410Custom's builds a 2007 Ranger V8 - custom truck build - Project "Ranger Premier"

[Mikerider]

more eye candy
Differentials still two weeks out

Here you can see the new 63" chevy leaf springs, and all the new powerstop brake parts
I ordered the 12" rotors to use on the front of this truck since the Superlift knuckles have provisions for them

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Raebestos coated calipers.. I am thinking of painting them body matched blue? But the silver is nice too. I will check with @EddieMoney on what he prefers

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and the sliders! Waited months for these to arrive, worth the wait these suckers are NICE!!
well packaged to say the least, all 140# of them

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Next up you will see the rear suspension mock up with the relocated front hanger, Kartek drop hanger and Chevy 1500 leafs

Sliders are available here

Ford Ranger (98-11) - Rock Sliders/Rockrails | 12° North Industries

NEW Streamlined Build Processing with Flat-Rate Pricing - Product prices have NOT increased, the new shipping option is added to the cost of each upgraded variant as you complete drop down selections, (If you subtract the Flat-Rate shipping choice from the total, you can find the original base...

www.12degnorth.com

I have those rocky road sliders on my ranger, dont use the bolt that mounts them to the cab. theres so much flex and vibration it will start to rip the sheet metal.

long term I found the legs to be too flimsy and cut them off and welded on 1.75" 0.120 DOM legs in for better stiffness.

It has been the best powder coat I have ever dealt with, the stuff takes a beating and still looks great.

 

[410Fortune]

Thank you for the review! Looking at the sliders I did think the support arms looked a little small! I know when I build sliders I build them to easily handle the weight of the vehicle without deflecting into the body…. Fun fun I may have to add some supports here SO TYPICAL!!

 

[EddieMoney]

I think they sent the wrong ones. I upgraded to the kick sliders and they are supposed to have a step at the end near the bed. Waiting to hear back.

 

[410Fortune]

That sucks so bad
Covid supply chain issues waiting for parts I know I know first world problems

The cv axle issue with RCV and true travel has still not been resolved, I guess they figure if they ignore us long enough we will go away… the opposite is true I will drive down to Vegas and picket the damn shop. What’s right is right!!! I jump through hoops for my customers why shouldn’t they have to

Waiting months and months for parts I do not mind but when they double or triple the expected wait time it starts to really suck!!

Then they send the wrong parts! Fun fun

I say it all the time battle on! Building customs is like fighting a battle and I always win the war

 

[EddieMoney]

Ok, were gonna live with the supersliders and I think itll be fine.

I dont have a preference. I think blue would be cool too. If only they were this big...

 

[waren]

I am loving the mid travel builds! 19 pages was a lot to catch up on so maybe I missed it but are you planning to angle the front diff pinion up?

I assume the factory superlift brackets do not do this ... and wondered if perhaps it would improve the lifespan of the OEM rzeppa CV joint

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[410Fortune]

No way in heck would the stocker rzeppa CV front driveshaft ever make it onto one of my builds! The factory AWD t case goes in trash along with its rubber booted CV joint front shaft.
We use half ton truck/ F150 driveshafts as a core, these shafts use a constant velocity joint made from two U joints and a centering ball yoke.

I do not plan to turn the pinion on the front diff up, with the way the front diff mounts in these rigs that would be fairly difficult. With a good CV style front d shaft it is not needed

Body match for the brake calipers might be the way to go! in my personal opinion on a Ford blue truck the accent color could be, body match blue, yellow, red, silver, or black. Red would be my first choice, but all of my vehicles have red accents. Yellow, no way in heck would I do that on this rig. Silver would look so nice (silver or grey) but it also looks stock, black is nice, but nothing "catchy" about black brake calipers.... I'm learning towards red or body match blue.............hmmmmmmmmmmm

Progress is being made on this sucker, summer is over and I am in the shop just about every day

 

[CDW6212R]

Ok, were gonna live with the supersliders and I think itll be fine.

I dont have a preference. I think blue would be cool too. If only they were this big...
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This blue looks very close to the truck's body color, and that POR 15 caliper paint is the most reasonable to buy. I'd try that for sure on EddieMoney's truck. Mine are a dark red that I'd be trying to match, so the gold color I've seen is my next choice, or else black and not attract attention.

 

[waren]

What shaft diameter did you select for the coilovers? The few coilover conversions I have read about use a 5/8” shaft with a threaded eyelet extension. I poked around a little and read that the 5/8” shafts (fox) are targeted at light vehicles (buggies). I did read about one install where both front shafts were damaged (1 broke, 1 bent) the consensus in that instance was poor quality bump stops allowed the coilovers to bottom out. And that 5/8” is fine. This kind of blows my mind ... really underscores the importance of perfect geometry and setup I suppose.

