Dropping an I-Beam Ford Ranger - Crossed Up & Hammered: Part One

  |   up And Hammered ford Ranger Just because MT is chock-full of 'bagged and body-dropped mini-trucks doesn't mean that we've forgotten our roots. Before any truck becomes a laid out custom-mini, it is usually outfitted with a basic bolt-on drop kit that accomplishes two things. First, the kit will alter the ride height of the vehicle so that the gap between the tires and the wheelwheels is diminished, thus making the truck look better. Second, the right kit will raise the scrub line of the truck by relocating obtrusive items that hang below the framerails, such as the transmission crossmember. In the case of the '93-'97 Ford Ranger, a mini-truck that uses I-beams and radius arms as the front suspension rather than the standard A-arms, there are two crossmembers that can be redesigned for the better. We wanted to see the bottom end of a Ranger and how these two dangling pavement eaters are replaced, so we visited the professionals at Suspension Dimension (SD) in San Bernardino, California. There we watched as Suspension Dimension lowered a Ranger using a set of dropped I-Beams from Chassis Tech and a pair of radius arm and transmission mount crossmembers from Alter Images. The whole process took about six hours, and when it was done, the little Ford looked great and no longer had any parts hanging below the bottom of the frame. For more information on the parts used in this tech article, contact the companies listed in the source box.

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  |   up And Hammered tires Sources
Alter Images
Dept. MT
2870 Feather River Blvd.
Oroville, CA 95965
(866) 258-7464
www.alter-images.com

Aim Industries Inc.
Dept. MT
260 S. Hibbert
Mesa, AZ 85210
(800) 862-8789
www.truckin.com

Suspension Dimension
Dept. MT
1364 Camino Real, Ste 135
San Bernardino, CA 92408
(909) 381-5014
www.suspensiondimension.com