Thread: Very mild '94 Ranger build

After years of dreaming about ramming the gnar in the t-ruck, the time came. I know very little about this stuff and everything has been a huge learning process. Please speak up if you notice me doing anything horribly wrong.

This is what the truck looked like when my dad bought it for just over $3k in 2004. This photo is from 2009, but it did not change at all in that time. It's a 4.0 automatic 2wd with bucket seats and manual windows/door locks and a limited slip rear end.



The plan is to keep the build very mild, relatively cheap, and geared towards fast dirt roads and long freeway drives rather than desert stuff. Here in NorCal there's no desert, but we do have lots of sweet dirt roads. Rally, yo.

I blew out a tire and ruined a wheel up in Pinecrest during Labor day weekend so I pulled my head out of my ass and decided it was time to step up to the plate. $70 on Craigslist got some old aluminum Ranger wheels. After a few weeks of painting, I sucked it up and bought some 31x10.5x15 tires.

(in that pic you can see me in the background with the forks pulled off a YZF426. My axle nut was frozen in place so we just dropped the front end in order to fix a flat tire and get back on the tail)

The tires are great. But the stock suspension bottoms out 4-5 times just when driving across town. Drooped out with the stock suspension:


A guy on Craigslist was selling some half-begun Ranger project. He was down to part out the front end. I came home with a set of Threat 4.5" over beams, some Fabtech radius arms and brackets, Camburg coil buckets, a pair of Fox 2.0 resi shocks, some random red lift springs of un-known lift height, some alignment shims, '87 spindles and rotors, limit straps, some random bolts, and some brand new calipers. A few days later he gave me a pair of extended brakelines. I was stoked, but everything looked super clapped out.





Shocks, boots, laundry.


A few days later and I end up getting some Threat radius arms, brackets, and transmission cross member from the same guy. It was a good deal, but dirty bung holes rained on my parade.




After a month or so of scrounging for parts, pouring over DR, and just riding my bicycle a ton, I had New Years weekend free to install everything. My friend Dan helped me out tons, and this kit would never have made it together if it wasn't for him. But don't talk about Dan, as he is a creature of mystery.

Removing the stock crap was quite a hassle. Goddamn rivets.


We guessed on where to mount the transmission on the new cross member. I currently believe we are too far forwards, as my wheelbase is now 126", an inch longer than stock, and the truck makes a very noticeable vibration under mild acceleration.

Where we drilled the mounts:

We also had to extend the slot for the x-member so it wasn't totally bottomed (topped?) out on the extreme end of the slot.


Commitment to getting it all done. Sometime Saturday morning.


Starting to lay it all out:


Notice the coil buckets. We decided it might be wise to ditch the old hockey puck bump stops and just use 2 passenger side OEM Ranger bump stops. While these don't hold up to desert racing, I'm hoping they'll work for the fire road driving that I do. I can only find photos of the tack welds, and none of the perfect tig welds that hold them together.




Steering:

Measuring to figure out how to extend this showed that the "4.5" extended beams" are only 3" extended.

Sometime late Sunday evening.


With the wheels back on:


I made it to work Monday morning with no problems, but I've still got a bunch of small bugs to work out. The truck turns way better to the left than the right. The vibration under mild acceleration does not seem right. My brakelines seem too tight on full lock. I think the left side shock might need new seals. Still have to get an alignment done. These lift springs are sized perfectly for my limit straps and shocks, but the front end sits about 2" higher than we want it to.

Immediate plans for the rear end are Explorer leaf springs and some Fox 2.0 reservoir shocks. Are 10" stroke shocks going to be the correct size?

Plans for three or four weeks down the road are for an Explorer rear end with 3.55 gears and a locker and some sweet bumpers.

It will never end!

and so it begins....

looks pretty clean man. do you have a small machine shop in your backyard or something?

I like the simplicity.
And good idea pushing the front end forward. It will help later on when you want to run bigger tires. It allows for more room at the firewall.

hmmm those look like the shocks i sold on here a while ago.

