Completed Project Turboexplorer's Full Width SAS Build Thread

Hello everybody! It's time to start the SAS on my Explorer. It will be an awesome project and the first project of this type and size that I have ever undertaken. Up to this point the sliders where the hardest thing that I have made myself. I am open to any suggestions and or insights from anyone as the project gets underway. I have bought every last part for the build minus the hard brake lines (axles, and from master to the frame) and the flexible lines that go down to the axles. Those are all easy to make so I am not worried about it for now until I get the axles put together and can see what i want to do with those.

Now for a list of things I will be doing with the project:
1995 F-150 8.8 - I bought this used rear axle that I will strip, lock with a Detroit, convert to Explorer Disc brakes, and mount to the truck. Factory rear sway bar will be used. I will be doing a spring over conversion and will also be remaking the rear V8 anti axle wrap bars to help the leaf springs out with the leverage and TQ the V8 37's and 5.13's will put on them.
1976 F-150 HP Dana 44 - I bought this used axle and will be stripping it of the Ford factory wedges, trussing, and building custom glorified radius arms. Like DB_1 runs and like Rubicon Expresses makes. Front will also have a Detroit Truetrac LSD in it as well. This Dana 44 has 1/2" thick axle tubes.
Fox 14" Remote reservoir coil-overs - I will be building shock hoops for these coil-overs, bracing them, and tying them together across the top of the engine with removable double lock tube clamps.
1995 F-150 Steering box - This will be mounted inside the frame rail and used with the factory PS pump and will build a custom steering link from the box to the column. I picked this 1 to keep it ALL Ford and 2 because they are fairly cheap and easy and can be tapped for hydro assist at some point if I want or need it. In order to fit this steering gear I also have to remote mount my oil filter so that it has room. I will be getting rid of the factory oil cooler and have a Trans Dapt remote filter relocation kit.

Project Parts Section:
-37X13.50 R17 Interco M-16's
-Fox 14" Remote reservoir coil-overs with Eibach Springs.
-Detroit Locker for the 8.8
-Detroit Truetrac for the Dana 44
-Yukon 5.13 gears for both front and rear.
-Both axles will receive ALL new bearings races and seals u-joints etc.
-All wheel studs front and rear and spindle studs have been replaced for safety reasons. To cheap not to.
-Already had EBC brakes on it so those pads on rear will be reused and new EBC 7000 series pads for the front have been purchased.
-New front rotors wheel bearings and new Spicer ball joints, going to reuse the warn locking hubs as they work great and are in good order and easily changed later if i wanted.
-1978 Ford T-Bird calipers have been bought in place of the factory F-150 ones. They are 17% bigger in piston size so will give me a little more brake up front to help stop those 37's.
-Trans Dapt Oil filter relocation Kit and addition mount to hook to the block at a 90*.
-Currie Johnny Joints and Rubicon Express Clevite bushings for the all the link ends.
-GM 1 ton tre's for the steering with a high angle tre at the pitman arm.
-Front axle truss. (wasn't impressed with it at all so will be making some changes)
-Extending current Expedition rear drive shaft and will have a custom double cardon one made for the front.
-Metal used: 2"X.250 wall DOM for lower links, 1 1/2"X.250 wall DOM used for upper links, 1 1/2"X.375 wall DOM used for trac bar, and ALL tabs and brackets will be made out of 1/4" Flat plate by me.
-Double lock tube clamps for the shock hoop cross brace that uses 2 3/8" bolts on each. These are so It can be removed.
-All Grade 8 hardware will be used.
-All flexible brake lines will be braided stainless steel Teflon lined hoses.

I like to follow others projects and often find myself wanting more pictures so bare with me there will be A LOT of pictures of the build. I hope you enjoy lots of pictures as much as I do.


First some pictures of what the truck was! Then onto some parts pictures. Build will start shortly.
1998 XLT Explorer. 5.0L with the 4R70W trans. I have the 4406 T-Case. 3.73 gears with rear LSD. Goodyear 31's. Rock sliders and front skid plate. Links to those builds are in my signature.

And here is some video links! There are a few videos of me wheeling in CO with nssj2!

 

[turboexplorer]

So here are the axle breakage pictures. Its been a while since i broke it but better late than never.

Right Rear axle shaft end.

Broken shaft where the splines are stuck inside the locker. You can see where the axle shaft end had been sliding around and marking up the end of the locker but its all just cosmetic damage so no worries there. Wasn't to bad to get it out of the locker either. Took the diff out, left cross pin out and then had to punch the broken piece further into the diff with a pretty big hammer so that I could then get the c clip out. I then used a big punch through the left side of the locker and punched the broken shaft out. Came out pretty easy, hardest part was getting it to go further in the diff to get c clip out.

Bearings all out and disassembled. I inspected every surface on every roller for signs of damage from the debris but all rollers where fine so cleaned well and reassembled the bearings. (Way easier than pulling bearing race and repressing it back on)

Ground down the edges of the new shafts on their flanges so that they would sit inside the rotors nice and flat. Just like I did with a lathe earlier when I first did the swap and brake conversion. I then painted the flanges and popped out the studs from old shafts and repressed them into these new shafts. Now ready for installation.

 

[turboexplorer]

So here is some of the pieces I cleaned out of the housing and tube from the breakage. Lol, some big chunks for sure. However only small pieces made it into the diff housing as they would have to pass through the carrier bearing to get into the gear housing, hence the reason for inspecting bearings good.

Here is the damage to the axle tube and housing near the break. This is where the tube is pressed into the housing. If you look close you can see a few chunks missing from the housing in that area and the tube is all scarred. But again all cosmetic and nothing to worry about. Only other things it hurt was smashed up the shims on that side some so when I reassembled the diff I just used new shims but made no adjustments.

