Project Vehicle - 1998 Explorer Limited

[skpyle]

"would likely have come with a limited slip rear diff"

All 5.0 trucks had 3.73 with limited slip ALL OF THEM

For traction on the wet boat ramps let some air out of your rear tires, the contact patch will grow as you let the air out and you will gain traction.

All 4 of my 5.0L Explorers/Mountaineers AWD and 2WD came with 3:73 LSD rear diffs. Axle code D1.

Sorry guys, I've got to burst your bubble on that one. My 99 5.0L Limited AWD came with open 3.73's at both ends. I decoded the sticker on the door, 46 for rear axle, 3.73 non-limited slip, instead of D4, 3.73 limited slip.
Of course I put a rebuilt Traction-Lok differential in the rear end shortly thereafter, but that is neither here nor there.

 

[koda2000]

Sorry guys, I've got to burst your bubble on that one. My 99 5.0L Limited AWD came with open 3.73's at both ends. I decoded the sticker on the door, 46 for rear axle, 3.73 non-limited slip, instead of D4, 3.73 limited slip.
Of course I put a rebuilt Traction-Lok differential in the rear end shortly thereafter, but that is neither here nor there.

I never said that every Explorer/Mountaineer AWD or RWD came with an LSD 3:73 rear dif. I said all my Explorers Mountaineers 5.0L V8's had it. I suspect the majority of them were equipped this way and that my door sticker's all said D4. I typo'd when I said D1.

Ford 7.5 & 8.8 Inch Axle Tag & Door Codes

 

[skpyle]

Sorry Koda, that wasn’t necesarily directed towards you. I noticed 410Fortune said ‘all’, so I wanted to chime in.
Did not mean to be confusing.

I really WISH my Explorer had come with LSD. Would have saved me a great deal of money.

 

[GLOCKer]

Once again I was wishing I had 4wheel drive! Absent that, how about a damn tow hook? LOL Sank it to the axle once again...

I got promoted at work and tomorrow (Wednesday) is my first shift back on nights in over six years! My wife and I went out to the cabin at the lake for New Years. She went to bed while I stayed up and watch Hoonigan videos on Youtube. It started raining sometime after she went to bed. She woke up around 0600 so we could drive home and then I could sleep all day to get my self straight for the night shift. We loaded all our crap into the Explorer, helped the dogs into the back, and she started to pull out and it just sank.

I felt HORRIBLE! I needed to get it out so I could go home and get some proper sleep to be prepared for my night shift. I ended up waking up my neighbor. I feel really bad. We tied a boating line (when at the lake...) to the lower control arm and to his hitch and it got it unstuck. When I woke up late afternoon today, I went out and cleaned all the mud out of the inside and hosed off the chunks of mud from under it. I'm off again this Friday so it'll get a proper wash then!

Damn I wish I had a 4x4! LOL

These tires WILL NOT cut it on a boat ramp. Good thing I don't have a boat...

...yet! LOL

 

[410Fortune]

I did say all, your 99 is the first I have ever heard of that did not come factory with a limited slip
I have owned and worked on 5.0L Explorers for going on 20 years now and at least a hundred of them have come through my shop
I am in disbelief!! LOL
Now I wonder how many came without the LS maybe just yours? LMFAO!! kidding of course

 

[toypaseo]

Absent that, how about a damn tow hook?

Front? There are some threads on here on custom installs for front tow hooks...

Rear? Without a hitch, here are two OEM ones that will bolt right on...

Both, powdercoated by @Turdle...

 

[skpyle]

I did say all, your 99 is the first I have ever heard of that did not come factory with a limited slip
I have owned and worked on 5.0L Explorers for going on 20 years now and at least a hundred of them have come through my shop
I am in disbelief!! LOL
Now I wonder how many came without the LS maybe just yours? LMFAO!! kidding of course

410, the way MY luck goes, you are probably right.

 

[CDW6212R]

The LS isn't loved by everyone, someone could have opted to delete the LS when ordering it. That is rare, but not too bad to remedy for a few hundred.

If you will be driving on open ground or sand etc, much at all, then it'd be smart to convert that to 4WD or at least AWD. But that would take R&Ring the trans, to install a 4WD output shaft and a transfer case, plus the front drive parts(spindles/axles/diff/driveshaft).

 

[gmanpaint]

I look at the open carrier as a good thing. You can add a lunchbox locker to that open carrier, and increase traction by 100%.

 

[GLOCKer]

Ughhhh. FML! Cars and Trucks have been a royal PITA to me in the past couple days.

LOL

The past couple of days at work have been...
...interesting?

I may have mentioned I have been promoted at work (a promotion I really didn't want because I was loving what I was doing). I am now the Assistant Watch Commander at a precinct and my first night of work was this past Wednesday. I like arriving at work early, so I went to pull my new-to-me Dodge Charger patrol car (I also didn't want this as I had a really sweet unmarked F-150 police truck!!!) up to the house from the end of the driveway to load the rest of my gear in it and it wouldn't start!!!! It was so dead a jump box wouldn't start it and my wife has the jumper cables in her Escape. Arghhhhh. Luckily someone in the neighborhood saw me stuck and stopped to help (in a really nice older hot rodded Lexus!).

Then at 3am this morning I got a nice chunk of metal stuck in my tire. It went flat pretty quickly. LOL I had to change the tire in the rain, in about 3" of standing water. And when I drop the jack, I learned my spare was flat too! UGHHHHHH!

