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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
i should look into making something liek that for my 91, the shop at school does have a milling machine... cool idea man, u should post a pic of it installed.
i should look into making something liek that for my 91, the shop at school does have a milling machine... cool idea man, u should post a pic of it installed.
I'll try to get picture of it. It is installed. The stainless steel T-handle is a cabinet knob that I got off of Lowes.com. It was $4.00 +tax, shipped. It was pre-threaded for a typical 8-32 screw. It needs to be re-drilled and threaded for 12-24. The re-drilling was easy. The re-threading in the stainless was a bit tougher.
The rod was easy to cut the 12-24 threads on. I cut the finger grooves with a high speed steel 9/16 endmill bit, on my drill press with an X Y adjustable vice table. I widened the grooves to about 3/4" with the bit and then polished them with a 3/4 rotary stone.
If I had it to do over again, I would have heated then straightened the 90° bend instead of cutting it off. Then I would have rethreaded the rod. That would have made the handle stick further out and made it easier to grab. There was plenty of room in the handle well to allow that to happen. As it is, and the way I measured it out, it is in the same position as the plastic handle was.
Getting the old handle and rod out was easy. I had to drill the rivet at the forward end of the handle rod and remove two 7 mm screws. I re-installed the rod using a 1/4-20 bolt and a nylock nut.
Now when you reach down and grab the new handle, it feels like Ford had a better idea!