Four0Sport's progress registry

[Four0Sport]

Heres a quick rundown of my 1993 Ford Explorer Sport

4.0L OHV
A4LD auto trans
4.88s
EB44 SAS w/TrueTrac
8.8 TracLoc
roughly 6" of overall lift
trans temp guage
receiver bumper with tire swingout
custom front winch bumper
Rugged Ridge 10.5lb winch
35x12.50 Discoverer STTs

winter project: extended radius arms with ballistic joints

My 93 2dr was the first vehicle I bought and paid for myself which is one of the reasons I still have it today. The other reason.. do I need to explain? We all know why we have our trucks. I got the vehicle when I was 19 as a daily driver to school and work. This is the oldest picture I can find of the truck, and I already had started putting money into it.



I wasnt a big fan of the deerprints so I had a set of 5 spoke steelies from an old BII of ours powdercoated black and put on a set of 30x9.50 TA K/Os. Winter was coming and I had had other explorers with auto hubs fail on me when I needed them so off they came and on went a set of Warns. The truck looked great with the wheel/tire combo and the factory black trim, cant find a pic though.

When I got the truck it had 85K miles on the odometer, a few years and 45K miles later the engine finally gave out. The truck sat for a year or so but I couldnt get rid of it. A friend from work helped me get ahold of a 90K mile 4.0L and $600 later (including install and other parts) the truck was back on the road.

Found another good deal through a friend on some 31x10.50 BFG Long Trails mounted on American Racing 15x8 Outlaw IIs...



But I had a very slight rub at full lock.. so I had to lift it a little, right? RoughCountry leveling springs and Warrior shackles were on it the next week.



Those springs were stiff.. I took it for an alignment and they said I needed drop brackets before they could align it. Dissappointed I drove home, with horrible camber. Thats when it hit me.. If I need to buy drop brackets I might as well buy a 4" lift, and some shocks, and a pitman arm, and some AALs and get some 4dr leaf packs from the salvage yard and.. well you get the idea.





As you can see.. everything held together during the first 'test run' of the new suspension.



I dont drive my 93 every day.. gas is too much for the 50 mile round trip drive to work. That doesnt mean it sits at home though. Ive taken it on a few trips this summer and take it out on the weekends to have some fun.



I have been a member of this site for some time now and I felt it was time for me to jump up to Elite and make a contribution after all the help, advice, feedback and knowledge I have gained from the other members. It wasnt till I found this site that I thought I would be able to do this kind of work myself, and with everyones help I have. I'll keep this updated as changes are made.

- Jack

[Sams01XplrSprt]

nice sport u got there jack

[Four0Sport]

thanks sam

[Sams01XplrSprt]

ur welcome

[Premier]

make sure to post pics of the rear swingout tire mount. truck looks great bro

[Four0Sport]

oh i will.. already have the plans drawn up and know where to get the parts. just dont have any money. sucks. thanks for the compliment.

[yostyexplorer94]

You got a nice explorer there. I almost was gonna get the rough country lift then decided to go with the body lift, coil spacers, and shackles. I like how the 31's look on your truck and am debating on the size to put on mine. I am thinking 31's w/ my 3.73 gears would be perfect but I don't want to get them and think I went too small. On the other hand I don't want to go too much bigger and loose power and put unneeded stress on my auto tranny. It's still a daily driver. You'll have to check it out and give me some input sometime.

[Four0Sport]

im running 31s on 3.27s and its not that bad, you could easily go 32s with your 3.73s and should have more than enough clearance. if i hadnt of gotten my wheels and tires so cheap (about 200 with half tread) i would feel that i went too small.

i almost went with a 2 inch susp and 3 in body but at the advice of a ford tech went ahead and got drop brackets to keep the geometry. thanks for the compliments, im out of money for mods right now for mods or id post more pics. might be picking up a set of free 32s and if i do theyre going on my black AR 5 spoke steelies, should look good.

[Four0Sport]

just some updates..

had a couple nice days and some spare time so I thought i would make the front end look a little cleaner. its amazing what a $4 can of spray paint can do.

[Four0Sport]

i had another boring day off last friday, and the weather was decently warm so i thought id mess around with the truck a little bit. a friend advised that i might actually benefit from taking my front sway bar off, not just flex wise, but driving wise as i still had stock length links on and the sway bar was pretty tight, so off it came. while i was at it i took off the lower bumper valance, for the ever popular 'my truck looks 2 inches higher' look. heres what it ended up looking like.











and proof that my lifted vehicle is legal and road worthy in WV

[Blacksheep Josh]

None of your pictures are working!!!