I can’t tell from the picture what diameter you are running. I can see that the true travel arms allow for nice straight shot mounting.

EDIT: 10” seems to be the shortest travel fox offers in the 7/8” shaft 2.0 so I guess all of the 6-6.5” travel fox setups are 5/8” shafts.

 

[410Fortune]

honestly I have not been happy with Fox shocks at all, went through several sets of their 8" coilovers in my shop....something always seems to break or wear premature..... and these are with bolt on kits, so no wild suspension geometry to question.

I have moved on, I will no longer run Bilstein or Fox products on my builds if I can help it. The kings are lightyears beyond the fox IMO, of course they cost a bit more too

Happy Halloween!!

 

[waren]

Apologies for my poorly written post, i wasn’t trying to compare Fox vs King rather 5/8” vs 7/8”. I only mentioned Fox because that’s the info I found on 5/8” coilovers (ranger station etc) typically used in ranger based coilover conversions.

I was also curious what shaft size you selected for this build.

 

[fordpickupman]

Such a cool Ranger.
I wish my planning/timing would have been better so we could have met up and I could have seen this gem.

 

[410Fortune]

Me too!! I need just a little bit of a heads up. hahaha with two sets of grandparents now in town and kids running all over I never know what direction I will be pulled. We just happened to be pouring concrete at my dads driveway the day you showed up in town, no way I can get out of that since I am half the concrete crew!!

I believe the 2.0 kings we are running have 5/8" shafts, but I can measure today. We are running two, 2" shocks on each front corner and planning 2.5 - 3.0 kings for the rear axle. My wifes FJ cruiser has 2.5" kings in the back and they are MASSIVE shocks, those dudes have the 7/8" shafts.

Fox does make an affordable shock that is for sure, so does Sway away (now AFE) which I like very much so far sway aways have held up really good for me. I run Rancho 9000's on my Bronco II and they have been excellent shocks for the $$$, I am on my third set of 9000's on the BII in 20+ years, and still using the original warranty from 4wheel parts purchased back in the 90's!!
I had enough Fox shocks fail, leaking seals, broken mounts, bad bushings, to turn me away from them. Same is true with Bilstein 5100 series.....yuck

 

[fordpickupman]

I’m running Fox on my sploder and haven’t had a problem with them yet.

 

[410Fortune]

Allright going on 20 pages here and the truck is not even rolling!! Must change this
Hoping the axles will be ready this week
Until then, progress being made and I have some time to post an update

First up the new rock sliders
First impressions are well built good design, but the 3 "small" outriggers had some of us shrugging our shoulders, asking "shouldn't there be like 4 legs?", and "these mounts look on the small side of things, 1" square tube!"

Now I have had a chance to mount them up and it changed my mind slightly...let me show you why

Stock 07 running boards, bye bye

New rock rails mocked up, the front outrigger uses the stock two holes/bolts for the torsion bar cover
The rear two outriggers we must drill new holes
So I bolted up the front outrigger and used some clamps to pull the rock rail into position
Then center punch the new holes, remove rock rail and start drilling
Install is rather easy on these!

Now we can see the new rails mount up so the ranger floor pan / rocker sheet metal body seam rests right on top of the outrigger
The body seam is a very strong part of the rangers body
This will allow these "sliders" to take quite a "hit" on the trail, easily supporting the weight of the cab and truck

For hardcore trail rigs one might want to consider adding some tabs along the body seam to tie these sliders into the ranger body, stiffen things up. However we do not want to penetrate the powder coat and our truck is on rubber body mounts.... so it would not be a good idea to do anything of the sort on this build. A 1-2" body lift would help get some separation here.......

Once the truck is driving I will go twist up the suspension and see how the body flex works with these sliders being mounted so the body seam is touching the outriggers

They fit very very well!! It really changes the look of this truck

shop dog approved

Front most outrigger uses two factory bolt locations

Middle outrigger needs to be drilled, also i used a jack to raise it up into position so it aligns better with the bottom of the frame rail, then center punched the new hole locations

The rear most outrigger mounts to the backside of the body mount bracket, a c clamp was used to pull it up tight, then the new hole locations center punched

See what I am saying about the body seam resting on the new sliders? This should give added strength to the rocker protection if you drop down onto a rock.

They fit the truck very well, all who have been in the shop notice how well they fit the Ranger, very good from a design standpoint!

