Nice truck!
First things first when your toys are this old you need to baseline them, I don't care whose badge is on the grille. Check things like wheel bearings, steering, u-joints, ball joints, all the fluids, belts, hoses etc. If you take the front axle apart I highly suggest researching the front axle, there is a lot of tweaks that make a good axle great. C-clip eliminator mod would be a good one, pulling the differential off the axle beam to replace a u-joint on the trail is NOT going to be fun.
Mechanically your truck is as good as a Ranger came. As a guy with a rather cherished first gen (83-88) a second gen with the 4.0, M5OD 5-speed, Dana 35 front axle and 8.8 rear axle is as good as you can hope for out of the box. I have spent a lot of time, money and effort to get mine to where your truck started out.
Things I notice, yours has a lift kit. Make sure it is not a Rough Country, they were designed for my truck with the smaller D28 front axle and the pivot bracket can punch a hole a hole in the front differential housing. It burns me they still to this day sell the same kit that will destroy a front axle and do nothing about it. They are the cheaper rough riding kit everybody gets that just want big tires and don't care about performance. Also make sure you don't have stacked lift blocks in the rear or a single huge one. I would also pull the rear cover and check your gearing. Heavily loaded with say 3.27's and I am guessing 32's your 4.0 may not be as happy as it could be.
I can't tell what you have for lockout hubs. Automatic hubs work great... until they don't. Warn manual hubs are the best (they also made the factory manual lockouts) and they make a heavy duty version that is actually for the rear axle in jeeps that are the ultimate. My JY gets $10/pr for whatever I can find so I have a tote of the mere mortal Warns. Without a locker it is hard to hurt them but they are getting harder to find in the wild.
And if you have automatic hubs you likely have an electric t-case. Add taking the shift motor apart and cleaning/greasing it to your baseline procedure if you have one. If it lets you down in the sticks you can pull the motor off and shift the case manually with a wrench, the housing is marked with what range you are going into (and there is a neutral to flat tow it) My truck was factory manual t-case and has maintained that status throughout all of its iterations so I don't have much experience with them other than knowing neglected shift motors don't shift well (who would have thunk?)
You can swap the t-case to get a manual and it isn't too bad of a job but everybody wants a manual so they are hard to find. Keep the motor taken care of and I would just rock what you have.
The front suspension is kind of weird by today's standards. Very tough and hard hard to screw up but the average lube tech will struggle to align it, seek out "the old guy" Pretty much every 4wd Ford truck from 80-96 had them and every 2wd from 96 back into the 60's had something similar. (2wd F-250/350 still run them) You can DIY align them too with a little research. James Duff sells a solid axle swap kit if you want to roll that way, a Jeep D30 is fairly common for their aftermarket support, light weight, small profile, and they have the correct width and wheel bolt pattern to match the rear.
Desert racers love the Ford Twin I Beam (2wd) and Twin Traction Beam (4wd) for their toughness and amount of wheel travel they can have.
For overlanding/long distance travel... the standard cab is snug. It is what I have, you don't have room for much gear with you in the cab especially if you have speakers behind the seat and a passenger. You are limited on what you can do for seats too which kind of sucks (I have a line on a split bench that I hope fits better than the Explorer and Bronco II buckets I have tried so far) Everything "fits" but they hit the back window. A 6'-3" sasquatch like me needs some breathing room so I keep going back to the ol' bench.
I have never been around a Toyota of similar year... they did not age well around here. The beautiful thing about a Ranger is they are like a friggin erector set. If you don't like it change it. 4.0 can't cut it? Drop in a 5.0... or a LS... or an Ecoboost. The frame is good with it. Want a heavier rear axle? Go hunt down a dead or dyin' Explorer for its 31 spline 8.8 with factory disk brakes. And the list just goes on and on...
My truck is such a conglomeration of different vehicles it is almost comical but for me it makes it fun to mix and match and build what I want.
And on that note, for things like sliders and to a lesser degree bumpers and whatnot... you will have to go more DIY. It won't be peel and stick like a 'yota or Jeep. I kinda like that though. I am currently putting rocksliders on mine intended for a mid 80's Toyota pickup. Affordable Offroad makes some stuff, James Duff makes a lot of stuff for TTB Rangers but they know their stuff is good and charge accordingly. Bronco Graveyard has some stuff too.
You probably already know this but Bronco II and Explorer are based on the Ranger and can be sources for parts too. The newer you go on Explorers obviously they less good they will do for you.
My little abbreviated build thread on here:
I have had the truck for almost 19 years, she may not look like much but I have made many special modifications myself. I have been tweaking it somewhat for a long distance drive to a Ranger/Bronco II/Explorer gathering at a offroad park in Ohio next week. So there will be long distance...
expeditionportal.com
The best tech library out there for your truck:
DISCLAIMER: Activities and vehicle modifications appearing or described at The Ranger Station and it’s pages may be potentially dangerous. We do not endorse any such activity for others or recommend it to any particular person – we simply describe … Continued
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And an article on my truck, link to my real build thread is at the end of it.
Justin Russell (85_Ranger4x4) is one of our forum moderators, and has been a member since 2002. Justin got this 1985 Ford Ranger 4×4 while in high school, and has owned it ever since. As you can see on the license … Continued
www.therangerstation.com
