RockRangerII the build up.

After loosing my last ranger a bit over a year ago I finally got onther one to replace it. The truck I am starting with is a 1993 ranger 4X4 xl standard cab short bed. It is pretty much a bare bones truck. No AC no cruise and a manualt t case. It also has a 4.0 and a 5 speed with 3.73 and an open rear diff. When I purchased the truck it came with a 2.5" rancho lift 31" bfg AT tires on aluminum rims.

I have had the truck around 3 months now and have put about 3000 miles on it sofar. Over that time I have noticed a few things about it. When they installed the lift instead of installing longer brake lines they installed limit straps that limit down travel to about 1" from ride height and also removed the sway bar. They also didnt lift the rear at all and it has a serous case of butt dragging.

 

[FROADER]

Nice work Matt.

 

[Savage Wolf]

I had a HF chopsaw before and I was never happy with it. I could never get it to cut square. The blade would always wonder on me. I tried different blades light pressure hard pressure but could never get it to work. I have an old band saw right now but the blade is dull and it is to big to be easy to use in the area I have. I am thinking plasma right now. Need to see how much this trip to moab ends up costing me.

IMO having used the HF chop saw, millwaukee 14 inch dry cut and plasma, if I had to chose again, I would go with a HF cutoff bandsaw, plasma freehand is great for hacking stuff up, the 14 inch dry cut makes asome cuts no prep from the saw to weld, but I have to fight with it to get it cut where I set it (the miter block on it deflects a few degs when you tighten it down)

The HF cutoff bandsaw works great with a few mods from what I have read (like most other HF tools)

Dry cut setup to cut a d44 up if you want I can post a close up of the
cut quality on the peice that came out of it

 

[section525]

Loooks saweeet!


My next saw will be the DeWalt DW872.

http://www.dewalt.com/us/products/tool_detail.asp?productID=159

 

[410Fortune]

Need to see how much this trip to moab ends up costing me.

Man you said a mouth full there! Yikes, its crunch time baby!
Sliders look nice...my plan was to have the basic cage by now (talking last fall making plans), sliders, etc....I will be lucky if I make it with a working 4x4!! hahaha just like normal!

Come on lotto....

 

[BKennedy]

Come on lotto....

Ditto! He He...
Nice sliders, I like how you tucked them up against the rockers.

 

[rookieshooter]

Looking good.

Here is my HF. Going to get one of those like Section said. I had nothing but trouble. I don't think it would cut thru hot butter straight.

 

[410Fortune]

seems to be hit or miss, we used the HF chop to build many things, never an issue, though its not used for precise cuts Rookie are you not going to save the cut wheel?

 

[tdavis]

My HF chop saw died.. so I picked up the Rigid model from Home Depot. It came with a lifetime warranty. So far, it does way better on the cuts than the HF did; as long as I get the angle right on the miter, it cuts pretty straight.

 

[DB_1]

Nice job on the sliders Matt...looks like your ready to do a cage now

I got a 14" Milwaukee abrasive and it does OK but cutting anything thicker than .120 wall is a bit of a chore. I'd personally like to get a cold saw but I can't justify the cost right now especially since i'm almost done with the fab work on my truck...for now.

 

[RockRanger]

Saturday I am planning on picking up the tubing for the cage and front bumpers. Tracy will be here with a trailer that I can haul it on. After moab I have a few out of town work trips to do then hopefully I will start on the cage.

 

[rookieshooter]

seems to be hit or miss, we used the HF chop to build many things, never an issue, though its not used for precise cuts Rookie are you not going to save the cut wheel?

That's a Dewalt cutting wheel. I thought that might help. But the wheel kept walking from side to side and just got the metal extremly hot including the wheel. Then it would not cut at all. Maybe I just got a real lemon of chop off saw. It seemed it just got slower and slower and started that walking crap. I guess I'll take it off and see if the wheel will work on the Dewalt saw.

 

[section525]

I have an older Makita chop saw. It works good even with HF wheels!


Matt... I can't remember if you have a tube notcher or not?

 

[Jefe]

I picked up a Ryobi chop saw from Home Depot back when i was doing my SAS. Its still runs, AND cuts straight. I made sure the chop saw i got had a nice milled base, as I've used the pressed steel base type and know they can't cut straight. Though I have gone through a few sets of brushes for my Ryobi. Once the brushes get to a certain temp it re-tempers the spring behind the brush and renders the brush assembly useless. In fact the first time I did that was withing 24hrs of owning it.

 

[full foot notch]

bump for a good thread, so i can find it again

 

[RockRanger]

Guess I should update this a bit. The truck worked great at moab. The only issue was the bad gas that I bought at chevron and gave me bad running issue the whole weekend. After the moab trip I came back to cali and did a run in the sierra national forest. My shock mounts need to be addressed as I am having issues with them coming loose. Also my doubler and rear locker are at home waiting to be installed.

After the wheeling trip in the sierras I drove the ranger to santa cruz (175ish miles) and gave it to my brother to daily drive for a few weeks and then he drove it back to san diego. All in all it saw about 1000 miles of highway driving and was fine.

The slave cylender took a crap on my brother so when I install the doubler I get to pull the tranny as well. I will probably toss a new clutch in at the same time.

I still havent been home sence the moab trip and have atleast another 2 weeks worth of work on the road to do. So it will be a while till I get home to get to do anything to the truck.

 

[RockRanger]

Just a peak at a little project I started woking on today

 

[DB_1]

Oooooh, nice!
Anyone helping you with that? Don't smash your watch!

 

[BKennedy]

Your neighbors must love you Matt. Are you going to have to fab some sticks for that since it looks like they would come out behind the driver seat?

 

[RockRanger]

Tracy helped me pull the tranny today and is giving me a hand. I could probably make the fatory shifter work on the crawler box however my crawler box is a 1350 and my shifter is for a 1354. Tommorow I am going to try and figure out the shifters and hopefully get it back in the truck. I need to pick up a slave cylinder seeing as how that is why I pulled the tranny.

 

[Kirby N.]

Yeay! details details details por favor!