00 OHV Galloping like a 3 legged drunk | Page 4 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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00 OHV Galloping like a 3 legged drunk

I’ll never own a GM vehicle again…as a daily driver anyway. Dog **** quality. I got in a friend’s Corvette recently and it just felt…cheap. Not in a lack of luxury way, but just in a build quality way.

Never felt that way in a Ford. I have a Dodge Challenger that is my ‘fun’ car…6.4L Hemi w/ manual trans…same thing. Not very fancy, but feels stoutly built.
 



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I’ll never own a GM vehicle again…as a daily driver anyway. Dog **** quality. I got in a friend’s Corvette recently and it just felt…cheap. Not in a lack of luxury way, but just in a build quality way.

Never felt that way in a Ford. I have a Dodge Challenger that is my ‘fun’ car…6.4L Hemi w/ manual trans…same thing. Not very fancy, but feels stoutly built.
This little Grand Am was my first GM, a buddy had one in the late 90's and I thought it was cool as hell, the pleasant memory stuck so when I found this one for what I thought was a reasonable price I snapped it up, I wasn't aware at the time that it came out of Phoenix and had sat in direct sun for two years before being brought here and traded in. It became obvious as time went on that at some point the sunroof had been left open in the rain, there's a pattern of water damage under the carpet and upholstery that leads to no other possible conclusion, and it makes me wonder what other abuses it endured before I bought it.
My Gran has a 99 Olds Intrigue, which is basically the same as the Grand Am/Grand Prix, never had the same kinds of issues, but the motor seized suddenly for no obvious reason at about 210k miles. Everything had been mostly groovy with it, then one morning she took my spawn to school, went in to get an extra copy of the picture day form, and had to call me to leave work and come drag it home. It's her spite car, she keeps it because everyone keeps telling her to just scrap it or sell it to someone who needs a donor car. Can't blame her, I've got a 73 Chrysler Newport that's become my spite car, I'd been playing a rousing game of chase the compression problem before I had my son, the heads off the left side of the motor are in the trunk, heads off the right are buried behind an old buddy's work bench and I absolutely refuse to get rid of it because I got so sick of hearing how it'd never be worth finishing, my kid thinks it'd make a fun project car so if he wants to start something that big in the next few years I'll let him have it, until then it's going to keep collecting mice, rust and dry rot.
Never ever again with a GM, I'd rather buy a violently used Yugo.
 






Monday update has nothing to do with the Explorer and everything to do with HP, Horrible Pontiac, since some folks are interested in or entertained by the Saga of Shelby's Cars™.
HP has had a host of mostly annoying intermittent electrical issues since the day I paid way too dang much for it, one of the more irritating ones being that on hot days it decides at random that turn signals are only for people who don't know hand signals, and wouldn't you know I was in the last class at my high school that got to take driver's ed from the ancient former coach who taught it, and he was all about rules and things that might come in handy one day so of course I know hand signals. The AC has never really worked so it's never been that big of an issue because my windows are always down, and the signals always come back at some point either mid drive or after parking it for a few minutes.
This morning it's colder than a witch's tit in a brass bra, my hands were already frozen because I'm too stubborn to start the furnace up until it gets miserably cold inside at night... HP decided that today was a fine day to experiment with having electrical issues in the cold, so instead of receiving blinking lights when flipping the nifty lever that produces them I got screaming static out of the factory tweeters instead. The static instead of blinking lights is a new development, and would have been entertaining if it didn't decide to crop up when I was trying to turn through obscenely heavy traffic. The way GM vehicles are wired makes me wonder if the engineers they use have ever actually had to screw around with a wiring harness before, there's literally NOTHING wrong with any of the wires, nothing wrong with the flasher fuse, nothing wrong with the switch, everything is visually, electronically, and mechanically groovy. I firmly believe that the previous owner must have been a mortician who did occult things on the side and managed to get the car possessed by a drunken frat boy.
I've been home 30 minutes and still can't feel my damn fingers. :laugh:
I really feel your dilemma. Although strapped myself, maybe a kind financially sound person will start a Go Fund Me for you. Not as a welfare case. Just an unlucky vehicle/money pit owner.
 






I really feel your dilemma. Although strapped myself, maybe a kind financially sound person will start a Go Fund Me for you. Not as a welfare case. Just an unlucky vehicle/money pit owner.
Things keep going this way and it might become a welfare case :banghead:
For the moment Granny is determined to help me get the Explorer running again, so I've got like 800$ to throw at it and whatever she's going to throw at it, of course with the provision that this mechanic can actually do anything with it and I'm not back at square one. If the new mechanic throws his hands up and can't figure anything out I'll start frantically hunting for something filthy cheap that runs half way reliably, even if it does turn out to be something I'd hate like another GM or an 80's Honda, and keep on fiddling with the Ford on my own as finances allow.
 






I had a 2000 grand am that got to 275k before I crashed it.
 






A 2000 grand am will go at a top speed of 106 mph
Kid tested mother did not approve
 






A 2000 grand am will go at a top speed of 106 mph
Kid tested mother did not approve
I got mine up to about 102 going across Kansas one night, once was more than enough :laugh: I suppose it would have been more fun if I'd still been a teenager when I did it. Give me odd angles, steep hills and rocks over speed any day.
 






The GT edition will scoot to 130…in Mexico of course.

Explorer won’t even break a hundo smh.

Sure does drive good though. Guess that’s what happens when you replace every part except the key 😂
 






I’ve had my SOHC over 100 a few times…even with a lightbar on the roof. She’ll get after it, but she needs some open road to do so
 






Lets just say we went over 100 when tuning and data logging
A few times in a controlled environment
 






Ya'll can have fun with your fast Explorers lol :crazy:, when I get mine back, assuming it's running right, I'm babying TF out of it.
 






Ya'll can have fun with your fast Explorers lol :crazy:, when I get mine back, assuming it's running right, I'm babying TF out of it.
So you brought it to a shop today...... correct? As stated, my money's on a new MAF.....but we'll see....
 


















@KeenKilo how many miles on your X why wont she go over 100?
 












220 something. Haven’t been in a big enough hurry I guess
I agree I've never sped to just speed only ever see those speeds passing or emergency response. I was just curious was all I know my 3.0 B series does over 100 but it's lighter than a X too.
 






So you brought it to a shop today...... correct? As stated, my money's on a new MAF.....but we'll see....
I took it in yesterday morning, they're pretty swamped and when I went and got my spawn from school it hadn't moved from where I'd parked it yesterday morning, so I don't really expect to hear back from them until late this afternoon or some time early-ish tomorrow. I'll be able to hazard a guess at roughly where it is in the queue when I go through town here in about 45 minutes.
 






Minor update: Explorer is inside the shop.
I also tore the JB Welded side mirror off of HP this morning, some jackass ran me into the wall because they have half of our road blocked off and nobody seems to understand that you really shouldn't go 60 over a blind hill, some other jackass didn't take their trash cans in after pickup yesterday, I rolled the trashcan along between my car and the wall. I broke it off the first time with my ribs while chasing the dog down the driveway like a week after I bought it :snicker: Not a big deal and I'm really not even upset about it, but dang, fist hammering the mirror housing back into place was not how I wanted to start my day.
(Just in case anyone asks: Yes, I could have easily hit a scrap yard for a mirror, and I did plan to but never got around to it because it stayed where I put it and I figured it was fine until it fell back off. JB Weld is the answer to everything that moves and shouldn't, just like WD-40 is the answer to everything that doesn't move and should.)
 



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" off of HP this morning" HP use to stand for, be commonplace abbreviation for Hewlett Packard, now it stands for Horrible Pontiac ! ;)
 






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