Try using tinypic.com or upload your photos here.

[Four0Sport]

i organized all of my photos on photobucket, never went back and fixed it on here. and well.. idk. if more people looked at this i might go through the hassle of fixing it.

[Premier]

[Four0Sport]

ok ok ok.. give me a min lol

[Four0Sport]

ok.. fixed

[Four0Sport]

one of the gifts i got myself for christmas was an energysuspension sway bar bushing kit, i am currently in the process of extending my end links (procrastinating) but i did manage to wire brush my sway bar and bushing brackets, put on a few coats of gloss black, and install the energy bar bushings. here are a few pics of the progress so far









hope to get the end links done soon and take it out to see how much the longer links and new bushings help.

yes that is antifreeze drips you see on the pass side of the core support. the top of my right tank leaks and whenever i top everything off it slowly seaps back out to below the leak then stops. its a 15 yr old truck.. what do ya expect.

while I was under there putting the bar back on i noticed a good bit of ps fluid around the bottom of the gear box and on the pitman arm. last week during some single digit weather my ps was whining and making a noise while making low speed turns. next morning i went out to see that the fluid was low, topped it off and its been fine ever since. noise has gone away, and the level hasnt dropped any. i couldnt see any lines leaking, or any spray around the pump. i reached my hand around the bottom of the resovoir and felt some fluid.. maybe the old fluid got thick with the cold temps and was forced out of the jug? idk, so far everything is ok. when it warms up i will degrease the gear box and pump to see if i can find a leak.

[Four0Sport]

ok.. so i stopped procrastinating about the end links. i went out to ace and bought some short 1/2" steel pipe sections to use as sleeves for the end links. i cut one of my stock links in half and eyed up what it will take to sleeve the links. doesnt look too difficult, just need to get my friend with a welder up and goin. i will need to drill out the ID of the steel pipe a little bit to get the links able to easily slide in and out while i find the proper length i need to make them. in the mean time i purchased some used factory links from a member on the site to run until i get the ext. ones made up. progress although small is still progress.. i guess.

[Four0Sport]

UPDATE! im being bold and courageous. after doing some research at work by grabbing parts and comparing i figured something out. endlinks for a jeep TJ (97-06 wrangler) are also offset.. about the same as the 91-94 endlinks. problem is the TJ endlinks use a stud at the top to go through the jeep sway bar. solution.. RoughCountry sells extended length disconnect sway bars for the TJ that are eyelets on both ends with a bracket with a vertical stud going through the top eyelet to accomodate the factory sway bar. after talking to a tech at roughcountry and assuring myself they would work i ordered the endlinks.

they should arrive tomorrow evening and i will post the progress asap. if they do indeed work like i think they will.. this will be a good, cheap ($53 shipped) alternative for us explroer guys. if they dont work.. well.. i have a friend with a lifted TJ that ill convice to buy them.

wish me luck!

[Four0Sport]

update.. UPS sucks. confirmed delivery on my front porch when they werent even in the area. had to call the depot, talk to the driver, he told me where he 'thought' he left it. its not there, been talkin to neighbors, no ones seen it. blah, i hate making roughcountry send out more but i dont know what else to do.

sooo asa i get the endlinks, i will throw em on and let you know how it works.

[Four0Sport]

well i thought i would update this if anyone is reading along.. ups is horrible, i hate them. should finally get the correct Jeep TJ extended endlinks this week. also purchased some slightly used RoughCountry lift leaf packs from a member that should be arriving this week also. cant wait for the truck to sit level, its gonna be a blast.

found some 10" rubber brake lines at work with a 3/16ths male end on one side and female on the other, gonna use those instead of hard lines to extend the factory hoses. good mod for $20. if anyone would like any info such as pics or part numbers let me know.

i bit the bullet and decided to let a friend who runs a garage change my valve cover gaskets for me. its way too cold for me to work on it outside and im getting tired of smelling burnt oil through the heater vents. got the valve covers i purchased off of a member cleaned up and painted for the re-install and also should have my wrinkle painted upper plenum and water neck installed asa i get the truck back. told him not to hurry.. he cuts me breaks on work i bring to him.

got my income tax refund back.. originally was gonna buy the 33x10.50 BFG MTs i wanted but decided to pay off some small debts i had. oh well, the 31s on the truck still have lots of tread so i'll just put new tires on hold for a while longer.

i'll keep this updated as things come along for anyone whos still reading/watching

- Jack