We did everything pictured at my friend's shop. He has a sweet 4x4 Tacoma and his build is up on desert rides.

At the moment there are no plans for larger tires. 50% long freeway drives across the state, 30% twisty mountain rodes, and 20% fast fire road mobbing. Bigger tires seem like they would suck 80% of the time.

More pictures to come later tonight.

Anyhow, if I'm doing an Explorer leaf spring swap, are 10" stroke shocks going to be the right size? How much will a shackle flip lower the rear end?

excellent work weed!
Let me know next time your in SLO, and we can test it out a bit. Jeff Rips the Ridge?

here's the truck his buddy built
2001 toyota tacoma long travel build... need help!!!

I think you meant to post this.
http://www.desertrides.com/forum/vie...php?f=4&t=4876

Quick update. This thing is too much fun!

The rear end is out of control. It packs up quickly and flops around. After a rainy afternoon of wrenching, I got some Explorer leafs installed.

Explorer versus Ranger (top) leaf packs:


How she sits currently:




I feel very awkward standing in the street taking photos of my automobile.

The truck handles alright. The 2.0 Fox shocks are in need of a rebuild. The truck has quite a bit of body roll. Off road it handles really well, but I'd bet that less body roll would help out there, too, but I'm no expert at all on the matter. After two testing sessions, I've used about 6.5" out of the 8" stroke. This seems like the spring rate is correct, maybe a bit on the stiff side.

I just bought a drop pitman arm and a pair of 4.5" lift springs. Currently the truck has 5.5" or 6" lift springs. I can't get the bolt loose to remove the stock pitman arm. It's like an 1 3/8" nut. After a few days of liquid wrench squirts I'll try again. Hopefully we won't need to shorten the steering adjusters to work with the drop pitman.

We were thinking that the smaller springs and the resulting lower ride height would really help with the body roll. Since I'm hitting dirt roads and not sand dunes, hopefully the improved handling will compensate for the lost travel. I'll need some new limit straps for these springs.

Next up is the shackle flip and ordering some proper shocks for the increased travel in the rear.

looking good, body roll will come with any offroad setup and really doesnt hurt offroad performance.
where do you live btw?

A locked rear and a heavy right foot will help body roll hehe. Really though when in doubt...

Looks good keep it up.

Originally Posted by 84prerunner

looking good, body roll will come with any offroad setup and really doesnt hurt offroad performance.
where do you live btw?

Santa Cruz, CA.

Originally Posted by slcpunk74

A locked rear and a heavy right foot will help body roll hehe. Really though when in doubt...

Looks good keep it up.

Thanks for all the comments!

Locked rear... plans are for an Explorer axle/brake setup with 4.10 gears.

Right now I have the factory TrakLoc limited slip and 3.55 gears. It works pretty darn well. Would a locker, something like a LockRight, be a good idea on a mild truck like this?

Originally Posted by bicycleweed.com

Q

Next up is the shackle flip and ordering some proper shocks for the increased travel in the rear.

don't flip the shackles unless you get longtravel leafs. the rear will be way too low, and you'll be damn near on the bumpstops at ride height.

keep it up, I like your writing style, it's entertaining.

Originally Posted by bicycleweed.com

Thanks for all the comments!

Locked rear... plans are for an Explorer axle/brake setup with 4.10 gears.

Right now I have the factory TrakLoc limited slip and 3.55 gears. It works pretty darn well. Would a locker, something like a LockRight, be a good idea on a mild truck like this?

id vote the stock ford LS or a true trac. if the body roll you have bothers you a locker is not your thing (not trying to be a dick)

Ill second nodnarb, youre writing style makes it like a story. But the pitman arms are bitches. I had to torch mine, pry on it with a pitman arm puller and 1/2 drive with extension, then dry ice. Hopefully you get lucky

Originally Posted by 84prerunner

id vote the stock ford LS or a true trac. if the body roll you have bothers you a locker is not your thing (not trying to be a dick)

It was a joke dumbass, hence the hehe.


