Completed Project Kirby's 1991 Ranger Build Up

[Kirby N.]

My exploder used to do the three wheel thing- I dont know if it was the rear detroit locker, being taller, more weight in the rear or not being as wide- but my ranger doesn't do that. I dont know about moving the lower mount 90 degrees. The shocks need to move on both axis' due to trackbar and due to radius arms- so I dont know if that would fix it, but Ill look into it.

Maybe the Ranger doesn’t carry a front wheel due to the longer radius arms. I ran a stock length eb style arm setup on my exploder with a wrist unpinned for off-road. I suppose the Ranger has more travel with less bind with the longer arms all the time. I think with an exploder arm unpinned, they were similar travel. Maybe 12” on the exploder. I was running rancho rs9000 shocks. And it is interesting how much the radius arm bind helps with handling and road manners. My exploder drove night and day different with the pin out on the road.

 

[BKennedy]

I think the tire lift with the Explorer was definitely due to the stock length radius arms and shorter axle.

Did you already try moving the lower shock mount up on the radius arm?

 

[Kirby N.]

I think the tire lift with the Explorer was definitely due to the stock length radius arms and shorter axle.

Did you already try moving the lower shock mount up on the radius arm?

I have it where it is so that I can get the most up travel out of these 14” shocks and still utilize the droop. It uses almost all of the shock travel.

 

[RangerX]

I think a rear sway bar would
Probably help my handling and force the front beams to work even harder.

Jamie, Brett once told me that exactly. He recommended I run a rear sway.

 

[410Fortune]

Brett taught me this and so did Kris gillbaugh? I think his name was.. the dude with the really nice black explorer and long travel ttb… his buddy winter built the suspension? Can’t remember exactly it was at truckhaven. He watched my bii work and then was like a rear swaybar would really help you and he explained why.
I never did add one lol
I keep swaybars on my big rigs that go down the highway and tow

 

[BKennedy]

I looked into sway bars a few years ago because my Explorer has an occasional sudden wiggle in the rear while high speed dirt road cornering, and lots of low speed body roll on the highway. Several people in the off road industry recommended upgrading the rear shocks first. If I was going to install a sway bar, the torsion bar type sway bar manufacturer I talked to said it would be more effective on the rear with an Explorer. 75% of the wiggle went away when I swapped out the Maxxis Razr's for Grabber X3's. I think it was the softer sidewall on the Razr's. I learned to live with the body roll.

I remember Kris, he helped out a lot when I was doing my SAS. Knows his stuff. He's the one that told me to build a multi-purpose off roader for going fast and it will crawl just fine. He was right. Purpose built rock crawlers might crawl a little better, but they suck going fast.

 

[RangerX]

Brett taught me this and so did Kris gillbaugh? I think his name was.. the dude with the really nice black explorer and long travel ttb… his buddy winter built the suspension? Can’t remember exactly it was at truckhaven. He watched my bii work and then was like a rear swaybar would really help you and he explained why.

Oh geez, my memory is faulty. It wasn’t Brett that told me.
Paul Bredehoft had the killer black gen1, and Colin’s friend Winter was the builder. Winter told me the rear sway tip.

 

[BKennedy]

Oh geez, my memory is faulty. It wasn’t Brett that told me.
Paul Bredehoft had the killer black gen1, and Colin’s friend Winter was the builder. Winter told me the rear sway tip.

I think Winter is a mechanical engineer. The first Winter version worked, then version two never got finished.

 

[410Fortune]

Paul!! That’s the explorer swing set steering *****in

 

[Kirby N.]

you guys are dredging up some cool old memories. I love those old school builds from when I was a kid!

My kid wanted to overland for her birthday. So I set the ranger up for her to camp in out in my parents property. She had a blast.

I think the wife and I will do a camping trip this weekend too.

I had to do a little wheeling on the way out. There was a bridge, but I went through the creek.

She works so good and travels so nice.

 

[BKennedy]

I love my Duff RA based front axle. It's smooth and stable, and flexes like crazy.

It's great the kid loves camping. That's a beautiful piece of land.

 

[Kirby N.]

She turned 19 and she is miss independent- so she wanted to camp, but didn’t want the setup or to be in the boonies. So this worked nice. I set it up and made sure she had everything she needed and then came back the next day and cooked breakfast. She had two friends with her and made some good memories. I had some travel scheduled for work, but the wife and I made it out with the Ranger. We drove about 6 hours away in total. First night we did half of Jenny Creek trail and found a good super remote camping spot on a creek. On the way in a guy in a Tacoma with a gfc told me the creek crossing was treacherous and I would never make it. I thought perfect gate keeper to ensure the yahoos leave us alone. It was. We went through it and found the next nice spot and we had the whole place to ourselves.


I didn’t get great pictures of the spot because we got there so late. Also didn’t level much because the wife was hungry and wanted to get cooking. She will be more patient next time after sleeping on it.

