Been awhile, 1977 Ranchero weight/handling?
 

I've got a 1977 Ford Ranchero. The thing is HUGE. I park next to F250 extended cabs and go, yep a few inches longer. I even bent up all 4 the fender flares going tough a taco bell drive though!

I'm wondering, how much do these weigh?

Heres the fun part. How can I make these handle? Weight Disterbution? Who makes firm springs for them? Or billstein shocks? I'm not expecting a porsche here (although I did see a Torino and a Porsche at Infenion raceway, and the ex someting or other race car Torino was keeping right up with the porsche..on the curves!! Looked really funny, heres this little porsche, and this massive torino! So it's possible, at least for the Torinos!)

Does anyone make quick ratio steeting gearboxes for these?

It's easy enough to make enough HP to make it fast off the line, but to handle.. thats an interesting one.

do you mean gvwr or curb weight

It is possible to make them handle. You wont get new springs at all, you will cut out about 5/8th of a coil to drop the front end. You will upgrade the front sway bar if it is smaller than 1 1/4 most are unless your car had the handling pkg. If your car has no rear sway bar one must be added by fabbing a few brackets and you even use the existing front one that was on your car. The quick ratio steering is possible but some fabbing is needed to use a mustang set up. Hope this helps Bill
www.ranchero.us

I have large anti-sway bars on front and rear of my Ranchero and those alone really help the handling.

Shocks can help but really a shock is only to counter the spring rate. If the springs are the same, the better shocks still have the same dampening factor, just better control of the dampening.

I have a Porsche 914 and the Ranchero couldn't even think about keeping up on short tracks. However, on the long tracks where acceleration is important, my Ranchero can take the little Volkswagan engine hands down. But must have good brakes to slow down for the corners!

Those Porsche 914s.. you can make those little suckers lots-o-HP. In my airccoled time everybody love Jake Raby's engine kits. Thought about gettin one. 180HP in a beetle..wooh..

The ranchero is just too big and heavy. But I'd love this big and heavy ranchero to be rather shocking in the handling dept. As my jetta was in the take off fast dept.

I'm not quite into cutting the front springs though.. That gives me nightmares of bouncing civics and improper lowering. At least I don't have to worry about suspension geomitry as much as my macpherson strut cars.

Brakes are important too. To stop this heavy a car, I don't even know where to begin to make it stop.

I don't know if there were options for brakes, but my calipers, rotors, shoes, and drums are massive! They look like they came off a 3/4 ton. I have pulled boats and trailers behind my Ranchero and stopping was not a problem.

If you think the braking in your Ranchero is not very good, I would rebuild the brake system (if you are up to that challenge) and see how good the stock can be before I did custom brakes. Not that one couldn't improve the brakes, just that the stock brakes are big.

there prolly was an upgrade for towing, i have seen posts about guys getting the wrong rotors and shoes(too small). but if you really want to stop? http://www.baer.com/ you'll stop! i have read posts about rebuilding the steering box using late model quick ratio parts from other cars, too. i had a set of limo springs in my 72 torino, first time it touched ground it was like there was no engine in it! and it wouldn't budge! cutting a little coil off is no big deal, cut a 1/2 coil at a time or even a 1/4 coil to be cautious. it only takes a few minutes with a hacksaw, a couple minutes less with a sawzall(and a spring compressor). you can prolly do it without removing the spring from the car completely. added bonus is that the spring rate increases as the spring loses coils. in the old days i heard they used to just heat the spring until it sagged to the desired ride height(low).

Where can I find more info on rebuilding the stock steering box to make it more quick ratio?

With the brakes on the ranchero, I thought of just doing a rebuild. But I thought well if I'm going to be buying new parts I might as well see what upgrades there are. I'l like to transform the ranchero on to a bit of a sports/muscle ranchero, albit a big heavy one.

Limo springs in a tornino? Sounds interesting. I like a nice firm ride, very controled body lean, squat and dive. No one replaces the front springs they just cut them?

if your springs are original and/or soft, then some fresh replacements are the way to go. if your fresh replacements hold the front bumper up to the stars, start cutting. when i bought the torino i was told the springs in it were from a pontiac grand safari wagon, if they were an improvement i would hate to see what was in there before! the limo springs are Ford at least, prolly Lincoln? it's been so long i can't remember how much i cut off, but i do remember cutting twice to get them into reality range. they were still a little on the high side but i prefered that to the squiggly sprung marshmallows that couldn't keep the front end up. i'll keep my eyes open for the steering box info.

i found something- go to Randy A's site, under power train he lists the steering box as "saginaw, ford pattern" and using parts from an 80's firebird.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/threa...eid=1067008940

Hey now that is cool! Where can I buy or how do I build one of those?

Instead of loping coils off the springs and finding stock springs from anoteher car. I wonder if I can get more info on recomended F/R spring rates for resinence in the chassis. Get that extremely controled suspension and steering I'm searching for. With the mean look of cource :p (although that drop in the front would cause more weight dist to switch to the front of the car)

Or a set of aftermarket for another similer car that will go in the Ranchero?

just do a search for "moog coil springs" there are a lot of places.
http://www.performancesuspension.com/springs.htm