On a side note your truck looks really fun. If we didn't have snow here I would love to do a 2wd beamed ranger DD.

I think a motor mount is broken.

When I turn the truck on I hear and feel a significant "clunk" that seems like it's coming from the front right corner of the truck. I had my friend start the truck while I watched with the hood open and the motor definitely flopped over towards the driver side.

Seems like Autofab mounts are the only way to go. I'm kind of freaking out about this, but it seems like it's a very common thing to happen to Rangers. And once the Autofab mounts are in there, I'll have a bit less weight in my wallet holding me back and there won't be anything else that can possibly go wrong with the truck. Right? Right? Right....

i really dobt you beat on that truck anywhere near hard enough to break stock motor mounts. there probably just worn out from age/millage.
get some stock replacement ones.

Originally Posted by 84prerunner

i really dobt you beat on that truck anywhere near hard enough to break stock motor mounts. there probably just worn out from age/millage.
get some stock replacement ones.

X2. Sometimes I'll put ratchet straps on my motor. Cost like 5bux

A real vomit-attack of an update!

After a few days of battling the Pitman arm and making no significant progress, despite bathing the stubborn little thing in Liquid Wrench, I asked Mr. Google if there were any tricks to removing the thing. He promptly replied with a $10 Pitman Arm Puller from Harbor Freight. No way!

How she sits now:


On to the motor mounts. I had a co-worker start my truck and rev it, and sure enough, the motor was flopping around with any kind of change in the RPMs. As soon as we walked back inside the warehouse to return to work, the power went off, which means we got the day free. Not a single autoparts store in town had motor mounts for a '94 Ranger, but one shop could have some by the early evening. After a fantastic bike ride, I stopped in at the store, tossed the mounts in my jersey pockets, and headed home for a beer or two in the garage. The passenger side mount was pretty straightforward. A hassle, but it wasn't too bad. On to the driver side. After twenty minutes of trying to put the new mount into place, I pulled it out and held it up against the old one. Great. It's different.

Right two mounts are the originals. The left one is the new, wrong one:


Another day and it's back at it. Got the new mount in place in 20 minutes. Attacking the Pitman arm again, and things are looking up. The new puller slides right into place. Tap tap tap with the hammer and the puller looks all seated. A few turns of the puller and nothing. The cheater pipe hits the ratchet and still nothing. A few more taps. Nothing. More torquing. More hammering. Nothing. A bit more torquing, and something is moving. Finally! Then it keeps moving. And it's out. No, not the Pitman arm. The puller is out, and it's in pieces. Throw cheater pipe across the room. Give up and eat peanuts. A few days later, the local auto parts store kid heard me complaining about that damn Pitman arm, and he recommended a Lisle brand puller. Here's the end to that story:



And now for some numbers. I'm getting 12.25" inches of usable travel. I have 6.75" of usable shock stroke. The shock sags about 1.25" into that travel, which is why I was considering lowering the front end. That's only 18% sag. I'd like something near 40%. Tossing some smaller lift springs in and travel goes down to around 9" with a similar sag percentage. I'll stick with the bigger springs until I feel saucy enough to "spring" for the $180 Camburg springs or find some old Fabtech springs.

Bottomed:


Clearance with the trimmed bumper and 31" tires:


I need to slow down in this truck It can't handle real impact yet. The coil buckets are starting to crack where the side plates hit the under-frame mount. The cracks are tiny, but still cracks. The lower ball joint on the driver's side is bad. The steering was screaming bloody mercy on the last testing session. Hopefully the steering is fixed now with the drop Pitman. There was only 90 PSI in one shock and about 150 PSI in the other, so I aired them both up to 200 PSI. Hopefully Poly Performance gets some rebuild kits back in stock soon.

I've gotta do some boring stuff pretty soon here, like fix the cracked fuel filler hose and re-torque the valve covers and some new sparkplugs. The rear end will come after I get the bed off and do a 64" leaf spring conversion. And maybe, just maybe, the truck will get a working CD player. Bump!

