I have some old pictures to find of what it took to get this thing back to one piece and road worthyish. I believe I have a post on the ranger station and one of OffroadOhio. Its been a while since I have logged in, I had to upload a picture of the board telling me how long ago.
I bought it from some people who had tried to lift it with landscape timber pieces. They used square ubolts and when bouncing around the axle slid back and rotated breaking the springs and driveshaft. I spent some time locating the 84-85 driveshaft and purchasing explorer springs to put it all back together.
The reason it needed lifted to begin with was the negative lift it got from the body mounts rusting through the frame. The body was sitting on the frame in the rear. I fixed that buy welding very large washers to each damaged mount and installing new poly body mounts. I cut 3" lift blocks in half to give a 1.5" lift to help with future engine plans.
The rear has explorer springs, STX blocks and lift shackles. The shocks are some cheap ones I found off rockauto that were the right length for the lift. I believe off an 05 f150 4x4 rear.
The front has 4" ranger lift coils and drop brackets. I have the true 4" drop pitman arm with this setup currently. The radius arms I extended myself by moving the stock bracket back. Having a c5 and the in frame transmission crossmember this was easy.
The engine is durasparked with a standard 2150 carb. Runs very well. When I initially got it running before the swap I found the feedback carb computer was dead and the TFI was running at the stock 8* base timing only. Thats what prompted the duraspark swap.
This thing has been sitting in my garage for nearly 4 years incomplete. Recently I grew tired of it sitting there and started spending time putting it back together. All brake component are new, u joints and seals as well.
The tires are some $100 33x12.50 General Grabbers that I bought to get it mobile.
My next steps are to put the interior back together. The door panels are a hodge podge mismatch of 1st and second gen stuff. I have all the parts to convert it to the 2nd gen panels and probably will do that as I am having a hard time finding good 1st gen panels that are blue. I have ordered an ACC rubber floor mat and in preparation for that did the Peal&Seal all over the floor. While I didn't do it for sound it did take care of the super hot floor I had.
I bought it from some people who had tried to lift it with landscape timber pieces. They used square ubolts and when bouncing around the axle slid back and rotated breaking the springs and driveshaft. I spent some time locating the 84-85 driveshaft and purchasing explorer springs to put it all back together.
The reason it needed lifted to begin with was the negative lift it got from the body mounts rusting through the frame. The body was sitting on the frame in the rear. I fixed that buy welding very large washers to each damaged mount and installing new poly body mounts. I cut 3" lift blocks in half to give a 1.5" lift to help with future engine plans.
The rear has explorer springs, STX blocks and lift shackles. The shocks are some cheap ones I found off rockauto that were the right length for the lift. I believe off an 05 f150 4x4 rear.
The front has 4" ranger lift coils and drop brackets. I have the true 4" drop pitman arm with this setup currently. The radius arms I extended myself by moving the stock bracket back. Having a c5 and the in frame transmission crossmember this was easy.
The engine is durasparked with a standard 2150 carb. Runs very well. When I initially got it running before the swap I found the feedback carb computer was dead and the TFI was running at the stock 8* base timing only. Thats what prompted the duraspark swap.
This thing has been sitting in my garage for nearly 4 years incomplete. Recently I grew tired of it sitting there and started spending time putting it back together. All brake component are new, u joints and seals as well.
The tires are some $100 33x12.50 General Grabbers that I bought to get it mobile.
My next steps are to put the interior back together. The door panels are a hodge podge mismatch of 1st and second gen stuff. I have all the parts to convert it to the 2nd gen panels and probably will do that as I am having a hard time finding good 1st gen panels that are blue. I have ordered an ACC rubber floor mat and in preparation for that did the Peal&Seal all over the floor. While I didn't do it for sound it did take care of the super hot floor I had.