So I had a bunch of people say that there was not need to pull the pinion but I wanted to make sure so pulled the pinion and disassembled those bearings and cleaned and inspected as well. Rather safe than sorry. Plus I know for sure the whole housing is perfectly clean. Didn't find an flake of metal in the pinion bearings or race area so no didn't need to pull it but hey I know how to do pinion work and have tools to do it so I did. New seal installed and crushed a new preload washer to set proper pinion drag and that was all done, and housing all clean.

Cleaned all the tubes out really really well, this included magnets, towels, brake cleaner and time. Also cleaned out the axle bearings as well inspected them, mainly the RR one. And installed new axle seals, because again for a few bucks why not while i'm in there.

Diff all back together and axles in, checked backlash and was still in spec so all done!!! Fill it and go. Did a quick run to Wal-Mart and back sounded good. Then the next weekend over Christmas week I put 800 miles on it all everything ran perfect!

 

[MidnightRebel07]

You're just like me, I would've taken everything apart and double checked every nut and bolt too.

 

[gmanpaint]

Oof! I bet when you first looked at it, you had to scratch your head thinking.... "How the heck am I going to get that C-clip off?" :scratch:

 

[turboexplorer]

Yes I did, for a bit was curious how I would get it out then thought well it has to go in so I started hammering. Had to get after it pretty good but not crazy.

After the axle install I mounted up the lightbar that I got for my birthday from my wife. A 30" dual row light bar.

Marking it up to center the bar and mark the mounting holes.

Mounted and turned on after wired up.

Top pic is no lights, middle one is headlights only, and bottom is light bar only. Big difference, used it while night wheeling at the sand dunes over Christmas in St. George and was VERY nice and I am super happy with it. While wheeling in St. George we ended up aiming the lightbar up a far bit more than this bottom picture shows. Spreads light a whole lot farther.

I'm sure this would get a few people angry on the highway

 

[gmanpaint]

Very nice!

Now to make something to protect that light... LOL!!

 

[turboexplorer]

Light bar is gnarly tough. Mounts would be way weaker than the light bar itself. Used it last weekend to push a big bush/tree out of the way while turning around in one spot. Kept the tree off my grill.

 

[turboexplorer]

Also while in St. George over Christmas I had some decals made at my moms work and got them put on. (All for less than $20 ) So got to show forum pride so got some forum ones on both rear qtr glass, also did some FOX racing shox ones on the lower part of both front doors, and finally all my riding gear is FOX so got that put on the rear glass. I didn't want it to look like there was a ton of stickers on it so figured if 5 was to many I could take them off but I really think it turned out great! Super happy with it and all stickers are staying.

Quick reminder of before.

You can see the lower front door ones if you look close in these first two.

All done and super happy.

 

[Error404]

wow! nice work. I may have missed it did you do c-clip eliminators on the 8.8?

 

[turboexplorer]

Can't mine is full width 8.8. There is nothing made for the full width.

 

[Error404]

Guess your right.. I always saw it as 8.8 and it didnt matter.. (just searched I'm updated now) have you had any troubles with the c clips?

 

[turboexplorer]

And a few pics of my new toy my wife bought for me for Christmas. a Platinum Slash. I already have the radio etc since I have a SCX10 crawler. So I have a few aluminum parts the LCG chassis, big bore shocks, sway bars etc. So we of course had to take it to the dunes and throw it around. I hadn't painted the body yet so there is just paint tape inside the body to avoid scratching it. (turned out to be a bad idea was a royal pain to get off) Anyways here is a few pictures of it at the dunes. The Slash is a blast. I've since painted it and got paddles and a few other things.

 

[Bruces expo]

That Led Light Bar is Awesome , Cool new toy as well ! . my Brother loved his nitro burners , I never really got into them , but I seen how fun they were when I messed around with his .

 

[turboexplorer]

So all the previous pictures have been ones of things i have done to the rig lately. How about some action pictures to show this thing in its natural environment? Offroad!!!!

Sand Hollow Sand Dunes. We drove out the day after Christmas and just did dunes the whole time we where there. Sand was nice so spent a lot of the time in 2WD throwing sand and playing with the RC cars on the dunes.

You can see the monster ruts the 37's where digging into the sand.

 

[turboexplorer]

Man you have got to love the 5.0L! Can throw sand roosts like this with 37's
Favorite part is where you can see the sand coming off each of the tire cleats, makes for a cool picture.

That's moving a lot of sand!

 

[turboexplorer]

A few more.

 

[BKennedy]

That sure is beautiful country. Glad to see you got the rig all back together.

 

[Kirby N.]

Ground down the edges of the new shafts on their flanges so that they would sit inside the rotors nice and flat. Just like I did with a lathe earlier when I first did the swap and brake conversion. I then painted the flanges and popped out the studs from old shafts and repressed them into these new shafts. Now ready for installation.
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So did you just do this with a grinder or on a lathe? I am wanting to build a fw 8.8 with explorer disks. I have read some on full size bronco and it seems like this is basically all that is involved except for some brake line work?

 

[turboexplorer]

That sure is beautiful country. Glad to see you got the rig all back together.

Sure is, its by far my favorite place to go wheeling and exploring.

So did you just do this with a grinder or on a lathe? I am wanting to build a fw 8.8 with explorer disks. I have read some on full size bronco and it seems like this is basically all that is involved except for some brake line work?

First factory axles I used a lathe, there is pictures of it somewhere in this thread. These current ones I just used a grinder. Took forever! But turned out great, just took my time to make them look really good.

 

[turboexplorer]

Out wheeling a few weekends ago. There wasn't much snow but it was super slick.