Old Man EMU

[Frenchy]

Did you have to put that shim back in? I do not see any instructions from ARB. Looking at you height measurements seems like one would not need to put that back in??

I did have to put that one shim back in on the left side. Just as a trick for you you will have to grind the little nub down forks fit.

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[KVOFTN]

I did have to put that one shim back in on the left side. Just as a trick for you you will have to grind the little nub down forks fit.

Did you have issues with the rear shackle bolts seating into the shackle? The ID of the shackle and OD of the bolt is the same. Seems crazy we have to drill them.

 

[Frenchy]

Did you have issues with the rear shackle bolts seating into the shackle? The ID of the shackle and OD of the bolt is the same. Seems crazy we have to drill them.

I did not have to drill them at all. Send me your phone number in a p.m. and I will give you a call because something's not adding up here

 

[KVOFTN]

Sent

 

[KVOFTN]

Well after install of the OME springs I have a launch shudder. We are doing to the Ford bulletin but I am not convinced.
I also have something upfront moving but cannot isolate the problem as I feel the tapping in the floor board.
On another not the ride is amazing!!

 

[Frenchy]

So for those who are still wondering if the Old Man EMU lift is worth it I have an update.

I had one of my coworkers drive the truck since he was curious and has never driven a Ranger. I got in with him and he was impressed. Now yes I do have a tune so power was commented on as well. For the suspension he said the Old Man EMU has a very nice ballance for both on and offroad. I dont know about anyone else but when someone says it is a noce ballance between the two then I'd say it is well worth the money.

 

[KVOFTN]

So for those who are still wondering if the Old Man EMU lift is worth it I have an update.

I had one of my coworkers drive the truck since he was curious and has never driven a Ranger. I got in with him and he was impressed. Now yes I do have a tune so power was commented on as well. For the suspension he said the Old Man EMU has a very nice ballance for both on and offroad. I dont know about anyone else but when someone says it is a noce ballance between the two then I'd say it is well worth the money.

I would agree but I am having issues with the rear springs.
The movement am feeling is actually coming from the rear. I can hear outside but I just can’t tell what it is.
Also the launch shudder still not fixed. I might have to put the stock springs back on.
Which I don’t want to as the ride and handling us so much better.

seems as I am a one off though as you have no problems.

 

[Frenchy]

I would agree but I am having issues with the rear springs.
The movement am feeling is actually coming from the rear. I can hear outside but I just can’t tell what it is.
Also the launch shudder still not fixed. I might have to put the stock springs back on.
Which I don’t want to as the ride and handling us so much better.

seems as I am a one off though as you have no problems.

What do you mean with the movement you are feeling? As for the launch shudder I would check your drive line angles real quick. You can get a simple angle gauge app on your phone and it will help out. I want to say my angles were as follows front to rear. 5°, 3° and 5°. It could be 4° instead of 5 but i dont remember right off. Also dis you install the shim on the left side or leave that out?

 

[KVOFTN]

What do you mean with the movement you are feeling? As for the launch shudder I would check your drive line angles real quick. You can get a simple angle gauge app on your phone and it will help out. I want to say my angles were as follows front to rear. 5°, 3° and 5°. It could be 4° instead of 5 but i dont remember right off. Also dis you install the shim on the left side or leave that out?

Something is clunking and I can feel it in the floor board. Walking next to the truck I can hear in the rear axle area.

Yes thick shim is on the driver side. I actually ordered the shim kit from Ford concerning the launch shudder. The want the rear axle angle between 5-6 degrees as in relation to the vehicle frame.

 

[BCRanger]

Reading through this thread I’m still a bit confused...

For context, I think I’m looking for a fairly level setup with just a bit more ground clearance so maybe 2” up front and 0-1” in back?

My priorities are increasing ground clearance with articulation and improved on road handling. I don’t really care about charging off road, my wife and my aging necks can’t handle that lol. But speaking of a smooth more jar free ride on and off road would be huge plus for us, both on light pot holes and ruts in the 60-80k / 40-50 mph range and over dpodgy back country bits slow. (We plan to use the truck mostly for acccess to out of the way places in BC.)

We do plan to do some trailer towing up to say 5k lbs, but no heavy load hauling, a lot of times the bed will be nearly empty (Or filled with camping gear and canoes and stuff, nothing heavy.)

(As we were driving the Ranger the willowy handling and squishy braking were close to a deal breaker for my wife and me but ultimate ply outweighed by all the other advantages of Ranger.)

