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Jimmyspy's 02 4x4       #: 188
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 Posted: Wed Mar 20th, 2019 12:31 am
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Eddie Money
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Those look really cool!! Did you box the back half of the frame already? Because It looks like a lot of hanging weight.



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 Posted: Wed Mar 20th, 2019 09:45 am
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Eddie Money wrote:
Those look really cool!! Did you box the back half of the frame already? Because It looks like a lot of hanging weight.
Thanks!


Haven't boxed the frame or anything. The factory frame rail under the cab should be plenty strong enough to handle the weight of the sliders and any force on them from hitting rocks and things.



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 Posted: Fri Mar 22nd, 2019 08:45 pm
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rock sliders (continued). 


Welding up the drivers side







So drilling the mounting holes in the frame was major PITA. Ended up buying a 90 degree drill adapter from harbor freight to reach the top holes. I was a little unsure of how it would pan out, but it got the job done. 







Gussets welded in




More welding






Stopped for a nutritious dinner 






Then it was back to welding and grinding. Ended up getting both sides done and ready for paint last last night.



A quick coat of paint this morning and I was able to mount them on the truck this afternoon. A couple of the bolt holes needed to be “adjusted”, but they went on fairly smooth.






















I'm very happy with the way they turned out. It's gonna take a while to get used to having them there though. I went to get out of the truck tonight and my foot fought the top bar and about fell on my face. Haha.



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 Posted: Fri Mar 22nd, 2019 10:01 pm
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Ouch. Hope you're ok. Looks sweet. Will those be rugged enough to use like a running board to step in with?

I would like to add a lift to my ranger but I'm worried if I hit the trails my running boards will get caught or ripped off. From the looks of your sliders, they look like they could serve both purposes



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 Posted: Sat Mar 23rd, 2019 09:50 am
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A job well done I like the bolt on sliders
Did they screw up the routing of your E brake cable?



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 Posted: Sat Mar 23rd, 2019 05:24 pm
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Eddie Money wrote:
Ouch. Hope you're ok. Looks sweet. Will those be rugged enough to use like a running board to step in with?

I would like to add a lift to my ranger but I'm worried if I hit the trails my running boards will get caught or ripped off. From the looks of your sliders, they look like they could serve both purposes


Yea, I got myself   lol    Oh definitely, but they are a little high to be useful as a step.

The goal when selecting materials was to make them beefy enough to support the trucks weight should I high-center or get between a rock and hard place. haha  



410customs wrote:
A job well done I like the bolt on sliders
Did they screw up the routing of your E brake cable?

Thanks!     Nope, although my ebrake hasn't been functional in awhile  haha. The frame plate slips between the cable and the frame.








Took advantage of the nice weather we're having today and adjusted the pre-load on the coilovers. I meant to do this after the front bumper went on, but I kept putting it off. I only added about a turn and a half.













Also rearranged my spare parts and fluids bin for an upcoming wheeling trip.




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 Posted: Sun Mar 24th, 2019 10:39 am
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Fram oil filter!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! LOL Just razzin ya I like Motocraft filters Fram's continually test very low

Good luck wheeling, she looks ready



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 Posted: Sun Mar 24th, 2019 01:20 pm
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Wow using a Fram and all that work... I'm not kidding, Fram's used to have a bad rep. not sure anymore !
I too am a Motorcraft snob, but not for everything !

Looked at your Tire Carrier, how's that working out ?



Just asking, why didn't you put the passenger side brace up at an angle ?

Also , after reading the thread again, not all of it, I noticed you had a feedback problem in your CB, did you get the straightened out ?

Great job, a lot of work, and this truck will be brand new.

Ltr



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2003 EDGE, Std Cab, Steppie, E4 Red, 5sp, 4x
5" SuperLift, 33" x 12.50 x 15"
Hurst Shifter
Mod'd Backrack to fit Steppie
Front and Rear Bumpers by Custom 4x4 Fabrication, OK; now Mike's Welding and Fabrication.
Working on more Mods, just need more time, longer days would work !
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 Posted: Sun Mar 24th, 2019 02:30 pm
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Fram used to be the shiz, then they went really bad for a long while, then they got sick of all the crap they were getting from people/internet, so they pulled up their bootstraps and now make a pretty solid filer.

At least the top two in their range anyway.



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 Posted: Sun Mar 24th, 2019 07:48 pm
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410customs wrote:
Fram oil filter!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! LOL Just razzin ya I like Motocraft filters Fram's continually test very low

Good luck wheeling, she looks ready


This truck doesn't deserve a Motocraft filter...  lol    

Thanks!  Shes about there. Thermostat housing is still leaking, but I think that's gonna have to wait awhile.


