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Jen's 03 Sport

Hello all...

To celebrate the final payment of my beast, I thought I should finally make a registry for it, with pictures and all!!!

When I was in college, I really wanted a 2door SUV that was relatively new and looked cool as well... Obviously that led me to the Explorer, as Jeeps are cool and all, but not all that practical as my daily driver. Sooo, the search was on! I wanted a black one, the newest year I could get for the Sport, with the fewest miles, with leather and a sunroof! :D

Eventually my searches pulled up my exact specs, but in South Dakota. I lived in Iowa at the time, so no big deal. I bothered the people at the dealership with my excessive questions to make sure it was worth the drive there to look at it. And luckily, it was! Mom and I drove out to look at it, and I ended up buying it. My first (nice) purchased car. It had 16,x.. on the clock, was a certified pre-owned from some old man so it was pretty nice, other than that saggy rear end.

First thing I did was swap out the stereo, and figured out how to wire it to the factory sub thanks to the forum! Then, add a leafs were next. I had the next several years mapped out for it when the tires would wear out and I was outta college and could finally have some money!!! I took off the step bars and added a Yakima rack and drove it like that until I moved to CO. That's when the magic started to happen, ;).

I knew I wanted to lift it from the day I bought it. When I started my big kid job out here in CO, I was able to buy new wheels, tires, shackles, and body lift to get it started! Thanks to the awesome boys from this forum (hokie, nssj2, sparkyXplorer) they got it on for me. I was of no use as I had just had shoulder surgery, but they made sure to get my on the right track :thumbsup:

Awesome! Now I'm good to go. Cranked up the torsion bars a lil, time to hit the trails!!! Got my feet wet in Ouray with the group. And by feet wet, I mean I almost peed myself on Black Bear pass, haha

Since then, I've upgraded my exhaust to 2.5 pipes from the cats back, Flowmaster 50 muffler (kinda quiet :rolleyes:) and a MAC intake. Changed out the plugs and wires at the same time, put on Motorcraft plugs and JBA cables...I also added a Yakima load warrior basket that is pretty quick to take off that holds my snowboard racks and my spare.

Mods to come ---- upgrading gears to 4.56, adding an Aussie locker (or something of that sort depending on my $$), removed gray plastic body panels to paint black, thus discovering rust on my doors GRRRRRR, need rock sliders, skid plates, and on and on.
 

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That's a bit of reading to tackle in one sitting........but I loved it!! Nice work on everything you've done. Looking forward to seeing what you decide to cover it with. I've been thinking heavily on a bed liner as well, just have a few other more important things to worry about first. There's a few trails in your area I want to check out, I'll hit you up whenever I can get a chance to head that way and see if you're up for gettin the truck dirty. Awfully jealous of where your livin too. I hope to get into the hills someday, that's where I try to spend most of my time anyway...........
 



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That's a bit of reading to tackle in one sitting........but I loved it!! Nice work on everything you've done. Looking forward to seeing what you decide to cover it with. I've been thinking heavily on a bed liner as well, just have a few other more important things to worry about first. There's a few trails in your area I want to check out, I'll hit you up whenever I can get a chance to head that way and see if you're up for gettin the truck dirty. Awfully jealous of where your livin too. I hope to get into the hills someday, that's where I try to spend most of my time anyway...........

Thanks! It's always a work in progress, same for everybody else around here.. never seem to be done with the projects :) The bedliner is going to be neat I think. I actually saw an old guy in a truck on I-70 by Vail last weekend with his entire exterior Monstalined in what looked like the midnight blue color... It looks pretty awesome. I'm just trying to figure out what color to use right now, my interior is charcoal and light grey, so something that would go with that. There are some wild colors I like but don't think I'll do (the Turquila and the Purple people eater colors are fun but too loud) but I think I'm narrowed down to Pyroclastic (like a charcoal grey) or blood bath, a dark red. I will for sure post up my progress, I'm going to resume prepping my roof rust spots after work...it's going to look like hell driving it to work all half sanded down though, ha!

I see you are in Longmont, I lived and worked in Boulder for 4 years before I moved up here...I was also driving up here all the time to play. Got lucky with a job opening and have been here the last 4 years too. I miss the mild winter down there, but the summers up here can't be beat! Hit me up next time you are up, maybe I'll have this beast ready to hit the trails again hopefully in the next few weeks.
 






Thanks! It's always a work in progress, same for everybody else around here.. never seem to be done with the projects

We all know what that's all about!! As for color, I also have gray interior, but gray will go with literally any color. I had envisioned just blacking out the truck, but seeing the "Dukes of Hazard" type orange.............I'm a product of the 80's and LOVED that show growing up. That would be a stretch for me though, I like the stealthier colors better......

I miss the mild winter down there, but the summers up here can't be beat!

You can say that again. In my early 20's I worked the I-70 corridor from Genesee to Gypsum putting up Cell phone towers. I was even in on the one on top of Saxon Mtn. in Georgetown. Did towers every few miles all the way over, mostly in the summer, thank god, but we did have to play with some snow a few times, got some pretty good stories from that......But next time I'm up that way I'll hit ya up for sure. Cant guarantee I'll be in the truck, as I love mountain drives in the convertible once in a while too. Sounds like if I'm gonna do Black Bear, it better be this year, I hear the Sherriff is wanting to close it down........not cool if it's true.
 






ordered up the Pyroclastic color Monstaliner today and a quart of the black, figured i needed to pull the trigger soon or i'd be staring at the colors for months to pick one. The pyro color will be a subtle change from the black but will be something different and look good. i think i'm going to do the raised portion of the hood in black to break the grey up a little. should look good! sanded all the bad spots off the roof last night, paint prep is no joke takes forever!
 






