dhkonrad's 93 ford ranger

kris97ranger said:

That stinger is huge!! Id never be able to rock that i wouldnt make the corners lol

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I swear that pictures make it look bigger than in person, and it really doesn't obstruct your view from in the truck all that much, and it doesn't stick out from the front too bad. If anything I think it helps in parking lots because I can see EXACTLY how far out the front of my truck sticks out.

Schools been busy, so I haven't got much done. I did whip up some spring spacers though, so I could fix my alignment since when I put the bumper and winch on, it dropped the front enough that the camber was too far negative to fix.
I had some tubing lying around, so I built my own variation of the common washer spacers.


Just two 1" washers welded to the top of a piece of 1.75" .120 DOM I had lying around, then I tack welded the spring mounts to the spacer just so it wouldn't move around. Full length of the spacers ended up at 1.6"
I also put some explorer leaves in the rear, so now I actually have some positive arch to them.

It doesn't look that much taller, but it is just enough, and is noticeable getting in and out. First picture is before lift, second is after.


(no the front spring is not as bowed as it looks in this picture)
I also got a different fairlead, as you can see in the last picture.
Im not sure completely about how much I like it, but someone gave it to me so I figured it was worth a try.

On another note, had to clean the whole thing up real nice


because the truck had its most important cargo yet

not your typical prom date...

Bumper is looking way good man!
You going to weld a hook point for your winch cable at the top or your stinger??

When I took my girlfriend to prom last month, I made her sit on the filth in my explorer along with deal with the stench of spilled gear oil. Tell your girlfriend she's lucky!

FordRanger89 said:

Bumper is looking way good man!
You going to weld a hook point for your winch cable at the top or your stinger??

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Thanks man, I really appreciate it!
Yeah, I want to put a hook at the top of my stinger, as well as two D-rings on either side of the fairlead. I also need to get a new hook. The one that is on there is just a temporary thing.

YooperSteeze said:

When I took my girlfriend to prom last month, I made her sit on the filth in my explorer along with deal with the stench of spilled gear oil. Tell your girlfriend she's lucky!

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Haha shes not actually my girlfriend, just a friend who needed a date for her senior prom...
I figured I needed to clean my truck anyway, and I didn't want to ruin her dress, so I just bit the bullet and cleaned it. Only took me two days

dhkonrad said:

I figured I needed to clean my truck anyway,so I just bit the bullet and cleaned it. Only took me two days

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I know all about that one. Truck looks good man! Now that you for a bender and you arent to far from me, I might have to come up there and have you bend me some sliders and a bumper.

86MUDRCJ said:

I know all about that one. Truck looks good man! Now that you for a bender and you arent to far from me, I might have to come up there and have you bend me some sliders and a bumper.

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Thanks man!
Haha for sure!

Got a little bit more checked off the list.
Apparently I am the slowest ever at fabrication, but took me almost a full week and a half to build some sliders. They are 2x6 .120 wall for the main part, and 2x2 .120 wall going to the frame.

didnt catch a great picture of them on the truck, but:


I almost cut off my rocker panels so that I could push the sliders up as far as I could and not lose clearance, but these still don't hang as low as the frame, and pushing them up against the rocker panels adds some amount of resistance to deflection/movement. I could lift up my whole truck with just the 2x6 across the rocker panels, and it didn't even bend the sheet metal, so...
They're not quite wide enough to tie into if I do an exo down the road, but I wouldn't mind adding some round tubing coming off the sides and running the full length. They could act as a little more protection from sliding into a rock, as a step, and a place to tie an exo into, but I wouldn't do it till after I switch to FW axles, otherwise the sliders would be wider than the tires would look dumb IMHO.

Got to work on my front axle.
Ordered some parts, and started cleaning up the D44


and got the housing primered

started also cleaning up miscellaneous parts and painting them

I also had a set up stub shafts from a 76/77 d44 and they are different length from the 78/79. I thought that was kind of interesting...

