I just bought a 1990 Ranger 4wd 4.0 with an auto. its your typical mall crawler 6" lift 33 BFG all terrains, I'm planning on turning it into a mild trail runner but thats far off right now there's more pressing issue. when i bought it the owner said the transmission was out haven't had a chance to look at it but figure it be best to swap the whole thing out. I need it to be pretty road friendly cause the girl friend is going to be useing it to drive around town and we might use it to go back to her home every weekend and thats 90 miles away and kinda would like some better gas milage than my Powerstroke.
1. Whats my best option for a transmission in this thing?
2. Whats a good all terrain or mild mud terrain the BFG's on it are cracking and ive had bad experiences with them peeling apart?
3. Is there anything I should look for or be worried about with this thing this is the first ttb that ive owned and am planning on running the ttb till this thing no longer has to be a DD?
Hmm what kind of horrible milage do you get in the Powerstroke? When i was DDing my ranger i don't think i ever got above 18-19mpg, even stock. Once i started lifting it it probably never got above 15 and probably setteled around 10-12.
However I get at least 18mpg in my PSD even on the 37s, i'm pretty sure i even broke 20mpg the other weekend doing an entire tank of highway crusing.
Well that's the thing with psd ours gets 15 unloaded and 15 fully loaded around 18,000 gvrw with trailer but I'm runnin 33s. 35s def help gain milage. My 94 4x auto ranger with 32s and a 3" bl gets 16.5 mpg loaded more unloaded
Mazda M5OD.
If it absolutely 100% "must" be an auto, then you're stuck with what you got unless you're willing to plop the $$$ down for the adapters to mount a GM 700-R4 behind it.
Best advise short of the 700-R4 is to find a GOOD rebuilder, thoroughly flush out all the lines and the stock tranny cooler, add on an auxiliary tranny cooler and then put 4.56 gears in the axles for the 33s (should do the 4.56s regardless anyway).
Also, don't expect any impressive MPG figures with an auto (15-18 is typical even geared properly, so about the same as your PSD).
2. Whats a good all terrain or mild mud terrain the BFG's on it are cracking and ive had bad experiences with them peeling apart?
Tires do tend to do that when they get old.
Good tires are the BFG MT KM2 or the new-style Goodyear MT/R (no personal experience on the latter, but seen them in action and know they work).
3. Is there anything I should look for or be worried about with this thing this is the first ttb that ive owned and am planning on running the ttb till this thing no longer has to be a DD?
With 6" of lift on that thing, chances are good your steering linkage geometry is whacked out pretty bad on it. This should help bring the linkage back down closer to where the axle is, and should help in attaining more normal treadlife out of your tires (not to mention a massive improvement in handling). http://www.summitracing.com/parts/SJA-FA600/
And yes, get rid of the auto hubs if it has them (junk).
It dosen't have the auto hubs but it does have the electric transfer case, the first thing after the transmission and tires will be the steering and new shocks, just got a deal on a set of 5 Hankook MT's and I have them on my SD and love them, the truck does have 4.56 's gears already. I dropped the transmission yesterday and it looks pretty ugly the fluid looks burnt up and theres bits of clutchs coming out so what would be my best option for reliability and price rebuild it or buy a new one?
Also are the Superlift steering kits worth the money?
The Superlift steering kit works pretty well, but not until after you modify it (the centerlink has to be dropped down on it). Stonecrusher is said to be working on a steering setup too. The prototype of theirs I've seen is nice & simple and might be worth keeping an eye out for. Not sure if it'll only be available with heim joint ends, or if a standard TRE version will be made available.
However fixing the steering really needs to come before your tires. No sense ripping a bunch of tread off your brand new tires and then having to mess with things yet again after you've swapped pitman arms or whatever you do to fix it. Do it before the tires and not have to worry about it again.
As for the tranny, I'd just replace it if it's real bad. With bits & pieces coming out makes it all that much more important you completely flush all the lines out too (that is if you decide to stick with the A4LD instead of putting the M5OD in).
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