Cant wait to see it. Did you find anywhere on the site with a guide to figure out how much to order? How much did you order? It looks like their kit comes with 2 gallons which it says should all be used on a single bed as a bed liner, but I don't see anything else anywhere.
 






Eagerly watching Jen wanting to do this also
 






:popcorn:
 






Cant wait to see it. Did you find anywhere on the site with a guide to figure out how much to order? How much did you order? It looks like their kit comes with 2 gallons which it says should all be used on a single bed as a bed liner, but I don't see anything else anywhere.

I wasn't sure either - i ordered the two gallon kit and a quart of black for part of the hood. I read a lot of posts on the jeepforum thread and saw that 2 gal worked for someone with a jeep grand cherokee which I think is bigger than my sport. I'm going to start from the top and work my way down, if I run out toward the bottom it won't be the end of the world to order more. Once it cures it just needs to be rescuffed with a scotch brite for it to adhere again. I guess i'm kind of the guinea pig for the explorers :) I didn't want to order a whole gallon I didn't need. One gallon covers 60 sq ft with two coats, the first coat goes on light and the second one thicker.

Eagerly watching Jen wanting to do this also

it's going to be fun... already ran into a problem with paint prep, it appears my "certified pre-owned" ford had been in a collision but either covered up by the first owner or the dealership I bought it from... had a long crack above the rear wheel well that looked like somebody sliced it with a razor, when I ground it down to get at the rust I hit a bunch of bondo, the bare metal is all wavy and looks pounded back into shape. grrrr! looks like i have another thing to learn, but luckily the epoxy primer i ordered is a high fill roll on and the monstaliner is thick so it doens't have to be perfect. just irritated there is more work to do lol!

There are promo codes on the jeepforum website for free shipping and for a free quart of chassis saver, it's their version of the POR rust stuff. Shippng was going to be 40 bucks so that saved some $$$$$
 


















Looks like everything will be delivered on Wednesday, I have a lot of work to do this week! Fingers crossed for no rain so I can get all the prep done without having to deal with cramming the explorer into my tiny garage :)
 












Hmmm,,, ,, , should have done that instead of the plasti-dip!
 






So far I've bed lined the arches and bottoms of the doors but seriously thinking about doing the whole truck


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And believe me I plasti dipped my old girl never again
 






Looking forward to hearing how it turns out, need a product to paint some new old stock side steps with. Been looking for replacemnts for about 7 years, found em but they are grey. Jen that sucks about the covered up bodywork.
 






Looking forward to hearing how it turns out, need a product to paint some new old stock side steps with.

When I added the factory side steps to my 2000 Ranger 4X4 I sanded them & applied a coat of master series silver then sprayed 2 coats of bed liner to them.

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I originally used Matrix 3 part epoxy primer and canned bedliner. Gets very dull and faded after a few years.
 






Sounds like you need to have a monstaliner prep party.........
no kidding if it would stop raining! of course we had no rain for like a week, and now this week it's raining every day after I get off work!
Hmmm,,, ,, , should have done that instead of the plasti-dip!
i read thru your thread awhile back and really like how that plastidip looks on your truck, i say whenever that stuff starts to wear off go for the monstaliner! they are releasing new colors too in the next few months but i can't wait that long
So far I've bed lined the arches and bottoms of the doors but seriously thinking about doing the whole truck
your truck looks awesome btw... i was tempted to do a two tone the dark grey on top and black how you did it, maybe further down the road i'll throw the black on too! i really need to get my hands on another set of those fender flares like you have... I still might throw the ones I have on the rear when i'm all done.

i'm going to be lining down to where the plastic moldings start, then work on getting the rockers fixed up. my mom was out visiting me and surprised me with a little lincoln flux/mig welder - i haven't played with it yet and don't have the conversion kit for gas, but it'll give me something to work on when the weather starts getting too cold to play outside. in the meantime i'm going to get the internal frame coating stuff etc and get the underside coated too. my frame and everthing underneath looks really good... too bad the rockers had to rot how they did.
 






Looking forward to hearing how it turns out, need a product to paint some new old stock side steps with. Been looking for replacemnts for about 7 years, found em but they are grey. Jen that sucks about the covered up bodywork.


the jeepers have had great luck with it holding up to all kinds of abuse... as long as the surface is prepped well. i've been reading and reading everything i can so i don't mess it up.

i'm irritated about the body filler crap or whatever it is above the wheel wells, and part of me wonders if it came that way from the factory to shape them that way? i doubt it and don't want to go digging into my other side to compare :) I'm thinking i just need to take it all down to metal because of how it was cracking and there is probably moisture down underneath it... and since the epoxy primer and monstaliner will fill in some of the sheetmetal irregularities, but i don't want to completely screw up the shape. my gut says it isn't supposed to be there and it was covered up. my driver side door doesn't even have a door sticker so that tells me maybe something happened in that year and a half it was on the road before i owned it.
 



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here are a few pics, i should've taken a pic of before i dug into it, but it was a long slice looking crack that was clearly deeper than the clearcoat... sorry about the big pics! it's since been sanded down to bare metal beyond the rust, have ground out all of the rust yet to see how deep it is. there is quite the crater now will have to figure out how to deal with that.

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