Seems like the OME might be a best bet for us over the Fox Performance or Eibach, but what I don’t get is whether the leaf springs make sense for my usage. I certainly don’t want something more heavy duty, just more compliance and avoid that rear end skipping / loss of tractionover washboardy gravel roads. (Will likely throw sandbags back there for winter especially.) CoMing form AWD car I realize hats an inherent weakness of trucks but I’d like to mitigate as much as I can.

So do I even want upgraded rear springs?

And on balance does the OME seem like a good bet given all that?

Thanks great to have this forum with so many knowledgeable people!

 

[Frenchy]

Reading through this thread I’m still a bit confused...

For context, I think I’m looking for a fairly level setup with just a bit more ground clearance so maybe 2” up front and 0-1” in back?

My priorities are increasing ground clearance with articulation and improved on road handling. I don’t really care about charging off road, my wife and my aging necks can’t handle that lol. But speaking of a smooth more jar free ride on and off road would be huge plus for us, both on light pot holes and ruts in the 60-80k / 40-50 mph range and over dpodgy back country bits slow. (We plan to use the truck mostly for acccess to out of the way places in BC.)

We do plan to do some trailer towing up to say 5k lbs, but no heavy load hauling, a lot of times the bed will be nearly empty (Or filled with camping gear and canoes and stuff, nothing heavy.)

(As we were driving the Ranger the willowy handling and squishy braking were close to a deal breaker for my wife and me but ultimate ply outweighed by all the other advantages of Ranger.)

Seems like the OME might be a best bet for us over the Fox Performance or Eibach, but what I don’t get is whether the leaf springs make sense for my usage. I certainly don’t want something more heavy duty, just more compliance and avoid that rear end skipping / loss of tractionover washboardy gravel roads. (Will likely throw sandbags back there for winter especially.) CoMing form AWD car I realize hats an inherent weakness of trucks but I’d like to mitigate as much as I can.

So do I even want upgraded rear springs?

And on balance does the OME seem like a good bet given all that?

Thanks great to have this forum with so many knowledgeable people!

Hello there miles.

Let me clear up some of the questions for you. I myself have just the standard old man emu lift kit and the only things that really upgraded was the right height and ride quality. Because it is the standard lift kit and not the heavy duty lift kit load capacity is still considered the same for payload and Towing.
Now I live out in Colorado and there are some roads that are pretty rough. I can't compare them to Canada right us if they haven't been in the parts you have been in but during the Michigan it's not really that bad.
Comparing with the stock suspension to the old man emu I can say I was really impressed overall. Some people like to say that the suspension is now a firm but in my opinion old man emu isn't really firm but comfortable. You have way more travel in both the front and the rear. The front gives you an extra 2.4 in of travel and the rear gives you an extra 1.4 in of travel. Because of this the Springs are able to be a little softer in a way. Also the shocks old man emu makes have very nice compression and rebound settings. The settings are so nice that you do get a very good comfortable ride.
Have I been off road with this truck as well? Absolutely I have I'm actually doing a little bit off-roading today as we speak I just have to find a little stopping point where I can give you some more information. I have hit the light trails that you're talking about hitting and comparing to stock you will get a nice smooth ride.
With Towing I can't say the comparison between stock to lifted with the old man emu because I have never told anything with this truck when it was stuck but Towing so far is pretty well even with the lift kit. I recently towed up to 5500 lb with a U-Haul Auto Transport in my old 1983 280ZX and I can tell you the truck did very well at handling it. It didn't give me any issues whatsoever on the power and the handling and comfort. Yes I did notice it was there but not to the point that I was really bothered.

Here are some pictures of the truck with lift and with my load that I was towing.

 

[BCRanger]

Hello there miles.

Let me clear up some of the questions for you...

You sure did. Grew up in Colorado high near alpine so I know the terrain well and it’s quite similar to what we have here.

Nice looking truck! Looks like a few inches on front and a bit in back? Still has some rake to it, which prob makes sense to keep for towing.

Did your kit does have new leafs in back or just the shocks?

Did you put it in yourself? I can sort of imagine doing the front but the back would give me pause, especially considering the leafs are loaded springs.

I‘m thinking about waiting to do this work in spring and get a sense for stock suspension and original diameter tires. (Putting snows on it almost as soon as I get it.) My other option considered is Ford Fox esp. because of warranty / resale.