Thats pretty much all for now, got a lot more ahead, and would be welcome to much needed imput.

Also had a kind of before and after shot of sorts today, because I was working on another ranger

I continue to think of my truck as basically stock, which it kind of is, but it is fun to see it next to a completely stock Ranger.

Feels like christmas in the middle of summer!
rod ends for radius arms and for tracbar
Radius arm rod ends are 1.25, tracbar is 3/4

(size 12 shoe shown for reference)
Another perspective:


ball joints, master install kit for the rear, and 3.90 and up carrier for the d44.


Also got another coat of paint on the axle


DOM, gears and d44 master install kit are in the mail. Wont be much happening till after 4th of July though, because I will be out of town until then
Couple random things I have been throwing around though. Should I weld up the axle tubes to the housing? I have seen a lot of people swear both ways, but would it hurt anything to weld it up while I am there?

SWEET! your stoked! What year axle is that? Whats going it the rear. I have a 60 but regret not getting a 14 bolt instead.

Kevery said:

SWEET! your stoked! What year axle is that? Whats going it the rear. I have a 60 but regret not getting a 14 bolt instead.

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I know, I'm super pumped! It's a 78/79 d44. I considered my options for the rear, given that it would need to be 1/2 or smaller, and I settled for a 31 spline 8.8, and I'll run wheel adapters to match the 5.5 on 5 and the width. I figure if i havent broken a 28 spline 8.8 with 35s, why should I break a 31 spline...

pile of parts grows! Got gears, d44 master install kit, breaks, wheel bearings etc. Just missing lockouts and a hub and I should be set as far as rebuilding the axles.

had a friend help me with balljoints, but then realized rickauto sent me a wrong balljoint... called them up and they said no biggie, theyll ship another.

Finally got back in town so back to getting stuff done very slowly and not so surely.
Got my replacement ball joint and finished installing those in the knuckles. Also cleaned out (kinda) my garage so I could start disassembling my d44, cleaning it, and then regearing.

old pinion:

it worries me that it broke, because I feel that it could have broken because the housing was jacked up, or that it jacked the housing up when it broke. Either way the housing doesn't LOOK messed up, and there were no chipped teeth and both the ring gear and pinion teeth both look to be in good shape, but idk how much that means.

Got all the old out

pulled all the old bearings and honed out the ones I needed to so I could have "set up" bearings.
Also got the new ring bolted onto the new carrier and all torqued down

went thru and measured and labeled all the old and new shims to make setting up the gears easier

and thats when my trouble started. The master install kits I got seem to be rather lacking in the shim department; thankfully my carrier came with a plethera of carrier shims. Still leaves me kinda lacking in the pinion bearing preload and pinion depth shims. Is it a problem to reuse old ones? The new shims are also slightly different sizes than the old ones, but they seem to all be correct, except for one set of shims, that I have no idea what they are for


2nd from the top are pinion preload shims (against the outer pinion bearing-cone) with old on the left, new on the right
3rd from the top is the carrier shims with old on the left, one that came with the carrier in the middle, and on the right is one that came with the master install kit.
bottom is pinion depth bearings (goes between the housing and the inner pinion bearing-cup).
The ones on the top are the ones that I don't know where they go. In comparing them with all the bearings, housing, and old shims, they seem to be a perfect fit to go between the inner pinion bearing-cone and the head of the pinion. This would affect depth, but makes no sense to me because there is already a place to shim the depth of the pinion... I am very confused and they seem unnecessary, but I don't think they would send me shims that were unnecessary... or would they?

Needles to say I am more than slightly confused and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Started past the point of no return, pressing bearings and races in


(sorry for crappy cell phone pics)
first time I have ever used a press to install races. I have to say, felt much safer for the race than beating them in. I don't think Ill ever go back...
Also started on the setup of the gears

and pattern


Any thoughts on pattern? maybe the pinion needs to come in a little bit?