Trailer hitch mini-project:
Bought it in rough shape for $40 from a jeweler in town.


Spent a few days sanding and wire brushing, then a day of painting.


And mounting. Looks like either my frame is bent or the hitch is bent since the hitch "ears" are about 3/4" off from the frame rails.


The bumper and hitch weigh the back end down significantly. Hopefully a prerunner rear bumper/hitch combo will be lighter and more practical.

And finally, my buddy hits some jumps a few years ago in his Taco:

so the shock is limiting your travel? you dont need that much spare shock shaft at bump. always better to have extra then not enough though.
ford power steering almost always makes noise when you beat on it, noting to worry about.
and the coil buckets are pretty easy to gusset, very common for them to break when beat on very hard.
looking very nice, keep up the good work.

Got a bunch of updates! Oldest to newest…

Some rallying in the truck with the Explorer leafs and stock rear shocks:





A trip to Pick And Pull nabbed a set of Chevy 64” springs and a set of Cherokee springs.
I used the main 64” Chevy spring, then a mishmash of Cherokee and old Ranger springs, plus the old Ranger overload spring. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have an overload in there since the truck still needs to haul motos and camping gear.

To install my hack-fab leaf spring pack, I pulled the bed, bumper, spare tire, and dropped the gas tank. This was a real pain, but after drilling into the oil filter while working on the front end (champion move on my part) it didn’t make sense to take any chances with drilling into the gas tank.

Had to siphon a few gallons of gas outta the truck… and forgot the gas cans at home! Riding across town at 10pm with a couple gas cans on you bicycle isn’t even weird in Santa Cruz.


Stock rear Ranger setup with Explorer leaf springs, drooped out. Not much travel.


Here’s the notch in the forward most bed mount that allows for the new position of the forward spring hanger:


Mocking up the leaf pack. I moved the shackle hanger so that its forward holes were in the place of the stock location’s rear holes.


Drooped out with the new leaf pack:


The new springs are good for about 3” more travel… with a flipped stock shackle and hanger.

Flipped shackle hanger:


Passenger side:


After getting the goddamn gas tank back in place:


Drove the truck for a week with the flipped shackles, and it handled amazingly well on the street. Total sports car-like responsiveness. But it was sagged around 70% of its travel. When you’ve only got 10” of travel to play with, that’s barely enough for the ol’ in out. Flipped the shackles back to the stock position and ended up with around 30% sag. To get max prerunner stance again, I borrowed a camper shell from a co-worker. Or maybe it was because we were gonna be heading down to Baja.



Sank into the sand on a random beach in the middle of nowhere. Dug a huge hole to get the truck out and leap-frogged on pieces of wood towards hard sand until a few 60 year old white women drove by on quads and dragged us to safety

Hole:


Night time in Baja:


Me encanta Mexico, y volveré prontisimo.


The Mexicans laughed at my sweet compressor:


Camping at Superstition:


Superstition was a great place to spend the night. Not only was it close ot the boarder, but it had some rad geography for thrashing the truck. We nabbed the best campsite on the mountain and we had the park totally empty to enjoy to ourselves.

I beams are sweet. Note the camber change on the outside tire:


This probably wasn’t the best idea:




166,666.6


Down in Baja the driver’s side rear shock decided to vibrate off the stock mount. The shock lost its reservoir and got pretty scratched up. We made it almost 1,000 miles back home with just a passenger side rear shock. Until I hit a speed bump in town that ripped the other stock upper mount apart and thrashed the other shock. So now I’ve gotta order 2 reservoirs, 1 shock body, 2 hoses, and some shock fluid. We’re going to try to build some new rear shock mounts that put the shocks in the stock location. I had a brief vision of some 14” shocks mounted from the stock tabs on the rear end to a custom, super low-rider bed cage that would sit below a sub floor in the bed. Camping in the shell is super easy.

glad to see it getting put to use. did you cycle the rear with the shock mounted with the shackle in it current position? just to make sure its not limiting the bump or going to far into nega arch?

also, that leaf pack is a little scary, you might want to add some arch to the leafs so they all kinda flow together lol

Originally Posted by 84prerunner

glad to see it getting put to use. did you cycle the rear with the shock mounted with the shackle in it current position? just to make sure its not limiting the bump or going to far into nega arch?

also, that leaf pack is a little scary, you might want to add some arch to the leafs so they all kinda flow together lol

Travel was limited by the shocks mounted to the stock location. We're going to try to fix that by angling both shocks up towards the tail gate, and we might lower the bump stops down a bit. Cycling just the springs didn't show anything weird going on.

