TireSmoke.org

Today I bought these for snow tires:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/2019-2020-Ford ... true&rt=nc

I got them for $420 which includes shipping. I still need to track down TPS for them, and then snow tires. One thing at a time... I'm not in any major hurry to get these. It's already basically Feb, so I'll probably wait to get a deal on closeout snow tires.

-BP

The inside of the Ranger bed has four tie down spots, but there's also tapped holes for four more. Since you can never have too many places to tie stuff down, I looked into it. The extra hooks, only available through Ford, are $42 EACH list price! I still get employee pricing at Classic Ford so they cost me ONLY $28 each. Which is insane for what it is, but since it's brand new, I'm not going to half-ass it. The screws from Ford were $6 ea for crying out loud. I got them from the hardware store for $.75, and without the annoying torx head. I wanted these all installed so next week when I get the spray in bedliner done, they would all be coated and just be a part of the bed and look factory. Stupid thing is the ones against the front of the bed I had to elongate the holes about 1/4" to make them fit. C'mon MAN!

Anyway, they're in there and ready to haul. I could have used them earlier today when I actually hauled stuff for the first time (forgot to take a pic). Either way, I like this truck so far.

-BP

Yesterday was a good day for the Ranger. The Line-X Pro spray in liner got done, my K&N air filter (yeah K&N) got installed, and I got my Weathertech front mats too (not yet installed). The mats are held in by pins in the floor, but the Ranger has rubber floors so you have to epoxy the pins in that come with the kit so there's something to affix them to. So that might take a couple days, especially if it has to be warmish for the epoxy to cure. The liner turned out nice, but now I'm worried because they remove the tie downs before they spray and he said a couple of the screws that held them in were a little cross threaded. I'm having a real problem with people working on my stuff lately. Some day I'll go into the whole carpet installation I'm dealing with right now...

Also, I noticed when installing the air filter, that the dipstick goes straight through the block, and not through some tube on the side. I've never seen that before, but like the idea.

-BP

Maybe you could tap those stripped out bolts to the next size in standard.

The hooks are tight for now, so I'll just leave them and hope they're never a problem. I'm frustrated that they even touched them and wished they would have asked me if I wanted them sprayed. I would have had that done. They were helping me out... Lately I've been losing my faith in anybody touching anything of mine. It's terrible.

Today I got the Weathertech mats installed in the front. They always fit perfectly. I had to glue studs to the rubber floor for them to lock into, but they come with the mats and it's pretty easy.

Then I took a piece of truck bed mat I had leftover from the Golf's cargo area, and cut it for the cargo area in the Ranger. It turned out pretty well.

I also got the extra set of rims this week I ordered on ebay for my snow tires. Same rims that are on the truck now. Next ill be looking for tire pressure sensors, and then a deal on snow tires before next winter.

-BP

Yesterday I took advantage of a nice day to hand wash the Ranger. That's where you see all the scratches and imperfections on your brand new truck... Nevertheless, it's cleaner than when I got it and it was nice to be able to be outside without freezing for a while. Once it gets nicer I'll wax it and rain-x the windows. Definitely looks nice when clean.

-BP

Last week I also made a stand for the dog. There's a big drop off from where the rear seats were to the floor below, and as such, she would keep falling off the rear seat area to the floor while driving and trying to stick her head out the window. So I made a portable stand that allows her to get her head out the window and also wedges her between the seat and door so when I hit the brakes, she doesn't fall at all.

-BP

Today I put 1500lbs in the Ranger. Looks and rides about the same as if there was 1000 lbs in there. Basically what happens is anything over 1000lbs puts the truck on the bump stops and it just rides there happily.
So far so good.

-BP

So what is the max load capacity on the Ranger?

I don't know how often you need to load it like that, but you might consider air bags or air shocks as they would no doubt have more give than bump stops. Riding on the bump stops put a lot of extra load on wheel bearings when going over bumps.

This is rated to haul 1860 lbs, so I'm guessing they designed it to work like this. Now, these bump stops aren't the hard rubber kind that you might be thinking of, these are about 5-6" tall and even when they're resting on them, I can still bounce the suspension some with my knee, and watch the bumps compress more. It might be better to call it a helper spring, even though it seems to be made of a softer compressible rubber. It never feels harsh over bumps, so I'm not going to get too concerned about it. Plus, like you mentioned, I don't do this very often, and generally for not a long distance (25 miles or so). I just don't want to mess up the ride for the rest of the time that I'm normally driving it. I definitely considered adding extra capacity to it, but I think as long as I'm careful and stay under the max capacity, I'll be good.

Plus, I have a 5yr, 60k mile powertrain warranty. Based on my past history, the odds of me making it 5yrs are pretty slim, and the odds of me getting to 60k miles in said 5yrs are even slimmer.

-BP

I was curious about this setup. I couldn’t find any pictures or descriptions of the stock setup, but Timbren offers an upgrade part that is exactly what you are describing, a rubber helper spring. Interestingly, the Timbren claims that it allows 2 inches of free travel before engaging, which is probably very similar to what is on there to begin with. The Timbren is probably just a heavier spring rate than stock. I actually think the stock setup looks brilliant. The Ranger sits a little high in the back when unloaded, but in your pictures with a load approaching the factory rating, your truck looks not at all like my 1982 F150 that I used to routinely overload and drive down the road looking skyward. What Ford has done is to alleviate the usual issue with pickups which is that you essentially end up with zero rear suspension when unloaded. The reviews on the Ranger seem to routinely comment on the softer ride. By combining two springs, one of them rubber, the truck has a split personality, a soft unloaded ride yet an adequate capability of dealing with load. While a self-leveling air approach is probably better at maintaining the overall geometry, self-leveling air systems have a lot more to go wrong than a simple rubber spring. My experience running air without the self-leveling capability has been a bit of a pain. I almost never bothered to air down when I disconnected the trailer so I was always driving around with a firm ride. Now that I don’t have the trailer, the air bags are supposed to be maintained at a minimum air pressure of 10 psi, but in the winter, the lines tend to leak so I am constantly pumping it back up with a little extra to buy time before it leaks down again. End result, I am always driving around with a firm ride (well, E rated tires don't help me either).

When it's loaded down, it basically sits level. It seems to work well and you're right, the ride is more than tolerable when empty, and even when loaded down. It is definitely more trucky in it's ride than Fred's Canyon when its empty, but I'm OK with that since it's never really harsh compared to my F250. And those E rated tires are brutal. I had them on my Ram 1500 for snow tires and they ruined the ride of that truck. But they were cheap...

-BP

Got it that is not an old school bump stop I am familiar with that kind of tech you can get different resistance level bump stops for struts. I have some for the Saturn they look to be of similar material

The Ranger got it's first wax job with dad's help today. I also gave it a 1000 mile oil change and switched to Mobil 1. I topped off the tank and got just over 22 mpg this tank too.

Eventually I'll do a fluid swap on the rear differential to synthetic also. I also noticed the exhaust system looked pretty good except for a bottleneck into the muffler. I might look into a bigger muffler, maybe a Quietflow from Flowmaster, and leave the rest of the system stock. I don't really want it much louder as they don't sound great when they make lots of noise.

-BP