TRS Magazine Ranger Build-Up 

A few months ago Jim Oaks sent out a request for ideas on a no-holds-barred Ranger build-up. Toward this end I decided to take a look at my truck and see what improvements would make it, for me, into the perfect vehicle.

First, lets look at the Ranger’s inherent qualities. It’s Twin Traction Beam (TTB) suspension with it’s long axle beams allows a respectable amount of wheel travel, even in stock form. I have measured 4” of down-travel on my stock truck, which is about twice the travel I measured on an IFS Nissan truck. The Ranger is compact which assists in its off-road maneuverability, but can also haul a decent sized payload with ease. For those desiring a little more performance, the Ranger is a fairly simple vehicle to work on with it’s open-section frame and conventional construction. It’s good aftermarket support and high degree of interchangeability with other Ford vehicles enables the builder to assemble a tough truck without requiring custom components.

When planning the build up of my truck, I wanted the best of both worlds: maintaining the functionality of my truck as a truck while increasing its off road performance. My truck sees a fairly hard life. I burn about 3 cords of wood each winter and all of it is cut and hauled by me. This involves climbing and descending steeps hills and bouncing through fields with a half ton or more of wood in the bed. Additionally, I pull my 16’ travel trailer around a four-state area and even occasionally hook a car trailer to my truck. As my daily driver the truck has to dependably see me through about 30 miles per day in rain sun and snow. And: it has to survive the trail.

The trail I frequent is a 2 mile section of road that the county stopped maintaining in 1953. It has one large rocky hill, huge ruts and drop-offs, numerous streams crossing it and lots of frame bending gullies to traverse. It is the gullies that are the problem. They must be crossed at angle because the entrance and departure angles are excessive for hitting them head on. This means that a very flexible suspension is the primary improvement I require. Running a close second is simple ground clearance under the axles. My wheelbase is short enough that a skid plate or rocker strike is very rare, but there are occasions where the front differential axle beam drags along the ground if one side of the truck is riding in a rut.

With these criteria in mind I involved myself in a number of discussions in the TRS forums and eventually came up with an idea of what I required.

First, I needed something very strong because driving hard across frozen plow furrows with a load in the truck gives the suspension a major beating. Next I needed something with good wheel travel which means softer springs and extended radius arms. Since I would still be towing a big box at highway speeds I felt that as low a center of gravity as possible should be retained while still enabling the next larger tire size. And also with an eye toward towing stability, I wanted to install dual shocks on the front. With these desired features in mind, I selected a James Duff Stage II 3” lift.

The James Duff kit comes with progressive-rate front coils, heavy-duty drop brackets, a dual front shock kit, front and rear shocks, extended radius arms, a new transmission crossover for mounting the radius arms and a rear leaf to add to the existing spring pack. I would have preferred that the kit include extended bump-stops and a drop pitman arm as well. These issues may need to be addressed later.

With the additional clearance afforded by a lift it will now be possible to run a taller 31” tire. It is tempting to think that a mud terrain tire is the way to go with this truck, and it certainly would help. Many is the time I have been pulled from a field by a tractor because my road-friendly tread had filled with muck. Also, in the woods, especially on hills covered with wet leaves, my all-season tires have done a fairly poor job of feeling through the leaves and finding something below to grab onto. The installation of a rear locker has helped, but it has not ended the problem. For towing though, the flexible sidewalls on a tire designed to be aired down might not be as stable. I use light truck tires that can be aired up to 40-50 psi and have rigid carcasses to keep them from squishing around under load. Lastly, I live in a state that has all four seasons so I needed to make sure my tires could do reasonable well in any weather. So what tire can give me the best compromise between off-road grip, high load stability and all weather traction? Perhaps it would be more cost effective to simply add a front locker and continue to use all-season tires? Back to the forums!

The 4.0 liter engine is an excellent engine for crawling along off-road. I have had people think my truck was equipped with an automatic transmission because it will idle up about any slope with only occasional nudges on the throttle to hop over rocks. If this truck were used only off-road, I probably would not change the axle gearing to install 31" tires. However, moving from the original 215/75-15’s with their 28” height to 31” tires will result in a 10% loss of torque at the ground. For towing this means more shifting on hills, more wear on the drivetrain and probably worse fuel economy. A switch from 3.55s to 4.10s in the axles will do a little more than make up for the tire change and make creeping up hills off-road a little easier.

So, starting with the basics (lift, tires, gears), over the next few editions of the TRS magazine you can expect to see this build-up take shape.