Next I removed the slider and drilled the holes.

holes for rear outrigger

middle

front mounting bolts, no t bars on our truck

Holes will be coated with paint before slider install

I am working on the rear suspension so I cannot bolt the slider back on just yet.......

 

[410Fortune]

Rear suspension
8 Rivets to cut per side in order to remove the factory spring hangers

Angle grinder makes short work of rivets, one of my favorite past times. Working under the truck without taking the bed off.... no problem!

We will not be re using the rear spring hangers

Next the front hanger

All rivets were ground flush to the frame and then punched through with air hammer

The front hanger is now re located 6" forward, the bottom left most hole in the bracket now goes into the bottom right most hole on the frame

This allows us to hang the new, much much longer Che*y 1500, 63" leaf springs.......

Lets compare!! 2007 Ranger spring with front and rear hanger, shackle in place

07 spring vs new 63" spring

07 spring on top of 63" spring

The stock ranger springs suck because:
-They do not handle loads very well, any weight in your bed and the truck sags
-They break often, over the years I have seen MANY rear Ranger leafs with a broken leaf, fatigue, overuse, whatever, they do not hold up as well as our other trucks!
-Towing with a Ranger = bump stops!! They sag with trailers out back.

Our goal here with this build is to:
-gain massive amounts of travel to keep up with the new mid travel front suspension
-Use stronger springs that can handle some loads and a trailer if needed
-Flip the factory shackle, the stock spring shackle setup SUCKS, Rangers ride like hay wagons when the bed is empty. Setting up the truck with shackle flip will improve the ride dramatically under all conditions and this will gain us lots of wheel travel = traction.

Factory rear shackle hanger vs the new Kartek inverted drop shackle hanger

We can see a 1.5" drop is built in so the shackle and spring can still fit under the ranger bed, with these hangers the shackle now points UP

It will go something like this

So now that I have the front spring hanger moved forward 6" and the 63" spring in place I can begin to mock up the rear shackle hanger

Preliminary studies using the stock ranger shackle it became obvious that the rear hanger needs to move back about 4-5"
So off comes the trailer hitch, it will have to be modified to work around our new rear suspension

Kartek hanger slightly modified to allow me to move it back 2", it needs to go another 3" at least

more like this

So I removed the hitch and had to completely re support the truck

With the help of a friend I was also able to download a ranger long travel leaf spring hanger design from DIYoffroad.com, it looks like we will be building our own rear hangers... my friend has a plasma table and is willing to help me create some custom hangers!! oooooh la la

This design will get modified, I need my hanger to be about 4" rearward of this design to allow the proper shackle angle

Life is good, stay tuned.

I will have to hang an axle on these springs before I am able to do the final position and design of the new rear hangers.

In the meantime the frame rails have been cleaned and prepped for paint/fab

I am now working on the drivetrain, installing the starter, starter wiring harness, trans cooler lines, I will be Installing the beginning of the exhaust downpipes with provisions for the Holley wideband 02 sensor on bank 1.
Plan is to start wiring up the drivetrain so when the axles come back I can finish the suspension fab and have this baby rolling....

 

[CDW6212R]

I like the fit of those sliders too, but is the weight and force of any rock they come down on going to go through that body seam? If so that will end up like lifting a body on the seam with a bottle jack, it will crush it some. If that's what will support the slider from bending upward, I'd weld a wider pad there under that seam, with a material like rubber or the torsion bar Kevlar, etc. Just like a car lift, the feet, the larger rubber covered pads do less harm to the body seams.

 

[Mikerider]

Allright going on 20 pages here and the truck is not even rolling!! Must change this
Hoping the axles will be ready this week
Until then, progress being made and I have some time to post an update

First up the new rock sliders
First impressions are well built good design, but the 3 "small" outriggers had some of us shrugging our shoulders, asking "shouldn't there be like 4 legs?", and "these mounts look on the small side of things, 1" square tube!"


See what I am saying about the body seam resting on the new sliders? This should give added strength to the rocker protection if you drop down onto a rock.

View attachment 423494

They fit the truck very well, all who have been in the shop notice how well they fit the Ranger, very good from a design standpoint!

your going to want to cut the pinch weld where the legs contact, it will make the worst noise in the dirt as the cab moves around and hits the pinch weld. at least it did on my truck : )

 

[mounty71]

Agreed, my sliders were not even that close to the seam and just driving on the street the body moved enough to slam into the sliders and make horrifically loud noises. Also because the body moves so much on the flexible body mounts, don’t tie the sliders into the body. The sheet metal will just end up tearing.

 

[fordpickupman]

Maybe I'm overkill, but those legs on the sliders look pretty flimsy. Just saying.