RockRangerII the build up.

[RockRanger]

Everything went together fine until I went to put the caliper on. I couldnt get the inner brake pad to fit on. I am pretty sure that I have the wrong spindle to swap my lug pattern from 6 on 5.5 to 5 on 5.5. Once I get the right spindle hopefully it should be good to go. The hubs will get a shot of paint to get ride of the orange that is on there.

 

[RockRanger]

Here are the leaf spings that I and going to play with when I mount the 44 up front. I am going leafs 100% beacuse it is cheaper then doing coils. In the picture the front two are stock 4 leaf jeep Yj springs, the middle two are stock 5 leaf jeep yj springs, and the last two are stock ranger rear springs.

Hopefully The parts I ordered will be here this week so next weekend i can start installing the gears and stripping the front end out of the ranger.

 

[Stic-o]

Here are the leaf spings that I and going to play with when I mount the 44 up front. I am going leafs 100% beacuse it is cheaper then doing coils. In the picture the front two are stock 4 leaf jeep Yj springs, the middle two are stock 5 leaf jeep yj springs, and the last two are stock ranger rear springs.

Hopefully The parts I ordered will be here this week so next weekend i can start installing the gears and stripping the front end out of the ranger.

What Spings are you useing for the front? Or are you just going to see what works best. Let me know if you have any of the xtra YJ springs you want to get rid of. My dad wants to swich is Zuk to YJ springs

 

[RockRanger]

I am going to start with the 5 leaf set of yj springs and see where I end up. I may and one or two leafs from one of the other packs and see where i end up. If they dont work out then I will order some other springs. what ever springs I dodnt use I plan on hanging onto so we can eventually spring over my girlfriends jeep.

 

[Josh S.]

Last week my wheel bearings took a crap on me on the truck. When they went and the nuts backed off allowing the wheel to woble around it allowed the rotor to rub against the knuckle eating into where the brake pads ride.

wouldn't that make some sort of narly noise LOL

 

[RockRanger]

didnt notice anything till I was going to get off the freeway and my brake pedal went to the floor. When the wheel was bouncing around and wearing away on the rotor it allowed the inner brake pad on the passanger side to fall out of its grooves so there was nothing for it to push against. Luckly I was coming off the off ramp fairly slow anyway so I dropped it into second and nursed to to were I was heading (2 blocks off the freeway) the bearins were heavily pitted and I was hoping they would last another 1000 miles till I could do the swap but because me trying to be cheap and not change out the bearings in the firstplace even when I knew they were bad was a stupid call on my part. I should have just spent the $50 and did it right the first time even though it was only going to be driven for a few more weeks.

 

[Josh S.]

haha jeez man, next time next time...well at least it wasn't worse

 

[410Fortune]

You mean you dont have bearing just layin around?

 

[RockRanger]

I use to. I always carried a spare spindle, bearings, seal, hub, and locking nut set in my old ranger. the TTB has been in the truck longer then I thought it would be so I never planned on getting spares to carry for it.

 

[RockRanger]

My shackle bushings came today. I got them from www.mad4wd.com prompt shipping and was happy with how the dealing went. I will be using these to mount the shackle to the frame. I forgot how hard poly bushings were. I will see hwo they work and might swap to rubber busings down the road.

 

[RockRanger]

So friday I get home from work and have a few more presents waiting for me. 4.88 gears install kits and a dana 44 carrier. I got them form www.peakempire.com It took about a week after ordering them to get here. Good dealings overall with them. They were dropped shipped from yukon so they came from washington.

 

[RockRanger]

So this morning I decided that I wanted to get a press putting bearings on the carrier and a few other ideas I have planned. So I head over to harbor freght figureing I would buy one of theres. Once I started looking at them I saw how flimsy they appeared to be and figured I could build one my self so I started to build a press. It sits higher then a HF ine does so that I wont have to bend over to use it. I am using a 20 ton bottle jack I picked up from kragen a few weeks ago. It is mounted on some HF castors I picked up this morning. I still need to pick up some springs for it so it will pull back, drill a few holes in the frame and get some bolts to hold the lower portion that the work sits on. I may also add a bit more strength to the upper cross member as well. I figure I will have a little less then $100 into it in materials. Probably another hour or two of work tommorow on it and I will have it finished up.

 

[RockRanger]

After I messed with that for most most of the day I started tearing the truck apart. So far I have the steering and the driverside axle beam and suspension off of the truck. Whith a short bed standard cab ranger with a long arm kit the balance point for front to rear weight biase is just behind the transmision cross member. With the rancho radius arms that are on the truck you have to put the jack stands pretty far back whick makes the rear suspension pretty light. So light that I could pick up the back of the truck off the ground. After playing with the jack stands a bit I was able to get more weight to the rear of the truck. I also loaded the bed of the truck with probably 400lbs of crap to help keep it from becoming to nose heavy.

tommorows goal is to get the front end stripped out of the ranger finish the press and start the gear install on the dana 44. I still need to get a inch pound torgue wrench, maybe a bigger ft pound torgue wrench, setup bearings for the dana 44 and then hone to hone them out a bit so the slide on and off easier. Also my girlfriends dad found the right spindles I need so I should probably get them in the next couple of weeks.

 

[FROADER]

Sweet Matt. I can't wait to see that thing done.

 

[RockRanger]

neather can I Wish I could have it done for the rubicon but I wont. I am shooting to be able to do one or two local runs in late july/ early august then hit end of summer run then the next weekend do dusy Should be a busy next few months.

 

[FROADER]

definitely soundls like you'll be busy. I still need to replace the front locker on mine. Be sure to post up when you are going out locally to test it out.

 

[n16ht5]

So to solve the problem I decided to test out the handy dandy lincoln welder again. Should take care of some of the problems with traction.

have fun getting those shafts out now that youve welded the cross pin...

 

[n16ht5]

hey can i buy your coils? what coil rate are they?

 

[Kirby N.]

I have a harbor freight press. It was cheap, but it works good enough. It cost about $100, and none of my time except driving over to pick it up. If you can build a stout one, that is cool.

The truck Looks good!

 

[RockRanger]

hey can i buy your coils? what coil rate are they?

Sure. They are three hundreed bucks plus shipping. Along with that I will throw in the drop brackets and extended radius arms. I will also add the shocks as well but they are kind of beat up.