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pocket-rocket
New Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2008
- Messages
- 476
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 0
- Location
- Elkhart, Indiana
- Vehicle Year
- 1994
- Make / Model
- Ford
- Engine Size
- 4 cyl.
- Transmission
- Manual
It's been some time since I was "active" on this board, but with the arrival of some new shoes on my truck, the passion has been reignited. I doubt anyone here remembers me, but using a pic from my original intro thread might help to show I'm not totally new here:
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29142
I did have a bunch already typed up, but I don't feel like retyping it since I lost it when I bumped the back button on my mouse...
At any rate, I got tired of falling almost all of the way into pot holes around here from the pitiful tire size previously on my truck to the point where I needed a GPS to find my way out so I started looking around on the net to remedy the horrible wheel and tire to wheel well ratio.
Three weeks ago, I started with this, a humble 94 Ranger with 205/70 on 14" deer hoofs. Normally the truck sat slightly lower thanks to old springs, but I had started jacking the thing up before deciding to take a before pic, so I let it back down:
After the 2" $40 leveling kit for an F350 that said it would fit my truck. I went this route instead of the tech library route because of not having the energy to run around to track everything down, especially the bolt for the radius arm (this kit came with stud extenders).:
My wife didn't see the point in me doing all of this considering I was hoping to buy an '01-03 ext. cab 4x4 Ranger next spring and give this truck to my nephew, but realistically I know what my credit score is like. 2 Fridays ago I ordered 4 black Cragar Soft 8's, 15x8, 4" backspace and 2 sets of center caps from Summit ($58.32 each, free shipping for all of it). Reason for the 2 sets of caps is the black Cragar center caps had an expected ship date of the 2nd week in December and I wasn't going to put them on without center caps, so $3.60 each it was for a set of Black Rock caps. Monday afternoon when I got home from work they were on the door step, so big kudos to the people at Summit!
This past Friday I got off of work early so I tried to beat the after work rush to the Tire Rack in South Bend, but it was too late. Apparently, according to the inventory manager, the last two weeks have been a mad house after the snow fall in Buffalo, NY. Now we don't get that kind of snow, but we do get a fair amount here. I paid for my tires at 11:15am and was informed I had a 5-6 hour wait so I came home, showered, played a couple hours of CoD AW with some friends and headed back out. I ended up pulling into the install bay, giving the bay manager my odo reading and he started going over my purchase order. "31x10.5 15" General Grabber AT2.. are those going to fit in there?" I assured him I had made no less than 100 measurements/double checks before buying anything and had done a test fit of the wheels. I didn't leave Tire Rack until 9pm that night, but it was all worth it when I look out the window to see my truck...
Even with the rust and only being 2WD, it looks awesome to me. I like how now it's about an inch to an inch and a half higher than my wife's 98 Mountaineer 5.0 AWD.
But, what I do not like the tire to wheel well clearance, so my next purchase is going to be either a 4" or 5" lift. I'm pretty sure it's going to be the 5.5" though. When that happens, those leveling spacers in the front are coming out, I do not like the way the springs sit on them. Also I'm moving to the 95-97 front spindles because my current spindles/brake caliper brackets have taken a tremendous beating to the point where the inside pads no longer sit snug causing them to grab harder than intended at times.
Since my last round of activity on the board the truck has almost hit 235k miles, I've removed the stupid low trans crossmember and installed one of the earlier ones that sits higher and does not use bushings. I've also replaced the half rusted core support, changed all of the dry rotted cab bushings out for poly units, changed both front turn signals and got tired of sanding the old headlights to be able to see in the dark (paid ~$75 shipped for Depot brand headlights and not sure what brand turn signals on Amazon using my prime subscription), put a basic tonneau cover on the bed, built 2 small boxes for some old 10" subs I had around here and put them behind the seats and powered them with an old 250? watt MTX amp that lives under the passenger seat, swapped out the old Pioneer CD deck with burned out bulbs for a plain Kenwood with iPod in and changed the door and rear speakers for some coaxials out of my parts car.
Headlights:
As for my car that a couple people had commented on liking in my first intro thread, the cruel Texas sun had its way with the paint and one of my friends works for a company called Newmar painting some of their $1m motorhomes offered to paint it.
Before:
Heading off to the paint booth:
After (yes, my garage is a mess...)
Since those pics, the car has been wet sanded smooth and I've dismantled it. Wrong order, I know, but because of time and money that's the way I've had to do it and it now sits like this:
It should be back on the road this spring with some new 18" TSW Nurburgring wheels and a built/forged engine with hopefully some positive intake pressure.