Scrambler82 wrote:
Wow using a Fram and all that work... I'm not kidding, Fram's used to have a bad rep. not sure anymore !
I too am a Motorcraft snob, but not for everything !

Looked at your Tire Carrier, how's that working out ?



Just asking, why didn't you put the passenger side brace up at an angle ?

Also , after reading the thread again, not all of it, I noticed you had a feedback problem in your CB, did you get the straightened out ?

Great job, a lot of work, and this truck will be brand new.

Ltr


I've always run Fram filters on my vehicles (other than the focus, it gets a motorcraft). They're cheap and I like the non-slip coating they put on their filter housings. I change the oil pretty frequently in the truck, so I'm not too worried about any filter performance issues.

Tire carrier is working great! No sagging or rattles yet. Still haven't wired the LED pods though   :O.    As far as the bracing goes, I kinda just didn't think the upright needed any more support. The passenger side "brace" was added so that I would have more surface to weld between the spindle tube and the tire carrier, but I thought it looked better if it ran all the way to the upright.


The CB issue was frustrating! It ended up being a bad ground at the antenna (base was all corroded inside). I found that out after rewiring everything, running new COAX, and having the transmitter serviced  :x. But, it works well now  haha


Thanks!

MaDMaXX wrote:
Fram used to be the shiz, then they went really bad for a long while, then they got sick of all the crap they were getting from people/internet, so they pulled up their bootstraps and now make a pretty solid filer.

At least the top two in their range anyway.

I've always been pretty happy with them.



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 Posted: Sun Mar 24th, 2019 11:27 pm
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Fram Oil Filter were considered poor at best years back, AND they would clog faster than most if not changed regularly.

IF you maintained your Truck, changed the oil every two or three months they didn't have a problem but if you decided to run longer than thee months between oil changes Fram's started to fail... or so I heard.

What they are today, I don't know, I have not and will not use one unless I planned to remove it in a day or two ! Everyone has their brands, actually, if I wanted to pay the price, I would run Wix Oil Filters.

Ltr



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Ltr,
2003 EDGE, Std Cab, Steppie, E4 Red, 5sp, 4x
5" SuperLift, 33" x 12.50 x 15"
Hurst Shifter
Mod'd Backrack to fit Steppie
Front and Rear Bumpers by Custom 4x4 Fabrication, OK; now Mike's Welding and Fabrication.
Working on more Mods, just need more time, longer days would work !
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 Posted: Mon Mar 25th, 2019 12:07 am
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That's all true, however in the past year or so, they completely redesigned them. Whereas purolators were the go to do for years, they redesigned them to be cheaper and ended up being a bad design now, they were riding on the internet recommended coat tails.

Fram wanted to stop hearing about their own coat tails so turned the filters around and are now worth using again.



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 Posted: Mon Mar 25th, 2019 09:04 am
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Jimmyspy wrote:
Scrambler82 wrote:

Looked at your Tire Carrier, how's that working out ?



Just asking, why didn't you put the passenger side brace up at an angle ?

Also , after reading the thread again, not all of it, I noticed you had a feedback problem in your CB, did you get the straightened out ?

Great job, a lot of work, and this truck will be brand new.

Ltr

Tire carrier is working great! No sagging or rattles yet. Still haven't wired the LED pods though   :O.    As far as the bracing goes, I kinda just didn't think the upright needed any more support. The passenger side "brace" was added so that I would have more surface to weld between the spindle tube and the tire carrier, but I thought it looked better if it ran all the way to the upright.


The CB issue was frustrating! It ended up being a bad ground at the antenna (base was all corroded inside). I found that out after rewiring everything, running new COAX, and having the transmitter serviced  :x. But, it works well now  haha


Thanks!


The Tirecarrier looks good and as I said before your welding looks good, I just was wondered.

The one on my Jeep, has both supports at an angle, the passenger side brace is welded similar to yours, it is connected to the Pivot Point, so the idea is the same.

Uses Wheel Bearing for the Pivot, works great just need to remember to grease it once in a while.

CBs, used to be a big thing, everyone had Handles, funny how things go !  Cell Phones put a major kink in the CB Industry !

