Sometimes we see a truck and never realize the work that went into it. Shran’s 1987 Ford Ranger STX 4×4 Stepside is a good example of that. In fact our forum members liked it so much they voted it as the April 2024 Truck of The Month.
While the Ranger has a fairly stock look, it did not leave the factory looking like this. In fact, Ford did not make the stepside bed that’s on it.
The bed was made by a company called Recreational Designs, Inc (RDI) out of White Pigeon, Michigan. It is all fiberglass, including the tailgate. The fiberglass visor over the windshield is from RDI as well. This Ranger would have been delivered to RDI as a chassis cab, received the bed, visor, grab handles, paint, an RDI striping package, and then shipped to a Ford dealer where it was sold. This RDI Ford Ranger was sold new by McKie Ford in Rapid City, South Dakota.
This is how the Ranger looked when Shran found and saved it. The frame was bad, so Shran swapped the cab and bed onto a 1992 Ford Ranger frame. The Ranger came with a 2.9L V6 and a Dana 28 front axle and Ford 7.5-inch rear axle. The plan was to add a 1992 4.0L V6, 1991 M5OD manual transmission, 1992 harness and dash, a 1994 Dana 35 front axle, and a Ford 8.8-inch rear axle. Shran was lucky enough to find an Explorer with axles that had 4.10 gears. The Ranger also received a James Duff 3-inch suspension lift that had been salvaged from another Ranger. Shran made some coil spacers out of 1/4-inch steel plate and placed three of them under each of the front coils for additional lift. The lift gives plenty of room for the Goodyear Wrangler 31×10.50×15 tires mounted on stock Ford Ranger wheels.
The Ranger still uses a first generation (1983-1988) front bumper, but Shran had to make a custom bracket to mount it to a second generation (1989-1992) frame.
The rear bumper is custom made out of 3-inch 1/4-inch wall pipe and mounted to the frame with custom brackets.
As far as the body goes, Shran had to repair some rust on the roof and drip rails and fill in the holes from the visor that had been mounted to the roof. He also replaced the rusty doors and fixed some damaged areas to the fiberglass bed and tailgate. The Ranger was painted Dark Midnight Blue Pearl. It’s a neat color. The metallic flakes barely show up in darker places, but it really sparkles in the sunlight. The inside of the bed was covered in Raptor bed liner.
The brackets for the taillights were rusted, so he made new ones from two pieces of 2-inch angle and a flat piece to mount the taillight on. There’s another metal piece that fits under the fiberglass that the taillight bracket bolts into.
On the inside, the old carpet was replaced with a new one from Stock Interiors. The stock 60/40 bench seat was freshened up with a Dash Designs seat cover from RockAuto.com. In the photo above you can see the new seat cover compared to the stock passenger seat.
The new door panels are from Coverlay. Shran didn’t want to cut any speaker holes in the door panels so he found some 6×9 speaker boxes at a local audio store for $50 bucks and mounted a set of Polk audio speakers he found at Walmart on clearance for $60 bucks. Then he added a Sony head unit he picked up for $80 bucks.
This is an overview of the build. To see more details and photos about this Ranger, check out the links below.
Links:
I Bought A High Rider…. (For more pics and details on this build)
Stepside 1st Gen (When Shran first got the stepside)