The leaf pack is definitely scary looking. Either this weekend or the next I'll be doing some work on them. I'm hesitant to try the BFH/Railroad track method of arching them. The only spring shop I've found around here would not re-arch anything. And it seems like a good idea to add some more clamps and to perhaps remove the overloads and add a few more leaves. I'm at 5 right now.

Updating build threads is such a pain in the ass when you spend all your time driving, riding your bicycle, and working on your truck!

First, some video from a while back:


I had a shock rattle off a stock mount and get torn apart down in Baja, then back home a week later another shock tore the stock mount to pieces. I gave world champion fabricator a call and might have done some trade work to sort out the rear shock mounting issues.

Bottom out with shackles in regular position:


Here's the problem with running stock 64" Silverado leafs on a Ranger... About 6" before bottom out the spring goes into negative arch.



This is why arching springs is so key. I can't find anyone to arch my springs and my own re-arch attempts were fruitless so bear with me. We flipped my shackles back over to high performance prerunner mode to cut down on the negative arch.

Fab master whipped out this sweet mini-bedcage while I sanded rust and debris off his masterpiece. The whole idea behind my truck is to keep it mild, so we didn't want to cut any holes in the bed or even go to fiberglass fenders. It's awesome to have a normal redneck looking truck when you have to drive past police and school children on your way out to the local rally roads.







With this shock orientation the rear end gets about 14" of travel with some 2.0x10" Fox reservoir shocks. With only 6 leaves in place and the shackles flipped the truck rode at about 70% sag. This not only looked like the truck was taking a massive dump but it handled badly. Solution was to get longer u-bolts and add more leafs. If there is anyone in norcal who can re-arch springs, please, let me know!





Other side... I moved the "rebound clip" to the rear of the spring pack after this photo was taken. Also note the world's most highly modified stock Ranger exhaust. Nice and quiet!



Rear end is sprung about right, though a tad soft and a tad too low, but it'll have to be good enough for now. Rear end is sprung about right, though a tad soft and a tad too low, but it'll have to be good enough for now.

Since then the big updates are limited to fresh ball joints and wheel bearings, of which 2 ball joints are already loose as a goose, and the removal of my sweet subwoofer in its rad pink enclosure. I finally bought a CD player too. I built a bike rack for the bed that transforms into a camp table, but I'm not done with the legs yet.

Future things to sort out:

Get a new AC compressor and get all that running proper
Under drive pulley kit
Re-valve front shocks
Off road lights on bumper
KPIG bumper sticker
Extra loud horn
Air pressure gauge/easy deflate tool
Air compressor
Spare tire
4.10 8.8" rear end with another stock limited slip. 17MPG with the stock 3.55 LSD rear end!

How she sits as of now:

Jeff,

This is Victor, i bought those fiberglass fenders from you a few months ago... The rear crossmember mount looks good, i'm gonna have to steal that idea!

very cool setup!!!

Originally Posted by victory80

Jeff,

This is Victor, i bought those fiberglass fenders from you a few months ago... The rear crossmember mount looks good, i'm gonna have to steal that idea!

Hey man, what's up? Throw on that DBR kit yet?

The rear mounts work great, but with the 10" stroke shocks there's only 14" of travel. With 13" in front it works alright and feels pretty balanced.