Anyway, Grounding is very important for the complete system, the Radio should have power and grounds straight to the battery, we used to use a piece of RG-8 Coax, positive in the middle and negative in the shield and the Antenna Mount should be ground to the frame, not the bumper, not the body, but a 5/8" or larger braided ground strap back tot eh frame, where the connections should be to are metal and anti corrosion paste added.
The ground to the frame helps setup the ground plane that the antenna works off of, a good ground plane and a good reflecting signal means a good SWR and a strong signal out.   
have you ever checked the Standing Wave Ratio (SWR) of the system ?  It should be checked at multiple point in the transmission line, i.e. coax.   Start at the back of the radio, no further away than 12 to 18 inches, then again at the antenna.

Ok got carried away... kind of like Radio Stuff !

Last thing, the Side Steps/Rock Sliders... I always wanted something like you built, tire to tire type of thing, protecting the Steppie Bed, with heavy  Rectangular tube slider section and that added riser to protect the body, sweet stuff !


Keep up the good work, looking great, pictures, pictures, pictures !

Ltr



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Ltr,
2003 EDGE, Std Cab, Steppie, E4 Red, 5sp, 4x
5" SuperLift, 33" x 12.50 x 15"
Hurst Shifter
Mod'd Backrack to fit Steppie
Front and Rear Bumpers by Custom 4x4 Fabrication, OK; now Mike's Welding and Fabrication.
Working on more Mods, just need more time, longer days would work !
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 Posted: Tue Jul 2nd, 2019 08:29 pm
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Jimmyspy
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Not too exciting of an update, but I went and bought a thing.....













Its a 31 spline 8.8 with an artec truss, 4.56 gears, yukon grizzly locker, super 88 c-clip eliminator, and cromo axle shafts.



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 Posted: Tue Jul 2nd, 2019 08:55 pm
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Is the truck down? Just wondering why the car was hauling the thing. Lol



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 Posted: Tue Jul 2nd, 2019 10:32 pm
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That should help out greatly on your adventures! A little less beaching and a little more wheeling :)



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 Posted: Wed Jul 3rd, 2019 12:28 pm
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Jimmyspy
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Eddie Money wrote:
Is the truck down? Just wondering why the car was hauling the thing. Lol
Not currently. Lol. The thing was just a 3hr drive (one way) away, and the car gets wayyyyy better gas mileage.  

JAMMAN wrote:
That should help out greatly on your adventures! A little less beaching and a little more wheeling :)
Hopefully!   And the lower gears should make overdrive useful again. Haha.



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 Posted: Mon Oct 7th, 2019 09:46 pm
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Jimmyspy
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OK, so its been a busy summer and a few months since the last update. Haven't done a done a whole lot with the truck, other than some maintenance (some forced, some voluntary). I have been (slowly) working on getting the new to me rear axle ready to install.


I am in a constant battle with front suspension components...






I was getting some vibration out of the front drive shaft and ended up replacing the axle side u-joint.




Then a few weeks later the rear drive shaft tried to "un-install" itself on the highway (what an exciting day that was...) which caused the exhaust to follow suit. So, I had to rebuild the exhaust from the cats back.




Back on the truck (excuse my photogenic hand).




New rear hanger





While laying under the truck working on the exhaust, I noticed that the rear gas tank strap had pulled out of the frame cross-member....   so I've got some more rust repair on my list now.





Some more fall-out from the drive-shaft incident, I had to put new u-joints in the rear drive shaft....






Ok, so on a more exciting note, I've been making some decent progress on the new rear axle.

A little back story on the axle, I bought it from a guy that had "built it" for his jeep TJ, but was upgrading to one-tons. I bout it with the understanding that the it was all ready to go and just needed to be converted from coils to leafs. Well, I knew by looking at the axle that the guy wasn't a welder (welds were AWFUL), but once I opened it up, I found out that he  (or the guy he hired) didn't know how to set up gears either. So, I've ended up rebuilding most of the axle. Which has been way more work and money than I wanted, but I've learned a lot and have a little more confidence in the final product.


Any-who, I started by stripping the axle down to the housing and then started the painful process of cutting off all of the coil brackets and bubble-gum welds.






















My "custom" spanner wrench for the pinion flange




Mocking up the spring perches








Shock mount






Mocking up shock mounts











To be continued.....

Last edited on Mon Oct 7th, 2019 09:48 pm by Jimmyspy



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 Posted: Tue Oct 8th, 2019 08:48 pm
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.... continued


Gave the housing a coat of paint.














Ended up cutting the old bearing cages and inner races off the carrier and pinon.
















The old carrier shims. Whoever previously set up the gears had the shims between the bearing and the locker housing instead of between the bearings and the axle housing and they did not hold up well...