 

[Frenchy]

You sure did. Grew up in Colorado high near alpine so I know the terrain well and it’s quite similar to what we have here.

Nice looking truck! Looks like a few inches on front and a bit in back? Still has some rake to it, which prob makes sense to keep for towing.

Did your kit does have new leafs in back or just the shocks?

Did you put it in yourself? I can sort of imagine doing the front but the back would give me pause, especially considering the leafs are loaded springs.

I‘m thinking about waiting to do this work in spring and get a sense for stock suspension and original diameter tires. (Putting snows on it almost as soon as I get it.) My other option considered is Ford Fox esp. because of warranty / resale.

I did put it in myself. It is the one advantage of being an Auto Mechanic at a shop.

It did come with new springs in the rear. Instead of the parabolic leaf spring it is a multi leaf pack. Including the Alignment it took me about 1 day to get it all done.
Yes there is a rake to is and for leveling it only did it by 1 inch. Again the front is raised by 2.4 inches and the rear is raised by 1.6 inches. As for warranty you don't have to worry about voiding it with this suspension because old man emu does a lot of research before they even release their suspension kits to the public. Overall on this truck I haven't had any major issues to where I'm going to get any damage to the truck because of my lift.

I'm not sure if it's covered up in Canada but for the United States we have the magnuson-moss Warranty Act which says the manufacturer does have to prove that whatever aftermarket part caused the failure on the vehicle. Let's say you put a lift kit on like old man emu and your AC decides to quit. They're not even going to look at your lift kit because they know better. Now if something like the front differential went then they might consider looking at the lift kit but even then with the angles that I have on my truck with the old man emu you will not have a problem with the differential.

Also as you will notice it does look like I have bigger tires and that's because I do. I have 265 70 17 Bridgestone Dueler Revo 3. That's just the tire I decided to choose at the time and you can go with whatever Tire you choose. It did give about an extra inch of clearance overall in the truck with those tires so my front end actually got raised by 3.4 in and the rear got raised by 2.6.

I should have had that for doing the install the rear is really aren't that bad. Just because they are considered loaded Springs all you have to do is lift the body up instead of the axle up to more or less unload the rear springs. When you disconnect the shocks it will help unload the Springs the rest of the way because sometimes they do put a little bit of tension on the springs. For the front you will need to swap some parts from the old struts to the new ones. That is simply because old man emu does not give us a loaded strut which is kind of silly but it's what it is.

Hipe this helps

 

[BCRanger]

Huge help! Will probably have a shop or mechanic friend do it anyway with my “help”, just not enough experience to trust myself not to f something or myself up, lol.

I assume you can adjust front height within that range. Rear too, like possible to keep it close to stock?

And ride is more compliant and smooth than stock, not less?

I will also plus up the tires just a bit. Honestly even if it didn’t help ground clearance the stock size just looks dorky. Having an extra 3 inches of ground clearance will go a long way to convincing my wife that this is worth doing.

 

[Frenchy]

Huge help! Will probably have a shop or mechanic friend do it anyway with my “help”, just not enough experience to trust myself not to f something or myself up, lol.

I assume you can adjust front height within that range. Rear too, like possible to keep it close to stock?

And ride is more compliant and smooth than stock, not less?

I will also plus up the tires just a bit. Honestly even if it didn’t help ground clearance the stock size just looks dorky. Having an extra 3 inches of ground clearance will go a long way to convincing my wife that this is worth doing.

No this not an adjustable suspension. Once it is on it is set.

And yes I really like the feel of the suspension. The right quality has improved so much that I even had a few other people right in it and have complemented it. First was a friend I have in the springs and he got to ride in the truck before and after the lift kit and immediately after getting in the truck and going down the road with the lift kit he complemented saying this is way different. Mind you it was a few months since he last wrote in the truck where he knew there was a difference. I also had my finance manager at the dealership I was working at writing it because he tried calling bulshit that it REITs better than stock. We're not even out of the parking lot and he tried saying that it rides better and that he could feel it in the Expansion Joints. The best part was is I have yet to find a ranger that has Expansion Joints in it. Also recently I had a parts guy from my dealership drive the truck because he's never driven a ranger. Well that one of the new Rangers at least. He said it was a nice balanced feel for both on and off road.

Also to add I'm pretty sure the slightly bigger tires did help on the ride quality because to the general rule the more side while you have the more cushion you have. It's just a small factor but it does make a little bit of a difference.

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