Ordered up some stiffer valving for the shocks from Poly Performance today, along with some longer reservoir bodies. Gonna go to 11" reservoirs with some 50# compression valving in front and some 55# valving in back. This weekend is gonna be big, have plans for the trans cooler and a ton of other small things.

that cross member is fucking rad.

not sure why ur pack is going so negative tho. the 3 i have seen done were all done with different shackle hanger set ups in the rear and all bumped flat. how ever i have not set one of those packs up. so i have no incite to it.

how ever from dealing with other packs that are a full fab set up im going to tell you to move the rear hanger forward and run a longer shackle. yours is locked out causing it to go negative.

Originally Posted by mcdirt@1s1k

how ever from dealing with other packs that are a full fab set up im going to tell you to move the rear hanger forward and run a longer shackle. yours is locked out causing it to go negative.

Thanks for the feedback! And I'll pass along all the cross member props to the guy who built it. All Dannn's doing.

So the shackle hangers have since been flipped, I just don't have a recent photo of it all with the bed off. With the flipped hangers the springs are actually nearly flat at full bump, with almost no negative arch. We saw that, so we said "forget ride height, let's get travel!" and flipped 'em.

With stock, flipped shackles and hangers the set up works well but binds right about at 14"of travel, which is the max the little 10" stroke shocks seemed happy with. So it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. However, it would be rad to finally re-arch the pack to get a stiffer set up with a slightly higher ride height. But seriously, working on leaf packs just sucks and I'm happy with how it all works as of now. Oh, and that video is from before I added a few more leaves to the pack.

man i wish i had a v6 and extended cab. ha. truck is lookin good. mine has kinda been put on hold

Tried out some 50 compression, 75 rebound in front and the truck drives worlds better. The rear still needs to be valved stiffer as well. I'm going to throw on some 11" reservoirs in the front and go up to some 55 compression, 80 rebound and see how that holds up. The front springs have been softening up nicely and feel pretty good. The change in valving was so easy and made such an improvement in how she drove!

Also threw on a trans temp gauge, a CD player, a Rough Stuff diff cover, and got a much larger trans cooler complete with fan. The gasket between the bellhousing and the motor started leaking pretty bad, and the trans pan also loosened up and spewed out fluid.

Then she rolled. Yep. High sided through a 30MPH drifter while out of state on a road trip. Definitely the last thing I ever expected this little truck to do. We hit a fast long right, then turned into a tighter left. It was a hard turn, but not extremely tight or anything. But before I even knew what was happening we were on the passenger side, then we were on the roof, then we were on the driver's side. Not sweet.

The coil popped out of the bucket on the passenger side, which I think happened after we had begun the roll. A couple rocks were pinched between the bead and the rim, too. There were not many ruts on the road. I can't figure out how we really managed to roll, was probably something lame like just too much body roll while turning too hard on too off camber of a surface.

We got her back onto the wheels and pulled the plugs. She blew a shit load of oil all over everyone, but then started almost immediately. The roof didn't get crushed in and the windshield only cracked. Drove her back to camp after adding some oil and some coolant.

The next morning I gave a meth head at the local gas station $20 to pop my tire off the rim, get the rocks out of the bead, and get the wheel freeway safe. Went to an autoparts store and got a new radiator to replace my old one which crunched when the hood got punched down. Thankfully had a ton of friends around to help out. Then we hit the road.

400 miles between roll over site and home. Truck drove pretty straight, but the transmission was getting super hot, 220° for most of the drive. We were only getting 10-12mpg at best and there was a huge exhaust leak. Max speed on flats was about 65. There was a horrendous vibration on the freeway at the bottom of both 3rd and 4th gears which went away when accelerating, but came back with cruising.

On the last mountain pass before home, the truck lost almost all of its power and struggled to chug along at 20mph. We're guessing the alternator died. I'll do a compression test this weekend to see if the motor really is toast. She ran for a few seconds while on her side and did blow out a lot of oil, but that has got to be normal for a roll over.

Now the truck has got next to no power at the super low revs. She couldn't even make it up my family's mountain drive way. Had to tow it up the hill with the minivan. All the plugs are clean and the CEL only comes on occasionally. Maybe a fresh pair of headers (but I can't locate any cracks...) would help?