Picked up a new toy to press on the bearings





Laying out all the goodies and measuring the individual shims

























This was my first time setting up gears, so things went pretty slowly and I had to phone a friend a few times, but I think it went pretty well. I think I have to adjust the pinion depth one more time and I should have it.


My running notes










To be continued..... again.....



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Cool, which locker did you end up going with or was that already in there?

Those shims look screwed up! (the original ones)



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 Posted: Thu Oct 10th, 2019 08:51 pm
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JAMMAN wrote:
Cool, which locker did you end up going with or was that already in there?

Those shims look screwed up! (the original ones)

It already had a Yukon grizzly auto locker in it, so I stuck with that. 

They were ROUGH.  Lol.



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OK, time for an update. The past couple months have been really busy with work, the holidays, and some other projects. The ranger is back together though! She even went on her first wheeling trip without any major issues  :cool:



It looks like we left off with setting up the gears in the new-to-me rear axle. After getting the gears set, the new set20 axle bearings and seals got pressed onto the (chromoly :rock) axle shafts. 





After getting the axles into the carrier and the SOLID diff cover on, I ran the new brake lines. I used steel hard lines from the T fitting on the pumpkin out to just inside the spring perches, and then used stainless braided lines out to the calipers.










Before the axle could go under the truck, there was a lot of rust repair to do and new frame cross members to make.


Here's what was left of the factory rear cross member/spare tire carrier.






Picked up some steel for the cross members (2x2 and 2x3 1/8th inch wall).






New Upper shock mounts that had been sitting in my garage for several years.





Bed and rear and mid cross members removed.




The start of wire wheeling/cleaning the frame in preparation for paint














Cutting a piece of 2x3" for the rear most cross member













Test fitting













After getting the rear cross member situated, I got impatient and threw the rear axle under the truck.










Final welded the rear cross member, put a coat of POR15 on the rear 6" of the frame, and got the cross member bolted in.








Then I jumped around a little bit and started working on the front end. Dropped the skid plate and pulled the front axle. There was quite a bit of four wheeling left overs on the skid plate.










If you've never seen a D35 ring gear/carrier, its not very beefy...





New 4.56 gear set.





Housing cleaned and ready for gear set-up










Mid set-up




Final gear pattern







The cheater bars required to torque the pinion nut. Busted my knuckles too many times during this process  :verymad






Front axle completed (minus diff cover) and ready to be shoe-horned back into the truck.









Then we (me, myself, and I) bounced back to rust repair. Mid cross member welded up and ready for install.









Then the old gas tank cross member was forcibly removed. It had quite a bit of cancer in it.







Cutting steel for the new gas tank cross member






Mocking things up









Here you can kinda see how the rear gas tank strap mounts (angle iron in the center and a horizontal tab on the right side). 




Pretty welds






Ok, so at this point I was rushing quite a bit to get things buttoned up before the weather turned on me, so pictures were few and far between.

Here is the freshly painted frame (two coats of POR15), and all cross members installed.


























After getting the rear end back together, I had some maintenance stuff to take of up front before taking it for a test drive. Had to replace a CV shaft, outer tie rod end, and the rod end bearings on the drivers side coilover.

Old bearing vs new




New bearing installed




Old bolts were looking a little worse for wear, so they were replaced with new grade 8 hardware.






Here she is back on the ground and ready for a test drive.











Bed back on and everything back together.






I'm really loving the new gear ratio. Overdrive is useful on the highway again!  I'm still getting used to the harshness of the auto-locker when driving on pavement, but it was awesome wheeling the truck with the rear axle locked :rock



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2002 XLT 4x4, 4.0l V6, Silver Frost Metalic, Superlifted and stuff
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 Posted: Sun Jan 12th, 2020 10:56 am
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Tsquare
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When you had the bed off why didn't you add a second fuel tank where the original spare tire was located?



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Tony
NE ATL
'04 XLT regular cab 3.slo stepside
Semi retirement
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 Posted: Sun Jan 12th, 2020 12:27 pm
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Jimmyspy
Shadetree Mechanic


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Tsquare wrote:
When you had the bed off why didn't you add a second fuel tank where the original spare tire was located?
Because that would've been a ton of work for little to no reward.  Lol.    
I've never had an issue with the factory 20 gallon tank being too small.



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2002 XLT 4x4, 4.0l V6, Silver Frost Metalic, Superlifted and stuff
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 Posted: Sun Jan 12th, 2020 12:42 pm
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Eddie Money
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Would boxing in the C-channel of the rear frame rails overly stiffened the truck for wheelin?



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I know my crazy! Do you?
2007 Sport 4door 4x4 4.0L SOHC V6 Ranger
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