Hola Ranger fanatics,
I was gonna do 4x4 swap on my Ranger, but good friend talked me out of it and instead I picked up 2002 Ranger FX4 with twin sticks. I'm completely loving it, and I think rear opening doors are best upgrade (including 4x4). It make's huge difference.
Going into this build I believe I have clear direction to take with it. It's gonna be overland rig, capable with some decent off road action. For early summer of 2018 I'm planning do some traveling along east cost and stick to live in truck itself.
Some info on truck:
2002 FX4, 5Speed with manual transfer case, 4.0 V6, 4.10 LSD in back, 238k on clock. Quite a bit but it had nearly no rust and frame is perfect, unusual for New England. Eventually gonna go with diesel swap (far future).
It needed some work so first two 3 months spent working on it.
- Intake gasket
- all fluids replaced
- air, fuel filter
- front suspension completely done (all by MOOG)
- completely cleaned and painted frame and anywhere underside that I could reach
Onto Pics:
Day I bought it, other Ranger next to it (May '17):
Rebuild:
Header panel was bit rough, some hammered all rotted pieces, cut rest out and welded metal patches to fix it.
Whole front end was ripped out and replaced with MOOG and Rancho shocks:
While having front axle out, tried to put cover with drain on lower side but ordered wrong part. Apparently Dana 35 SLA is not same as Dana 35, So got my buddy combine both covers I had and fabricate drain in right one.
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Before truck got aligned cranked torsion bars 1.5 and started all the fun stuff. Put bigger alternator from explorer:
Started on restoring Rims, 3 hours per rim using strongest stuff I could get my hands on. Front needs more fine polishing but back is looking stunning. Before and After:
Dumped stock muffler and put cherry bomb with side exit before rear tire. Work in progress:
Also after having rear bumper for over year (originally meant for other truck) got brackets fabricated. It's Jeep bumper and it fit's perfectly.
By pure luck got front bumper from previous generation Ranger, kicked it farther to the front and mounted winch on it. For now it's only phase one still need to do few more things to it but it solidly mounted.