I want a project... Here are my thoughts and questions.

Here's the deal fellers, it may sound silly to some but I wanna buy myself a toy. Some of you know my mom passed away last month (exactly a month as of yesterday). It's been a tough process since it was so sudden and she was so young and all the unexpectedness of the situation. I feel a project/toy would be beneficial to me. It'll keep me busy and distracted etc... I'd love to build my truck up more, but it costs so damn much, and since it's a DD I want it to be perfect and my skills as a fabricator arent DD acceptable IMO. This and it is a truck for work so I can only go so far with lifting and modifications before its impractical. With a wheeler and can go nuts and it doesn't have to be perfect just functional, plus it's on a much smaller scale.

Anyway, I'm selling some of my other toys to help fund this, my drums are up for sale and i have some other stuff I'm selling. A good friend who has lost a very close relative, almost like a dad to him gave me some advice that someone gave him. The body goes through a process during a tragic time, it has ups and downs. He told me to let it happen, get mad, get sad, get drunk.. Etc... and if you find something that works for you and seems to help go for it. So i think having something to wrench, weld, and paint would be therapeutic, and honestly just putting up ads and startin the search seems to be helping distract me.

Enough of the sob story ha ha, on to the actual content that this thread was meant for. The one truck I hate that I got rid of was my 02 ranger 4x4 4.0 5sp. So I wanted to get another ranger, but then I thought a sport trac would be better, since its basically a crew cab ranger but they're so damn expensive. My goal is to have something to go wheeling, but also be drivable on the street. Not daily, but if I needed to, so I'd like to be able to put a car seat in and such. So I started looking at explorers, wrecked and no wrecked. I can pick up a regular explorer with a little over 100k for about 2 grand. My thoughts were body lift t bar crank and 33s to start then work my way up. And explorer is basically a ranger, so I thought about an 01 - 03 ranger front clip swap so I could have my ranger type vehicle but a little more practical. I know rangers in and out, they wheel awesome stock so I know it's a good foundation. But right now I'm leaning towards a bronco II, problem is I don't know much about them. I'm not familiar with the 2.9, or ttb suspension. I'm hoping to find something already lifted, and the b2s are running pretty cheap. What kinds of things should i look for on a b2 and what are some common problems they might have that I should expect? If anyone knows anything about these can y'all help me out? I'll post a couple of links for the ones I'm eying.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/oly/cto/3250700691.html

http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/cto/3240580829.html


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Too bad I don't have any cash in hand yet... Otherwise I'd have a 94 explorer i found ha ha. I like the 85, I'd offer him 1800 if my drumset sold ha ha


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Here's a couple pics of the 94 expo I found. 4.0 5sp 6 inch super lift 144k. He was asking 2400





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nice looking explorer

 

Sorry to hear about your mom man, my deepest condolences go out to you and your family. Im like you i think a project is an awesome idea. Post up tons and tons of pictures we will all give your opinions some youll like other ah not so much but thats part of it. Honestly my only issues with the broco 2's are there axles tend to be fairly weak, i wanna say the lifts arn't that bad suspension wise unless you get into custom lifts with custom axles, all depends on how much MUD/ROCK/SAND/ICE/Road you plan to see with it. And tends to reflect the pocket book a whole lot. Wish you were in Texas man id so come over and drink some beer and shoot the bull and weld and fab with you. I miss it too im starting to on my 2011 F150 a little but its a DD as you stated very limited in most cases. The 4 wheeler i have is pretty much perfectly the way i want it to be id love to have an old Ram Charger or a reg Bronco with a removable top, for that matter even an jeep. Good luck with your search i know you can get them cheap around here in Texas everyones selling one it seems like. If you interested i can search around for ya on my free time. Have a good one man! Take care!

 

Love the explorer

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That exploder would be a great starter no doubt nice find $2400 ain't to shabby.

 

4X4 Bronco

If only you were closer

http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/3244570287.html

saw you liked rangers
http://dallas.craigslist.org/ftw/cto/3234966326.html



This would be my ideally mud BRUTE! sorry guys dodge is the only one in the 3/4 line and 1/2 line back then that had solid axles and for large tires thats what it takes anything over a 35" on a IFS is border line craziness.
http://dallas.craigslist.org/dal/cto/3243041184.html

Okay ill stop just sayin there are tons if your willin to road trip it down this direction that are cheap, decent deals.

 

Thanks man, i just turned 25, she was only 55 and the cancer got her. We are a very close family, we just gave her a first grandbaby 2 years ago. My younger sister just got married, things were just starting to get good. So for things to turn so quickly was a real shock. Its a tough adjustment. Im kind of stuck up here in the pnw ha ha, but id definitely kick it with ya if i could. I'm just getting back into the offroad game. I used to wheel my stock ranger every other weekend or so when I was 17-20 just forest roads and some of the mild jeep trails since it was my only truck. It would wheel things that some lifted toyotas and such couldnt, it was a great rig. I'd like to be able to do that for starters. Not the extreme crawling or mudding. The plan is to build it as my needs/wants for more extreme trails evolves. What I like is to keep the vehicle looking as stock as possible, with some lift and modification but be able to wheel like an m effer. I don't like the wheelers where you can't even tell what it is anymore. I think they're cool but it's not my thing.


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