Daily driver pickup

I bought this 99 Ranger from my dad after he got a new pickup last week. It is a 4 cylinder manual with basically no options, 175k miles and full maintenance  records.

Plans with it, upgrade the audio system and maintain it. I may lower it I am not sure and change the wheels. I am worried that lowering will kill the load capacity.

I thought about doing a pre-runner type build but I don't think I would use it and All Terrain tires seem like that would be annoying to daily.

Nice clean truck.  Looks like Dad took care of it.  Good luck with it.

Anyone know of better cup holders for Rangers? 

The 03 i had had a nice pair that was mounted to the seat base in front of the armrest. Was a factory ford piece

Time for some Champagne 

93EXCivic said:

Anyone know of better cup holders for Rangers? 

If the factory radio is double din and you replace it with single din that will leave you the room to add a universal cup holder in that area.  

Not necessarily the best because your drink now blocks the radio. However,  the cup is closer to hand and not low like near the floor. 

Looks like a clean truck! I'd do wheels and tires for sure.

I will add pictures later but cut the door for 6x9 to replace the 6x8s this weekend and removed the 6x8s from the back of the cab. Got sound deadening added to the passengers side door but ran out of time on the driver's side door. Focal R-690Cs 6x9s will be going in. Planning on installing single DIN JVC KD-X350BTS head unit and making a custom holder to hold a digital audio player to play music from. Later this year I am going to build a Voxel mini sub and add an Alpin MRV-F300 and lots more sound deadening.

I have decided that all I am doing on this truck is audio plus maintaining it. No other mods. It just isn't any fun to drive with the stupid long shifter, the terrible feeling Ford clutch and the truck suspension so why bother with mods. But it is super useful cause it will haul building and yard suppliers and mountain bikes easily and lets me focus on fun hobby cars so it is worth it.   

Don't rallycross it. We had a gent put one on its roof this past weekend. No injuries luckily, but kind of hard on the truck.

I put some 16 x 8 Mustang wheels and Michelin 225/60-16 tires on my '97 Ranger and it transformed the street handling and braking into something a lot better.  

Twin I Beams have limited latitude.

  Off road on a rutted surface the suspension will bounce you sideways at any speed over about 15mph. This with Bilstein shocks.  Its exceptionaly bad going up hill on a  steep washboard rutted road.  Bad wheel hop at 5 mph occurs.   And forget about traction on wet grass unless you  have a  few hundred pounds of ballast in the bed plus mud grippy tires.  In fact forget about traction.  If I am not careful I spin the tires on dry blacktop if the bed is empty.  Some wet street surface starts take a light foot.  Like Jackie Stewart said to always drive like there is wee bit of egg shell on the accelerator pedal that you don't want to crack.

  Power is low and I have the 4.0 V-6 with headers, Gibson exhaust and BBK 66 mm throttle body.   Clutch is wearing out again.  You can tell because it gets harder to shift gears right before it goes.

Hauls stuff nicely and keeps me out of the ticket zone.   

Toyman01 said:

Don't rallycross it. We had a gent put one on its roof this past weekend. No injuries luckily, but kind of hard on the truck.

 

Yeah I decided not partly because of that and also cause I have too many hobbies and I have interest to pick up another.

I believe the '98+ Ranger had a more typical A-arm front suspension.

Got the Focal speakers installed with sound deadening in doors. 

Installed a JVC head unit. But tonight it wouldnt turn on. I am hoping that the barrel splice connector I used didnt get crimped all the way and it slipped out. 

I also rolled in a Duplicolor bed liner and replaced the brake light switch since that died. 

So the head unit problem turned out to be a blown fuse. But I went ahead and redid the wiring harness by soldering the wires rather then the using the crap barrel splice connectors.