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Ford Explorer Community - Maintenance - Modifications - Performance Upgrades - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street
Explorer Forum Covers the Explorer ST, Explorer Sport, Explorer Sport Trac, Lincoln Aviator, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Ford Aerostar
You will love those MTZ tires, I have 35" version on my BII, love them! Careful in the rocks though they will chunk easy = fine with me as long as I make it!
These tires have pretty good road manners too. Till you hit 85mph cruising down loveland pass, then there is a little noise. They rub a little on the rear of the front fenders when the front end flexes during turns. I cut a few inches off the front bumper but now need to do the fenders as well. Ill get pics up soon
Looks good. Wish my ranger was that body style. What was the deal with knuckles in the first post I noticed you didn't end up using them. Did you set them up for heims or did you get them that way?
Looks good. Wish my ranger was that body style. What was the deal with knuckles in the first post I noticed you didn't end up using them. Did you set them up for heims or did you get them that way?
Thanks. I bought a Dana 35 axle for the front because it had the precision 456 gears(cheaper than regearing), warn hubs new brakes etc.... and a 8.8 with no carrier or gears for $320 for the set! with the perches and shock mounts already gone for a soa setup. They were both from a 94 explorer that were going in a Bronco II but he ran out of cash for his project and had to sell.
Anyway it was set up for a heim joint steering and had an extra tab of metal welded to cast with like a 3"x7/8" bolt running through both holes for the heim. I just swapped over the differential in the end, as the radius arm bolts were so badly rusted in to the axle arm that I couldnt remove them.
(we actually got one side to break free by propping the axle up on the wrench and jumping on the whole assembly) finnally said screw it had a beer or six and swapped the pig/diff over.
Other wise I wouldve just swapped in my stock knuckles.
I still got the heim setup ones if anyones interested.
I used 2 piece extended rubber lines
The new lines shown are 'Brakeware' that I bought from Autozone. Their part numbers are listed below you need one of each for both sides. As well as some sort of T fitting for the drivers side as it supplies the passenger line as well.
brakeware 77226
brakeware 88291
here you can see the T fitting used as well as the new 2piece lines..look close and youll see the other line coming from behind the spring bucket
WOW! Great looking truck... I grenaded a hub about a week ago, had the truck about 3 years and did fine intil i let my eighbor drive it off road... oh well its fixed now... I dunno if i missed it in the post buthow exactly did you lift the front end, the rear is easy... but im kinda confused on the front with the ifs...
WOW! Great looking truck... I grenaded a hub about a week ago, had the truck about 3 years and did fine intil i let my eighbor drive it off road... oh well its fixed now... I dunno if i missed it in the post buthow exactly did you lift the front end, the rear is easy... but im kinda confused on the front with the ifs...
lifting the front consists of drop brackets for where the hinge bolt holds the axle arms to the frame and longer coils and shocks. also a longer pitman arm is needed to correct the steering angles.
That's a badass buildup man! Looking GREAT! Especially cause it looks like by post date you did almost all of it in one big build. I wonder how many of us wish we could do that, lol.
Keep it up, btw, the first picture in the thread, I love it. I have a thing for mountains...
lifting the front consists of drop brackets for where the hinge bolt holds the axle arms to the frame and longer coils and shocks. also a longer pitman arm is needed to correct the steering angles.
I bought a used 5.5" Superlift from a member off TRS which he said was the third lift he pulled off of a ranger at the junkyard....hard to believe people just throw this **** away. Then bought skyjacker coils and shocks and (leafsprings for the rear) because they flex much better and just used the superlift brackets rather than buying new. Ive heard there are problems with the superlift brackets cracking/breaking because they arent gusseted like skyjackers are. But I will beef them up when I get a welder in the near future.
There are parts vendors all over the web that carry these and similar lifts. Or check out ebay and craigslist.
It took me quite a while to find everything I needed parts tools etc.(at the price I wanted to pay) but it gave me time to learn alot from this forum and therangerstation(lots of good tech info there too) so that I knew what I was doing, and could put the lift on myself.
as far as fabbing something like this goes, again, search around I know TRS has a tech article about lift kit fabrication. sure there are some here too
Be careful when you put the thicker plate -- during welding, it will bow the slider. I had this happen to these side tubes I'm using for the side of my Explorer. I had to cut the tack welds and replace with new tube because of how much it bowed.
yeah I went with .12 wall for the 2x3 to save weight and plan on putting a 1/8 thick strip along the bottom to reduce dents. good to know IZwack Ill take it slow when I burn em on there