Anyways, my fingers are cramping and I've babbled long enough thanks to the copious amounts of energy drinks/coffee at work today. Thanks for reading/looking.
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=29142
I did have a bunch already typed up, but I don't feel like retyping it since I lost it when I bumped the back button on my mouse...
At any rate, I got tired of falling almost all of the way into pot holes around here from the pitiful tire size previously on my truck to the point where I needed a GPS to find my way out so I started looking around on the net to remedy the horrible wheel and tire to wheel well ratio.
Three weeks ago, I started with this, a humble 94 Ranger with 205/70 on 14" deer hoofs. Normally the truck sat slightly lower thanks to old springs, but I had started jacking the thing up before deciding to take a before pic, so I let it back down:
After the 2" $40 leveling kit for an F350 that said it would fit my truck. I went this route instead of the tech library route because of not having the energy to run around to track everything down, especially the bolt for the radius arm (this kit came with stud extenders).:
My wife didn't see the point in me doing all of this considering I was hoping to buy an '01-03 ext. cab 4x4 Ranger next spring and give this truck to my nephew, but realistically I know what my credit score is like. 2 Fridays ago I ordered 4 black Cragar Soft 8's, 15x8, 4" backspace and 2 sets of center caps from Summit ($58.32 each, free shipping for all of it). Reason for the 2 sets of caps is the black Cragar center caps had an expected ship date of the 2nd week in December and I wasn't going to put them on without center caps, so $3.60 each it was for a set of Black Rock caps. Monday afternoon when I got home from work they were on the door step, so big kudos to the people at Summit!
This past Friday I got off of work early so I tried to beat the after work rush to the Tire Rack in South Bend, but it was too late. Apparently, according to the inventory manager, the last two weeks have been a mad house after the snow fall in Buffalo, NY. Now we don't get that kind of snow, but we do get a fair amount here. I paid for my tires at 11:15am and was informed I had a 5-6 hour wait so I came home, showered, played a couple hours of CoD AW with some friends and headed back out. I ended up pulling into the install bay, giving the bay manager my odo reading and he started going over my purchase order. "31x10.5 15" General Grabber AT2.. are those going to fit in there?" I assured him I had made no less than 100 measurements/double checks before buying anything and had done a test fit of the wheels. I didn't leave Tire Rack until 9pm that night, but it was all worth it when I look out the window to see my truck...
Even with the rust and only being 2WD, it looks awesome to me. I like how now it's about an inch to an inch and a half higher than my wife's 98 Mountaineer 5.0 AWD.
But, what I do not like the tire to wheel well clearance, so my next purchase is going to be either a 4" or 5" lift. I'm pretty sure it's going to be the 5.5" though. When that happens, those leveling spacers in the front are coming out, I do not like the way the springs sit on them. Also I'm moving to the 95-97 front spindles because my current spindles/brake caliper brackets have taken a tremendous beating to the point where the inside pads no longer sit snug causing them to grab harder than intended at times.
Since my last round of activity on the board the truck has almost hit 235k miles, I've removed the stupid low trans crossmember and installed one of the earlier ones that sits higher and does not use bushings. I've also replaced the half rusted core support, changed all of the dry rotted cab bushings out for poly units, changed both front turn signals and got tired of sanding the old headlights to be able to see in the dark (paid ~$75 shipped for Depot brand headlights and not sure what brand turn signals on Amazon using my prime subscription), put a basic tonneau cover on the bed, built 2 small boxes for some old 10" subs I had around here and put them behind the seats and powered them with an old 250? watt MTX amp that lives under the passenger seat, swapped out the old Pioneer CD deck with burned out bulbs for a plain Kenwood with iPod in and changed the door and rear speakers for some coaxials out of my parts car.
Headlights:
As for my car that a couple people had commented on liking in my first intro thread, the cruel Texas sun had its way with the paint and one of my friends works for a company called Newmar painting some of their $1m motorhomes offered to paint it.
Before:
Heading off to the paint booth:
After (yes, my garage is a mess...)
Since those pics, the car has been wet sanded smooth and I've dismantled it. Wrong order, I know, but because of time and money that's the way I've had to do it and it now sits like this:
It should be back on the road this spring with some new 18" TSW Nurburgring wheels and a built/forged engine with hopefully some positive intake pressure.
Anyways, my fingers are cramping and I've babbled long enough thanks to the copious amounts of energy drinks/coffee at work today. Thanks for reading/looking.
Last edited:
