Mounty71's 4x4 Long Travel Build

My pride and joy, the Mounty:

Video:

It's a 2000 Mercury Mountaineer. I acquired this fine vehicle in 2003 with just 32,410 miles on the ticker, and it was in pristine condition, having been driven by an elderly couple, and always serviced regularly at the same dealership it was delivered to from the factory.

This thing has gone through a series of different suspension setups, but currently it has:
Solo Motorsports 4" extended D35 TTB with D44 outers, and custom radius arms
2.5x12" King coilovers with 2.5x12" secondary King reservoir shocks
4WD conversion with BW4406 manual transfer case
2.5x18" rear King shocks outboard of the frame
custom ordered Deaver leaf springs with 12" 2AM Fab shackles
Full-width 8.8 rear with stock disc brakes, Blue Torch Fab diff cover/truss
4.56 gears front and rear, lunchbox front locker, limited slip rear
roll cage through dash and firewall to engine cage

(previous front suspension setup)
Long Travel front end 5" wider per side with 2.5x8" Sway Away coilovers, Dixon Bros. shock hoops
2.0x2" King bumpstops
Full heim steering
3" Procomp lift spindles
homemade lower rear A-arm crossbrace, lower A-arm mount weld-washers, upper A-arm gussets
8" limit straps
removed swaybar

(performance)
MAC performance muffler with turn down tip
MAC performance intake

(exterior)
front bumper with removable light bar, with 4 Hella 4000 55w HID conversions
custom rear receiver and swing out spare tire carrier w/ gas can
clear corners
McNeil fiberglass fenders
removed running boards
5.0 emblems
color-matched grill surround with mesh grill
clear LED light in rear bumper

(random)
ABS defeat switch
Icom race radio
recovered center console in black
fog lamp-hi beam mod
added tie-downs in cargo area
rear hatch interior handle
4x4 Ranger front towhooks
driveshaft "loop"


COMING NEXT
3-link rear suspenion
add 2.5 or 3.0x18" King bypass shocks to the rear
switch front smooth body shocks for 2.5 or 3.0x12" King bypasses
rear fiberglass
35s

Newly lifted on 31 BFG M/Ts:

After its first offroading:

Almost stock:

 

[carlover]

Main shim was a .012, and the rest were .015's. The .012 allows for a little softer ride over the smaller choppy stuff and the street. While the .015's soak up the hard stuff a little better. you could even go .012's with the 1st 2 shims if you wanted it a little softer.

 

[mounty71]

This is all for compression right? Haha, I don't know very much about shocks but i'll relay Andrew (84prerunner) this info when he revalves them.

 

[carlover]

yeah compression, rebound seems fine but can never seem to be too light with leafs.

 

[mounty71]

Cool, thanks.

On another note, i added another little modification that i've been wanting to do for a while. I made a handle for inside the rear hatch so i can open it from inside when i'm sleeping in the back. It works great, was pretty easy and straight-forward to make, and only cost $8 and change.

Here's a picture, i'm gonna make a thread explaining it because i don't know of anyone that's done an interior hatch handle, but i know anyone who sleeps in their trucks would find it useful.

 

[Keeper0311]

Can't wait to see that thread.

 

[mounty71]

Thread: http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2586761#post2586761

 

[mounty71]

Just wanted to update with pics and my theory of what happened with my rear end...

Here's the upper shock mount that was damaged...

The bar-pin that goes through the shock bushing was too short to be completely secured by the two bolts that attach it to the crossmember. I negligently didn't really think too much about it and soon forgot about it after installing the shocks. I'm thinking that the bar-pin simply came loose from the bolts when going through the whoops, and when it was hanging loose the bar-pin was smashed into the bottom of the crossmember and bent at that point, as well as crushing the resi hose and bottoming out the shock. There are gouges and scrape marks all over the crossmember which presumably is from the bar-pin. There's no way that the shock could have bottomed out while still in it's mounts unless the frame above the axle severely bent, or the axle moved to the side, in which case the other rear shock would have bottomed out too. That's my theory.

Here's how it was mounted before, you can see the ends of the bar-pin are barely held on by the hardware. Carelessness on my part.

And here's the sad looking shock

I got a new hose a few days ago from bilstein, and i'm going to get some longer bar-pins so the shocks can't come loose again, and also larger diameter washers. Maybe i'll tack the bar pins to the crossmember just for extra security.

And on another note, it looks like there's a leak from the pinion seal on my axle, not the diff cover as i originally thought. Gotta look into how expensive that would be to fix.

 

[mounty71]

Bored tonight, so i removed the 6 CD changer in the center console and about doubled the storage space. Free mod, woo! Also polished 2 of 4 wheels, they look brand new! And i'm on winter break from school until the end of January so i'm gonna try to get some overdue maintenance done, and maybe start on a front or rear bumper if i can come up with some money for steel...anyone want to buy a 6 CD changer??

 

[mounty71]

Look what we just had delivered. My roommate and i got a bunch of tubing for an insanely cheap amount...$0.75/ft for 1 3/4" mild, and $0.45/ft for 1 1/4".

Those are 24' sticks btw. LOTS of tubing. Bumpers are coming soon.

 

[mounty71]

Progress on my front bumper!

Main tube bent today, still need to trim down the ends.

I'm getting these laser cut to do boxed frame horns, should have the pieces back tomorrow.

It's going to be bolt on, so the frame horns will slide over the frame, and it will also attach to the lower A-arm bolts.

 

[cybergasm]

hmmmm that frame horn design looks awful familiar......:scratch:

 

[mounty71]

It does? Whose/what frame horn does it look like? I don't remember seeing any like this which is why I did it because I want it to be unique.

Also, found out last night that the laser cutter fell through, so I'm looking for a different place to go.

 

[section525]

Drawing of what you're going for with the bumper?

 

[Tbars4]

...Schorr Metals now offers laser cutting...
http://www.schorrmetals.com/

 

[mounty71]

Here's a photoshop I did of the exact bumper i'm using for reference.

Unfortunately, the thread about that bumper build was on another forum and it was deleted. But to give you an idea, it will be boxed like this:

 

[mounty71]

This is the original bumper i used for the photoshop, i just can't find any close up pictures.

 

[mounty71]

Thanks Ted, i missed that link you posted at first. I have a few other places i'm going to call.

Also, the laser cut pieces will be slightly different than that cardboard template. When I drew it in solidworks I tweaked some things slightly, but I used that cardboard to figure out where the main tube would be.

 

[Tbars4]

...Since you are in Long Beach, I was going to suggest you run over and see Jesse James at West Coast Choppers but it appears they have closed their doors...

 

[section525]

Can you let us know what it costs to laser cut when you find out? That bumper will be hawt.

 

[mounty71]

...Since you are in Long Beach, I was going to suggest you run over and see Jesse James at West Coast Choppers but it appears they have closed their doors...

Unfortunately, i never took the chance to go visit when they were open.

Can you let us know what it costs to laser cut when you find out? That bumper will be hawt.

Will do.

And i found pictures of that bumper, mine will have the top and bottom plates hang over the side plates like this one: