week which left a sheet of ice covered by a couple inches of snow. Some portions of trail were crazy slick. I was following DMANbluesfreak, who had just slid down a big hill. Assuming my truck would follow in his tracks, I pointed the nose downhill and initiated the slide.
My front end jumped out of the rut and I slid right into a massive tree about 3/4 of the way down the hill. All of the energy went through my driver side front corner. Broke the bumper (one broken weld, one broken tube), pushed the fender back, and the tree caught the tire shearing my high steer arm right off of the knuckle.
Luckily I never cut the steering arms off of my knuckles. DMAN hooked me up with a long shank TRE that we ran to the knuckle, did a tape measure alignment in the parking lot, and I drove it home.
The drive home was uneventful, thankfully. I've already been junkyard hunting and started stripping it down last night. Luckily the inner fender is still intact.
My core support has been in bad shape for a while and I planned to replace that soon anyways. I already have a fresh one in the shop. I'll pick up a pair of fenders (without holes for flares), a header panel, and turn signals then I should be ready to rock again. Half of the bumper will need rebuilt too, of course.
Any advice for color matching / painting panels? Looks like the local yard has a clean tan Ranger that I can steal all of these parts from.
We headed back over to the Badlands for a day trip last Sunday. A couple guys were arriving a bit later in the morning, so a few of us decided to do a quick loop before the rest of the group arrived.
Storms rolled through earlier in the week which left a sheet of ice covered by a couple inches of snow. Some portions of trail were crazy slick. I was following DMANbluesfreak, who had just slid down a big hill. Assuming my truck would follow in his tracks, I pointed the nose downhill and initiated the slide.
My front end jumped out of the rut and I slid right into a massive tree about 3/4 of the way down the hill. All of the energy went through my driver side front corner. Broke the bumper (one broken weld, one broken tube), pushed the fender back, and the tree caught the tire shearing my high steer arm right off of the knuckle.
Luckily I never cut the steering arms off of my knuckles. DMAN hooked me up with a long shank TRE that we ran to the knuckle, did a tape measure alignment in the parking lot, and I drove it home.
The drive home was uneventful, thankfully. I've already been junkyard hunting and started stripping it down last night. Luckily the inner fender is still intact.
My core support has been in bad shape for a while and I planned to replace that soon anyways. I already have a fresh one in the shop. I'll pick up a pair of fenders (without holes for flares), a header panel, and turn signals then I should be ready to rock again. Half of the bumper will need rebuilt too, of course.
Any advice for color matching / painting panels? Looks like the local yard has a clean tan Ranger that I can steal all of these parts from.
arse_sidewards
Red Skull Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Member Number
- 71
- Messages
- 8,537
Should have build a better bumper. 
DMANbluesfreak
Trailers are for Boats
I have a feeling that's on the to-do list, as well.Should have build a better bumper.
Bray D
Well-known member
I decided to nix the idea of painting off-color panels and spent my time hunting down color matched parts. It took a couple lengthy trips, but I was able to snag a header panel from a junkyard and a pair of fenders from a guy in a Ranger group. Total win.
With parts on hand, I dove in to the sheet metal work. I suspended everything bolted to the core support and cut the old one out. Spot weld cutter FTW.
Weld-through primed everything, clamped it up, and burned it in.
Bolted the core support to the frame with fresh bushings and sprayed everything with semi-gloss black. Then I re-built the bumper exactly the same as it was before.
Chopped the fenders and got them bolted up. Don't mind the black paint drip from the previous owner - it came off easy.
Then moved on to the steering stuff. Extracted the studs from the knuckle, cleaned up the mating surfaces, and threw it together with fresh studs.
Found out my passenger side TRE was bent as fawk from the hit, so I reamed a parts store joint and swapped that on. The tie rod is fresh with two new joints now.
Tape measure alignment.
Threw the lights on it, bolted up the grill / trim pieces, and it's back on the road.
The panel gaps aren't perfect and the hood hinges took a beating (the tree pushed the hood over a solid inch - I pushed it back by hand), but she'll ride. It's strange seeing it with amber turn signals again. My style of clear corners was discontinued years ago and I'm not sure I want to go with the 'crystal clear' lenses on the market right now. I'll be rocking it old school with the yella's for a while.
I have two more days to thrash. Heading south on Wednesday to leave some rubber on the rocks of Mason, TX over Memorial Day weekend.
With parts on hand, I dove in to the sheet metal work. I suspended everything bolted to the core support and cut the old one out. Spot weld cutter FTW.
Weld-through primed everything, clamped it up, and burned it in.
Bolted the core support to the frame with fresh bushings and sprayed everything with semi-gloss black. Then I re-built the bumper exactly the same as it was before.
Chopped the fenders and got them bolted up. Don't mind the black paint drip from the previous owner - it came off easy.
Then moved on to the steering stuff. Extracted the studs from the knuckle, cleaned up the mating surfaces, and threw it together with fresh studs.
Found out my passenger side TRE was bent as fawk from the hit, so I reamed a parts store joint and swapped that on. The tie rod is fresh with two new joints now.
Tape measure alignment.
Threw the lights on it, bolted up the grill / trim pieces, and it's back on the road.
The panel gaps aren't perfect and the hood hinges took a beating (the tree pushed the hood over a solid inch - I pushed it back by hand), but she'll ride. It's strange seeing it with amber turn signals again. My style of clear corners was discontinued years ago and I'm not sure I want to go with the 'crystal clear' lenses on the market right now. I'll be rocking it old school with the yella's for a while.
I have two more days to thrash. Heading south on Wednesday to leave some rubber on the rocks of Mason, TX over Memorial Day weekend.
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rattle_snake
Fuckwits
good luck on your trip coming up.
Given you sheared the steering arm off, maybe tying into the original knuckle hole below could prevent future failure. (tree or not)
Given you sheared the steering arm off, maybe tying into the original knuckle hole below could prevent future failure. (tree or not)
Bray D
Well-known member
That's a good thought, but unfortunately I have zero ackerman high steer arms so they don't line up with the OEM arms. This arrangement has been sufficient for the life of the build so far, I'll just have to keep from ramming trees
Turns out I needed 2+ days of thrashing to get the truck ready. I had a squeak from the rear end that I was struggling to diagnose. Swapped driveshafts. No change. Lifted the rear and isolated each wheel to try to narrow it down to a specific caliper. No change. That points to the diff. Really strange as it sounded very much like a chirping U joint.
Blew the rearend apart the night before I planned to leave. The crush sleeve must have been a little too crushed at some point as there was evidence of fretting between the sleeve, outer pinion nut, oil baffle, and yoke. Minimal clearance allowed all of those parts to slide against one another and squeal.
I also found my passenger side shaft properly fawked. Mounting flange was bent and the splines were twisted.
I was hoping to be on the road around 7a, but instead I ran around to multiple parts stores to track down what I needed. It got a new outer pinion bearing with race, yoke (old one had a bad seal groove), pinion seal, and wheel bearings with seals for both sides. Threw it all together with a fresh crush sleeve and my spare passenger side shaft (also a Dutchman). Greased the brakes and installed fresh guide pins/boots while I was at it. The rear is pretty fresh at this point.
Now pretty late in the day, I loaded up my camping gear and waited for a storm to pass before hitting the road. I left in the dark at 11p.
The road trip was flawless and I arrived at Escondido Draw at 11p the following night. We wheeled Escondido on Friday.
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Bray D
Well-known member
Escondido is a huge park with exceptional facilities. That said, we were eager to get over to Wolf Caves so we hit the road Friday afternoon and road tripped over there. We spent Friday night through Monday morning at WC.
Saturday was spent feeling out the park and getting the lay of the land. Their rating system is white, blue, green, yellow, red, purple. We spent most of the day cruising white (ranch road) and greens. I had to put my tires on a red just for kicks. Made it halfway through before I came to a boulder that my bumper wouldn't clear. The difficulty ramps up in a hurry at this place.
My panhard was clunking a bit and I noticed it was starting to spit the bushing out of it. Saturday evening we ran into Mason to try to find a replacement, but the only Napa in town was already closed. We got some kickass barbecue and called it a night.
Early the next morning we ran all the way to Fredericksburg for some more options. Autozone didn't stock it (I know the Energy Suspension part number). Oreilly was little help. Our last ditch effort was to go to Ace to see if we could cobble something together. They were closed on Sunday. Sitting there pondering our next move, I remembered I built my traction bar with those same bushings. Decided to cannibalize the traction bar for the bushing, swapped it into my panhard, and wheeled the rest of the weekend without a traction bar. Total win. Working on pavement in the shade was also nice. My buddy even had on board air with an impact.
We still ran a lot of greens that afternoon, but we hit a couple yellows as well. Even the yellows are no joke here.
We camped one more night, then ran down into Boerne on Monday. Checked out my buddy's new digs, hit a brewery, and grilled out / sat around for the rest of the night. It was awesome. Hit the road early Tuesday morning with plans to camp in OK that night, but a pop-up severe storm pushed me to pull another all nighter and I drove straight home. I pulled in the shop just before 7a on Wednesday morning.
The rush to get everything together before taking off and the long drive home made it pretty demanding, but the truck performed well and it was awesome to get out again after the tree incident earlier this year. This trip put almost 3000 miles on the rebuild and everything feels great.
Saturday was spent feeling out the park and getting the lay of the land. Their rating system is white, blue, green, yellow, red, purple. We spent most of the day cruising white (ranch road) and greens. I had to put my tires on a red just for kicks. Made it halfway through before I came to a boulder that my bumper wouldn't clear. The difficulty ramps up in a hurry at this place.
My panhard was clunking a bit and I noticed it was starting to spit the bushing out of it. Saturday evening we ran into Mason to try to find a replacement, but the only Napa in town was already closed. We got some kickass barbecue and called it a night.
Early the next morning we ran all the way to Fredericksburg for some more options. Autozone didn't stock it (I know the Energy Suspension part number). Oreilly was little help. Our last ditch effort was to go to Ace to see if we could cobble something together. They were closed on Sunday. Sitting there pondering our next move, I remembered I built my traction bar with those same bushings. Decided to cannibalize the traction bar for the bushing, swapped it into my panhard, and wheeled the rest of the weekend without a traction bar. Total win. Working on pavement in the shade was also nice. My buddy even had on board air with an impact.
We still ran a lot of greens that afternoon, but we hit a couple yellows as well. Even the yellows are no joke here.
We camped one more night, then ran down into Boerne on Monday. Checked out my buddy's new digs, hit a brewery, and grilled out / sat around for the rest of the night. It was awesome. Hit the road early Tuesday morning with plans to camp in OK that night, but a pop-up severe storm pushed me to pull another all nighter and I drove straight home. I pulled in the shop just before 7a on Wednesday morning.
The rush to get everything together before taking off and the long drive home made it pretty demanding, but the truck performed well and it was awesome to get out again after the tree incident earlier this year. This trip put almost 3000 miles on the rebuild and everything feels great.
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