What's next? I dunno. All advice is appreciated.

Normal off road wear and tear:







With the bad gasket between the trans and the motor, the possibly fried trans, the motor with no power, no working AC, and a dire need of a new windshield, hood, fenders, and radiator support, I'm really thinking about getting a new truck to build. Another Ranger with a 4.0. If I can spend $2000 and loose 50,000 miles off the odometer while getting a clean slate, it kinda makes sense. I'll probably just get another cheap 4.0 Ranger, maybe a 5 speed to change it up a bit,while I go through this one and figure out what exactly I need to fix.

All advice is welcome!

sorry bout the roll over

I saw some 4.0 and trannys on the SF craigslist.... Also I got stock fenders and bed if you want.

sucks to see. just so you know, there is no gasket between the engine block and bell housing. the oil leaks is either a main seal on the motor or on the trans TQ converter. as for the loss of power, it could be alot of things from something stupid to the more major issues like a blown motor.
time to build the full race version!
keep us updated.

o and the shell didnt crack at all?

Just found something so stupid but so easy to do in the middle of a frantic late night repair session: spark plugs 5 and 6 were cross wired! Truck runs really well now. Like better than before it rolled since it now has the new radiator, new air filter, and freshly cleaned MAF. Such a relief, and such an easy mistake to make in the middle of the night after a wreck.

Getting a code of 176 on the OBD 1, I guess it's for an HO2S? Maybe that exhaust leak is a faulty O2 sensor?

I'll try a PCV valve and going to a thicker oil, guys on the Ranger Station report that the leaking where the bellhousing hits the motor (backing plate?) is pretty common and is only sometimes a rear main seal. The transmission makes bad sounds and smells like burnt toast after any even a 5 minute climb/hill so that's the real issue now. Along with every panel of sheet metal and the cracked windshield.

Shell lost its stupid Yakima bars and a single rivet popped out, but it didn't crack. The sides took most of the damage. Or maybe a camper is just a cheaper version of a roll cage?

since you gotta replace it all, get front and rear glass fenders. and new doors and you should be good to go. Bummer, such a clean little truck

Originally Posted by jeepspeed

since you gotta replace it all, get front and rear glass fenders. and new doors and you should be good to go. Bummer, such a clean little truck

Thanks for the props, you did an amazing job on your Nissan. That's funny because I had a full set of Glassworks fiberglass, complete with both fenders and both bedsides, and I just sold it all a few weeks ago. It's going to be a lot cheaper to just get new OEM panels off Craigslist. WAY cheaper. I'd really like to avoid fiberglass on this truck. It clears the 31" tires just fine and it's totally under the radar. People tell me I should build a prerunner truck next time, it's awesome.

Ran a compression test yesterday, here's the results:
Cylinder 1 138 psi
Cylinder 2 145 psi
Cylinder 3 155 psi
Cylinder 4 158 psi
Cylinder 5 140 psi
Cylinder 6 158 psi

So cylinder #1 is a tad low, but I have no idea if that is ok or not. I'll just assume it's perfect since that's a lot cheaper than buying a new motor or doing a head gasket.

Getting OBD error codes of 176, 212, and 542. The spark plug in cylinder 1 had what the Clymer manual said was evidence of a lean ratio, and code 176 corresponds to an O2 sensor. Is that something to worry about? A few spark plugs were cross wired for around 400 miles which I'm sure makes a difference.

Truck runs and drives pretty well, gotta go through it all and make sure nothing on the chassis is too blown out, but the windshield is one giant web of cracks and I have to get in and out of the passenger side. That's priority #1, along with straightening out the roof of the cab. How hard is it to install a windshield?

i dont have a nissan? ahaha. you dont seem to upset about the roll at all. props to your outlook aswell

sucks that you rolled it, was looking pretty nice and like you said "under the radar". Are those pics b4 or after the roll? you said you windshield was cracked but dont see any in the pics.