Then we headed on to my buddy’s house and stayed a couple nights before coming home. The wife caught a whooper off his boat:

 

[410Fortune]

Looks like a great time! Jenny creek is a fun trail! Can be interesting with wet tires but your ranger is easily able to do that trail (from what I remember) even my bii just walked up it the few times I’ve been up there, it was more challenging in the rzrs because they only had 26” tires

 

[Kirby N.]

Haha. I think my wife got some pics of the creek- it was pretty strong due to the run off, but no big deal. Not even to the axle tubes. Tacoma guys…

I also wanted to share that I had the worst scare the day after I got back from camping- just before I left for my work trip to Peru. My truck has started starting a little odd again. It will turn over pretty normal- then kind of hiccup, then keep turning over.

You guessed it- I was worried it was the worst. I was thinking the machinist who said my efi system will burn down a later model fast burn head was right, and it must have beat out the valves and I was so frustrated. It’s been doing this for a few weeks since it got hot in colorado. Well, right before I left it hiccupped, then wouldn’t turn over. I nearly cried.Haha.

I thought the engine was locked up or something at first. So I rolled it a little back out of the garage and when I put it in gear it turned over fine and made no odd noises.

Maybe it’s not locked up. But it still wouldn’t turn over.

So I got it rolling and roll started it no issue. And it sounded fine.

Phew.

Hmm. Maybe the starter? I just replaced it! But I was hard on it.

Then I remembered I had an extra battery (no one was home to jump me) and I could use it to jump start it.

Why do I have an extra battery? Interesting story. I put an Odyssey in my wife’s jeep lj a few years ago. $300 bucks! And it died with in a month of the warranty expiration. I took it to Orielley and they said it had a bad cell or something. This was like 2021. So I tried and tried to get Odyssey to replace it. But it was close to the warranty period and I bought it through a buddies 4x4 shop and they were being huge tools. So I didn’t get a new battery and I didn’t raise too much of a stink. But I brought it home and put it on the smart charger and trickled it up to a full charge.

I had an orielley arm battery in my Ranger, but whatever, I wanted to see if the odyssey was still ok or not. So I put the orielley agm on the shelf and installed the $300 paper weight. That was 4 years ago.

It’s been running ever since. I have winched and started with it. But it did have the wierd hiccup start quite regularly last summer when the valves were giving me a fit. But after I got the valves sorted it seemed to be fine. But the weather had also cooled down.

Well you probably guessed the orielley starts it up just fine. It even turns the starter way faster.

So the odyssey died again 4 years later. Wierd huh? It also took a charge on the trickle, but I think it needs to be the backup now.

So stinking thankful to God that it didn’t take a dump at our campsite 24 hours before.

Moral of the story? Odyssey won’t have my business ever again.

 

[BKennedy]

I've heard of Odyssey not honoring or making warranty claims difficult. I won't buy a companies products that don't honor warranties.

 

[410Fortune]

When they lose one cell they can still hold almost 12 volts
But when demand is high, like starting, they will fail you.
I had this issue with an optima many many years ago. It was 100% fine 90% of the time
Tuned out it was always holding 11.8 volts
Lost one of its 6 “cells”

My house is off grid
I run lithium batteries in one bank and agm in the other
The operating voltages are waaaaaay above the system voltage… meaning a 24 volt system is actually dead at 24v, the lithium batteries run at 25-26 volts, charging is up to 27.5
Volts. The 48 volt battery bank runs at 49-52 volts, 56-57 when charging
So losing one cell will still have a single lithium battery or agm close to operating voltage of 12 but with little to no real capacity working at 5/6 of its potential


I swore if lithium batteries
Good ol flooded lead acid or glass matts for me.
Lithium charges faster and lasts a few years longer… but at 3 times the cost for the stinkin battery

 

[Scott B.]

I run 2 Odyssey batteries. The starting battery is 3 years old, going strong. The aux battery in the bed died after 2 years - Odyssey replaced it under warranty, even though it was an aux battery. Surprised to hear you had a problem with them.

So, who are you going to buy a battery from? The choice seems to be dwindling...

 

[Kirby N.]

I run 2 Odyssey batteries. The starting battery is 3 years old, going strong. The aux battery in the bed died after 2 years - Odyssey replaced it under warranty, even though it was an aux battery. Surprised to hear you had a problem with them.

So, who are you going to buy a battery from? The choice seems to be dwindling...

Yes it does and it is unfortunate. Optima used to be the gold standard and all I would run. But since they sold to Johnson, it has been tough to buy a good battery.

Currently, I don’t have to decide. I am running the “super start” O’Reilley agm that was on my shelf and is 7 or so years old and it is working ok.

Here are the pictures from the first few miles of Jenny Creek. Tacoma boy also said it was blocked by snow and we were on a quick camping trip so I boogied in the morning and didn’t confirm.

 

[410Fortune]

You barely made that water crossing sheesh glad he was there to warn you lol lol

Looks beautiful!

 

[BKennedy]

Was it a newer Tacoma with $20k worth of stuff bolted to it, or an older Toyota with a Trail Gear sticker?

That water crossing wasn't even worth worrying about for the Ranger.