Tom's RED 1996 Ranger

[96.Tom]

I finally decided to make a post about my truck, some of the story from before i got it and the shit that we have done to it.
I bought this thing august last year, needed some work and it was a little sketchy but i didnt know just how bad it was...



Turns out, this truck has been to hell and back. Went through some sort of DUI accident, ended up in mexico, got beat on a bit and then i got it. After talking to four of the last owners i got some older pictures and a ton of info and stories.
Here are some pics of the progression, from being crashed to getting fixed up in mexico.

After i got it, i started fixing a bunch of mechanical issues that popped up and slowly fixed up a bunch of cosmetic stuff.



Ended up getting a marketplace deal on a set of camburg beams and a camburg built bumper for a price i couldn't say no to, and the part collecting started.

Camburg 4.5" over beams.
14" Sway a way Race-Runners, im running 250lbs springs over 350lbs.
Custom double shear steering outers (at the spindle).
Off the shelf camburg engine cage.
Amazon special rubber bumps.
Tig welded camburg bumper.
VisionX 6500 HIDs.
33" BFG K02s and 15" Outlaw wheels.
Im sure there's some stuff im forgetting.



The original plan was to get it all done in a weekend but it ended up being done over a couple months in smaller chunks.


Here we put on the beams and radius arms but kept the stock coil bucket and shocks.

 

[96.Tom]

We took out a weekend to put the bumper on.







After that, the only thing left was to put the engine cage and coilovers on, also that turned into an ABS delete.





The goal with this thing is to build a high school truck thats straight out of 2005, id say its getting there...

Going to take this thing out this weekend for the Leduc Swap Meet, fingers crossed everything goes well!

 

[Isaac.Helton]

Hopefully you can keep up now

 

[njtProd]

 

[-MIKE-]

I know it was done and it has to just be the photos… but every photo looks like that thing needs a serious alignment.

 

[Isaac.Helton]

I know it was done and it has to just be the photos… but every photo looks like that thing needs a serious alignment.

Tires are straight at ride height. That’s as good as it’s gonna get unless the truck gets swingers.

 

[Isaac.Helton]

 

[DP_Tundra]

It’s crazy that I can remember when Matt Helton didn’t even have kids. And now he has a teenager that is building and driving trucks. Fuck I’m old

Cool truck though dude. I had a ranger with the same beam kit probably before you were born!

 

[96.Tom]

Pretty good weekend, all things considered. The front end worked 10 times better than the stock garbage i had, there were some times where i tried to push it a little but the rear end just cant keep up. Front shocks definetly will need a re valve and the rubber bumps need some adjustment but im super happy with the set up.
Leading up to the trip i was already having some engine issues and this confirmed that i indeed have a blown headgasket and now some rod knock, it was reading temps around 220 all the way down the Cajon Pass, turns out its just burning all the coolant away. Anyways, already found an engine on LKQ out of an explorer just waiting for it to arrive so we can do the swap on @86.yoda 's driveway.



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[Chancegoodman]

what are the plans for the rear?

 

[96.Tom]

what are the plans for the rear?

For now the plan is to run f31s with the flipped shackle and a bumper that puts the spare way out there. Eventually ill do a bedcage to actually use up the travel.
Still want to keep it super simple, all bolt on stuff.

 

[96.Tom]

Ended up going with a LQK 4.0 out of a 96 explorer. Decent amount of miles and a pretty good price (without shipping).
Started the swap on monday, we got it running thursday night and just had to button up some things the next day, all things considered it wasnt too bad for our first time doing something like this, definitely learned a lot.
The new engine runs x10 times smoother than that old POS, definitely super happy to be driving this thing again.

Thanks to @86.yoda for all the help!

 

[Isaac.Helton]

All shined up with Sc1

 

[the bodj]

You guys are killing it. Love to see it!

 

[96.Tom]

Done a couple small things, since the last post. So decided to give the rear end some love. Made a super super simple rear bumper just to get rid of the ugly stock shit.

 

[96.Tom]

Cheap Manual Brakes on a 1996 Ford ranger.

At the last MORE race i noticed my brakes were progressively harder, sometimes it went away, other times it got worse, accompanied by a high idle and a hissing noise. So i immediately knew the diaphragm in the brake booster was going out, and i also knew from past experience that that thing was going to be a pain in the ass to remove.

The Camburg engine cage, only left an inch or so of room between the booster and the rear tube making it pretty much impossible to get the booster out in a clean way. I had to sawzall three of the studs through the gap between the booster and firewall, shorten one from the inside and pry the booster out against the engine cage making everything flex and somehow getting it out.



This also meant getting a stock one in there wasn't gonna happen, and instead of messing with smaller ones and not knowing what would fit i just decided to simplify everything and go manual brakes. I was able to get a manualbrakes.com kit that @Thicks91 had on his shelf, but since he was missing a couple small parts and had the wrong size master i decided to order a whole new kit, thinking it would be easier. But got the total wrong order, holes didnt line up and i could just tell that it was for another vehicle.

So i ended up piecing together the kit that Tyler gave me, made a new blockoff plate (94 rangers and 95-97 have slight different holes in the firewall). This kit also requires drilling a new hole and pressing in a new pin further up in the brake pedal to gain more leverage, also moves the master cylinder from the middle of the four holes in the firewall, to mounting using just the top two directly on the firewall, with a small aluminum spacer.

Here are some pictures and measurements on where to drill the pedal.



For the master cylinder, after talking to a sales guy from wilwood, the manualbakes.com dude and a bunch of research i decided to just throw the one that Tyler gave me even knowing that it was too big it'll give me a baseline.

So for reference this is on bone stock ranger brakes, a 1.125" bore master cylinder (Tyler's) was simply too big, not enough pressure in the system so the pedal was pretty stiff and it was very hard to get it to brake hard.
From there i decided to go to a 7/8" master cylinder (part number NMC11366 at oreillys) this made the pedal a lot softer and gave it enough pressure to actually be able to lock up the wheels, so i'd say its a win.
All this is going through a wilwood proportioning valve, im not running any residual valves and im still on stock brake lines, so the pedal feel can still be improved.

Pictures of the master and pedal installed.





Overall im pretty happy with the setup, who knows how long the autoparts master cylinder is going to last, i still want to make new lines all the way to the front calipers and have been thinking about a new brake pedal. But for now this is totally drivable, honestly it feels responsive and the pedal is light enough that i forget that its manual brakes half the time.

 

[96.Tom]

While i was busy dealing with all the brake stuff, waiting for parts or whatever i took the time to re-do all the ghetto wiring i had done when i first got it, routing and looming everything a lot nicer. This quickly snowballed into deleting the EGR and Evap systems since they were always giving issues anyway.

Again, took @Thicks91 advice and went to an older generation 4.0 intake (from a 1993 explorer). Only for 1993, some explorers came with EGR and some didnt i ended up finding one that did but took the intake anyway because the port is a lot easier to bolt a plate over than the stock plastic 1996 intake.

This is the blockoff plate i made.


Also these have a much cleaner way of dealing with vacuum ports, and i really wanted to simplify all that, especially now that the booster was gone. So the only things powered by vaccum are the HVAC system and Fuel pressure regulator.

 

[96.Tom]

All and all i have been enjoying this truck, took it on a couple road trips this year and just been doing simple prep stuff. I have been accumulating parts to build the rear end (Deaver G50s, fuelcell, etc..) But that'll come in the future.