03 ranger front suspension

im looking at buying a 2003 ranger single cab shortbed with the 4 cyl and 5 speed in it. its bagged right now on djm upper and lowers in front and a 2 link out back. its on 20's with a 35 series tire and no where close to laying out. probably still 4 inchs from laying an the balljoints in front are MAXED. im not sure if it had drop spindles. they look like the factory spindle but im not sure. its on a car lot so they have no clue either. i know everyone says to front clip it from a yota. does anyone offer arms for these trucks? not djm's. also, is the lug pattern the same from these and the 4wd rangers and explorers, if so so the 4wd hubs bolt to the spindle? im thinking about fabing my own drop spindles (like how max does) so i can have like a 3.5 inch spindle, raise my upper arms and relocate where my tierod mounts and maybe cut my spring pocket out and plate it and do like a torsion setup. if your wondering why so much drop, planing on 255/30/24's on it. the reason im saying go this way is i can find NO yota trucks to get the clip off of here. i can build it all, id just rather buy the arms if there available. i just want to see what all the ford guys think of that since im new to the ford game.
 
thanks in advance
josh

Ive built some protoype tubulars but haven't released them yet. You should be able to lay 20s with djm arms the cups may need trimmed. The front also needs Zed to lay 100% flat. There are no ranger drop spindles on the market right now. Alot of people replace the DJM arms with Moog balljoints. Also make sure they are DJM and not chassis tech. I,ve seen several people say they had DJMs old arms but they were actually chassis tech arms and I have no idea if those will lay or not. Hope that gives ya a starting point. Also for more info check out www.rangerpowersports.com

also, make sure the control arm mounts are notched for the lower arm.

damm 4 inches off the ground on 20s with arms? sombody did something wrong i think james said it, make sure everything is trimmed properly and it should lay just fine

Good luck with 24's on there! Mine is sfbd with 245/35/20 and its close to everything. I had to run a new brake system with a smaller booster/trim the lip on the front fenders/move the upper arms up and in/I built custom lowers that are way different than stock as far as length and design/gunna use a heim joint steering set-up/i already cut the spring pocket completely out and plated the inside then used a piece of 1/4 plate for the upper bag mount so i can run a 7" bag/re angled upper balljoints. As far as balljoints go Moog has a upper ball joint that is eliptical for the ranger and it is called the problem solver and it alows for alot more travel than stock. If u have anymore questions hit me up I will be glad to tell u what I know.

im not looking to bd it right now. unless i can only do 22's then ill bd it. i was thinking of building new upper and lowers with uniballs and moving my rack and making the tierods with uniballs. seems to be alot of work but im deffinetly up for it. ive always loved a ranger. i will also z it that 2 inchs. anyother problems i might run into since i can physicaly go out and look at it right now? trying to get all the problems out in the open so when i get it ill know exactly where to start. i want to set my arms up to acheive as little chamber as possible. i know i know you have to have a little. so im thinking maybe 3 degrees if that. i know its been done on a few dodges, can you flip the balljoints on the upper arm to have the arm mount under the spindle mount? im also going to be running re7's for sure. thanks for the input so far. and i could of been exagerating a bit about the 4 inchs, but the tranny member is still on it and thats an inch from laying as well. josh

if you cut the front cups down and buy the moog ball joints it will be very close to laying that is what i did to mine but like was said before it needs to be z'd before it will lay

Well u def cant flip the upper balljoints! I get less than 6 deg of camber change throughout the suspension cycle. I actually found a new balljoint yesterday that is eliptical like the moog but it is offset toward the front so u get a little bit more lift. i have been thinkin about a uniball upper joint but u would have to get a shaft machined to work in the spindle(if anyone reading this can do that hit me up). There is def going to be alot of issues with the big wheels just take them one at a time!

uniball the upper, makes BIG difference. the blue ranger that was on the cover of MT a few months back did this to his after he kept breaking ball joints.

Well welding the cup into the stock arm would be no big deal but how or what do u use to get the stud to work with the stock spindle? It would have to be machined to be able to use the cross bolt????????