So today I installed new struts on the rear lift gate window. That couldn't go right either. I broke a c-clip. But I am excited about getting the c-clip so I can put the second new strut on that rear window because the strength of the new strut I was able to install compared to the wore old struts is amazing! If anybody has been suffering a weak liftgate window, spend the $25 for the two struts and enjoy it actually working!

Okay. Thank you for entertaining my ramblings! I'm punchy from working all night!

 

[CDW6212R]

Sorry to hear about the flat tire deal. Some stuff you expect occasionally. Changing a flat in the rain I hope to never do.

I carry a tire repair kit, and a portable 19.2v air pump. I fix a tire in about 5 minutes. I've only changed one tire on the job, a large rock wouldn't allow three plugs to stop the leak. That took about 30 minutes to get done in the end.

 

[GLOCKer]

Sorry to hear about the flat tire deal. Some stuff you expect occasionally. Changing a flat in the rain I hope to never do.

I carry a tire repair kit, and a portable 19.2v air pump. I fix a tire in about 5 minutes. I've only changed one tire on the job, a large rock wouldn't allow three plugs to stop the leak. That took about 30 minutes to get done in the end.

The flat tire kit sounds like a great idea but we can't run patched tires for pursuit reasons. Our spare tires are full size pursuit rated. Luckily my flat spare is holding air after addressing that issue at a gas station. LOL

 

[GLOCKer]

Another small problem to address:
The rear windshield wiper is not making proper contact with the back glass. When I got this thing I addressed safety issues first like light bulbs and wiper blades. It worked then. Most recently I noticed it's only making contact with the glass at the furthest end of it's travel. Are there adjustments to look at?

 

[CDW6212R]

Another small problem to address:
The rear windshield wiper is not making proper contact with the back glass. When I got this thing I addressed safety issues first like light bulbs and wiper blades. It worked then. Most recently I noticed it's only making contact with the glass at the furthest end of it's travel. Are there adjustments to look at?

Yes, many people have had that problem, and there are a couple of good threads explaining how to fix it. I haven't had to deal with it, but I recall most times it ends up being the arm you have to bend. Start with the wiper motor mounting if you can make the time to remove the inner trim panel. In rare cases the mounts with rubber part of them loosen up, then the whole arm doesn't move right.

Use the 14" wiper blade instead of 15", the larger one is more likely to not wipe as well. I have an 03 Sport glass, to swap in some day. The last 18 months of the 2dr Sport got the wiper motor in the glass, and those work more reliably. Those are wired differently, so it takes a small change to get it to work(and it wipes twice per command).

 

[CDW6212R]

The flat tire kit sounds like a great idea but we can't run patched tires for pursuit reasons. Our spare tires are full size pursuit rated. Luckily my flat spare is holding air after addressing that issue at a gas station. LOL

I appreciate the laws, but it is funny how some are excess and others are ignored. There's a federal law that states a commercial vehicle cannot have a retread tire on the front axle. All USPS owned mail delivery trucks in the South have retread tires(all four). That was one of the biggest reasons I wanted off my LLV truck route. They forced that truck onto my route, and I hated driving that thing in any snow, or on any wet roads. The tires are terrible because they are retreads.

 

[GLOCKer]

Yes, many people have had that problem, and there are a couple of good threads explaining how to fix it. I haven't had to deal with it, but I recall most times it ends up being the arm you have to bend. Start with the wiper motor mounting if you can make the time to remove the inner trim panel. In rare cases the mounts with rubber part of them loosen up, then the whole arm doesn't move right.

Use the 14" wiper blade instead of 15", the larger one is more likely to not wipe as well. I have an 03 Sport glass, to swap in some day. The last 18 months of the 2dr Sport got the wiper motor in the glass, and those work more reliably. Those are wired differently, so it takes a small change to get it to work(and it wipes twice per command).

I put a 14" wiper on. It worked great...
...ONCE! LOL

I'll pop the interior panel and see what I can see. Hopefully it's a minor adjustment or tightening something down to put it back. It'd be nice to have a clear window look through when backing in the rain!

 

[GLOCKer]

I appreciate the laws, but it is funny how some are excess and others are ignored. There's a federal law that states a commercial vehicle cannot have a retread tire on the front axle. All USPS owned mail delivery trucks in the South have retread tires(all four). That was one of the biggest reasons I wanted off my LLV truck route. They forced that truck onto my route, and I hated driving that thing in any snow, or on any wet roads. The tires are terrible because they are retreads.

It's not so much a law for us as it is our department's policy for liability reasons. I can imagine if the tire goes bad during a pursuit it could be really ugly!

 

[koda2000]

I put a 14" wiper on. It worked great...
...ONCE! LOL

I'll pop the interior panel and see what I can see. Hopefully it's a minor adjustment or tightening something down to put it back. It'd be nice to have a clear window look through when backing in the rain!

The only thing you're going to see is a bad design. Weak steel and rubber bushing mounts. I got mine to work pretty well by cutting the arm stops by about 1/8" and using an expensive Bosch Icon rear blade.

The issue is that the pressure of the arm spring moves the motor and then the geometry becomes wrong. Notice how the rubber boot is ****ed to the left where the motor's shaft exits the rear door. This is why most rear wiper motors are mounted on the glass and not on the metal door.

 

[toypaseo]

Another small problem to address:
The rear windshield wiper is not making proper contact with the back glass. When I got this thing I addressed safety issues first like light bulbs and wiper blades. It worked then. Most recently I noticed it's only making contact with the glass at the furthest end of it's travel. Are there adjustments to look at?

Try this: Cleaning rear wiper arm = I can see out my back window now

 

[GLOCKer]

Try this: Cleaning rear wiper arm = I can see out my back window now

Cool! I'll try that first!