a bit of a treat at mot time!

[P840XDW]

hi guys,well the old girls gone through the mot again with only a few advisories,3 tyres being on the list,one which i knew being borderline and was due to be replaced and the other two annoyingly had cuts into the sidewall probably from the recent scrapyard visits...bother! fortunately (or unfortunately) due to a relationship break up, a friend had wheels and tyres from his explorer for sale, the size being 33x12.5x15,only done 3 thousand on road miles all less than a year old and a snip at 200 notes! some minor mods to the front arches on saturday and ended up looking a totally different machine! other than that i need to replace an upper balljoint,are they available separate or do i need the whole arm? thought i had better ask before i buy the single balljoints off ebay,oddly enough both upper arms on mine are identical instead of a different one on the drivers side,i owned it 7 years and it looks like the original , if anyone could enlighten me i would be grateful!

[Howard]

The uppers are normal single piece on nearside and two piece on offside. But you can fit single piece to both sides. They come complete with the arm. You can get an arm with replaceable joints but the original ones are not so a new arm it is.

[P840XDW]

thanks for that,must have been replaced before i took ownership. later on in the year i might replace all the bushes/balljoints etc, i get trade price in fords but looking at rockauto,s site last night they seem hard to beat on price,the postage seems reasonable as well. otc tool warehouse is another good place to buy things,had my engine locking kit for the explorer there 4 years ago,very good people to do buisness with.

[ihpj]

I can vouch for the quality and speed of RockAuto both personally and anecdotally. I exclusively by stuff from them, but I spend a fair amount of time in the US and have stuff shipped there (I also benefit from US Parts warranties which do not extend outside of the US). But I know others on this site, like Howard, have bought stuff from them without hassle. I can also recommend 1AAuto (site sponsor BTW) as a supplier of parts - but I don't know f they ship internationally.

[P840XDW]

thanks for that, any advice is welcome. im going to hang on to my explorer for a good while yet so i dont mind giving it a bit of a freshen up,my order list in rock auto is growing everyday! the only query i have at the moment is concerning the handbrake cables,according to us automotive the right ones obselete and what their asking for the left one i may as well go to fords. im sure a while ago i read on here or another website about cross matching parts from other fords,i remember reading something about transit bushes matching the explorer,i know the roll bar links are similar but cant for the life of me remember what forum it was on,can anyone help?

[ihpj]

USAutomotive are good, in that they will sell you genuine US parts, but they will be very pricey and (IMHO) far too much so. Nice range of stuff, usually in stock too; but what they ask is at a definite premium.

Be warned though some US parts come with limited lifetime warranty, usually not valid if exported outside the US. I tend to buy stuff when I'm out in the US and even though I bring stuff back with me, because it has a US address on invoice, I benefit from the warranty.

[onetime]

Originally Posted by P840XDW

hi guys,well the old girls gone through the mot again with only a few advisories,3 tyres being on the list,one which i knew being borderline and was due to be replaced and the other two annoyingly had cuts into the sidewall probably from the recent scrapyard visits...bother! fortunately (or unfortunately) due to a relationship break up, a friend had wheels and tyres from his explorer for sale, the size being 33x12.5x15,only done 3 thousand on road miles all less than a year old and a snip at 200 notes! some minor mods to the front arches on saturday and ended up looking a totally different machine! other than that i need to replace an upper balljoint,are they available separate or do i need the whole arm? thought i had better ask before i buy the single balljoints off ebay,oddly enough both upper arms on mine are identical instead of a different one on the drivers side,i owned it 7 years and it looks like the original , if anyone could enlighten me i would be grateful!

any photos of those wheels?

[P840XDW]

Originally Posted by onetime

any photos of those wheels?

now your asking! ok with anything mechanical or electrical but when it comes to computers.. i,ll talk nice to the wife later and see if she can post them on here for me

[onetime]

do you know what sort of wheels they are? deep dish etc how wide

[P840XDW]

for some reason i cannot get my images to attach,upload or whatever. as for the wheels i dont know the make, but they are steel rims,obviously deep due to the tyre size but they were not a popular wheel fitment to come across so took some time to find,i will have more info tomorrow when i take my friends grand cherokee back to him as he was the original owner of them

[hotrodguy]

if u have pics on facebook u could upload a link to them that would help ya

[P840XDW]

i dont have pictures on facebook as i dont bother much with that at all, i,ll find a way to get them on somehow. theres a possibility in the next few weeks i might be aquiring a second explorer for spare parts, it wouldnt take a lot to put on the road but its been chopped down to a quad cab pick up and got the flared arches from a frontera sport grafted on as well as a mk3 capri power bulge on the bonnet. i brought it down from oxford a few years ago for a mate and it drove sweet as a nut, then got chopped about when it got home! my wheels were on this originally but now it looks like this will be in my ownership as well, at least until its stripped for parts