2000 AWD Xploder from Turbo back to NA

[willzilla]

Haven't been able to get any work done on the Xploder for a little while... Busy busy busy, blah Lol. Still messing with the SVTf as well.. Got it running a lot better but not "perfect" yet. Replaced the TPS and that seemed to have helped a lot, ran a bottle of fuel system cleaner as well, replaced the fuel filter as well. I'd say right now it seems to be at about 90% so that's a big improvement. Going to pull the iac and clean it next to see if that helps further.

 

[willzilla]

Man.. I have been lazy lazy lazy!! Lol. Well.. Busy with work, kids, the wife, and a million other activities my poor Xploder has been sitting neglected I finally went and bought my own compressor so I can vac fill the coolant system without needing to borrow anything from my buddy. Had some issues with my SVTf I had been working on and that car seems to be running solid for now so hopefully I can get back to work on the Xploder ASAP... I really want to get this thing back on the road after what seems like 100 years haha.

I'm still at the point of getting ready to swap out my heater core hoses.. I have the hoses (somewhere lol)... Just need to get a tool that can reach the hose clamps and remove them so I can swap them... Though I am pretty sure it will come down to having to replace the damn heater core, ugh. That's where I am now. Once I get the coolant system from leaking... The truck is almost done! Just some new brakes (old rotors look like rusted death), tighten camber bolts fully, alignment, fill the AC system (and pray it works still lol), tweak the exhaust (move the af sensor from the rear to further up for better data logging/tuning accuracy), and a few other odds and ends and preventive maintenance stuff like oil the hinges, clean up wheel center caps that rusted from sitting so long, clean the truck, etc.

 

[boominXplorer]

Swap a duratec in your SVT, it will fix all your issues lol. I love my 07 STF, I am slowly messing with it more taking it outside it's DD realm soon with the turbo kit I just got.....

Back to talking about the explorer, I think your thinking too deep about the coolant bleeding. Just swap the hoses, fill the rad and turn the heat on. Leave the rad cap off till it is up to temp.

 

[willzilla]

Swap a duratec in your SVT, it will fix all your issues lol. I love my 07 STF, I am slowly messing with it more taking it outside it's DD realm soon with the turbo kit I just got.....

Back to talking about the explorer, I think your thinking too deep about the coolant bleeding. Just swap the hoses, fill the rad and turn the heat on. Leave the rad cap off till it is up to temp.

That is the plan with the Xploder and hopefully the small leak will vanish haha... But I'm just preparing myself for it being the PITA heater core because... that is my luck haha.

As for my SVTf... has been a great car.. my issues were my driver side window clip broke and the window fell into the door.. Fixed that... and then my odyssey battery finally got old and died on me... replaced it.. and then had water sucked into my AEM CAI which fouled up my MAF (cleaned it) and got water (which then froze) in my TPS lol. Replaced the TPS and also put one of those filter covers over my filter to help keep more water out lol. Been a BoV but never planned to drive the car other than on regular nice days being that I have my Xploder... LOL.

 

[willzilla]

It's only been a solid 4 months since my last post, lol. FINALLY worked up the motivation (and actually had some free time!) to do a little work on the Xploder. Damn Yellowtop battery I JUST put in (well, just, as in... like 6 months ago?) seems to have died from sitting so long (forgot to keep a trickle charge on it. I tried to use a battery booster/charger and it didn't help :-/

Cleaned up all the cobwebs and dust and neglect from the engine-bay and with some help of my dremel, a hammer, and pliers was able to get my old heater core hoses off! Wooohoo! Only took a year or so to get that done lol.

I installed the new hoses and replacement heater control valve BUT the heater control valve is a bit different than the one I took off so hopefully it's the right one and perhaps just a newer revision??.. Anyone know if this will work??

The valve seemed to function exactly the same manually moving it so I'm being hopeful lol...

Installed...

My gut is still telling me the HEATER CORE will need to be replaced but... Next day off I plan to re-fill my coolant system and give it another test run and see if it leaks lol... Will pray to the car gods!! Lol.

 

[willzilla]

Also... Wow, the board seems to have changed a ton over the past half year or so!

Does the board no longer work with thread runner app? Doesn't seem to show up in Tapatalk app... Any mobile app that the site works with now? The mobile version of the page looks pretty horrible on my Android phone :-/

 

[CDW6212R]

Good to hear, and if you get just a whiff of a coolant smell, try the powdered leak seal before doing the core.

 

[willzilla]

Good to hear, and if you get just a whiff of a coolant smell, try the powdered leak seal before doing the core.

Powdered leak seal??

 

[CDW6212R]

It's a well known brand, comes in a short 3" plastic "tube" standing up, Alumiseal or something like that. All parts stores will have it, maybe $6 I think. It works as well as any, and like others they don't fix big leaks. You don't want to use much anyway, it can build up and create issues if a person keeps adding more.

 

[willzilla]

It's a well known brand, comes in a short 3" plastic "tube" standing up, Alumiseal or something like that. All parts stores will have it, maybe $6 I think. It works as well as any, and like others they don't fix big leaks. You don't want to use much anyway, it can build up and create issues if a person keeps adding more.

Ahhh, gotcha.. like bars leak seal and what not. Would that stuff cause issues in my pretty much brand new cooling system? Pretty much entire cooling system is new now other than the heater core lol.. and not sure if safe with the Meizre water pump?

 

[CDW6212R]

Using one trusted leak seal should cause no issues for any cooling system. I've used that one powdered kind many times in various cars. Almost every time I did it right after smelling a little sweetness inside the car, and it went away with the product. Don't use anything unless you really think there is a leak in the core that you want to put off for a while.

The only heater core I've had to replace besides my first car(high mileage and old), was my first mail car. That 86 Crown Vic I had installed double SS braided high pressure hoses onto, which would never leak. The mistake was that it would not flex or twist, so removing it pried on the heater core ends. That created a leak after about the 4th time I R&R'd those hoses. They were badass, but I'll never use those again.

 

[willzilla]

Using one trusted leak seal should cause no issues for any cooling system. I've used that one powdered kind many times in various cars. Almost every time I did it right after smelling a little sweetness inside the car, and it went away with the product. Don't use anything unless you really think there is a leak in the core that you want to put off for a while.

The only heater core I've had to replace besides my first car(high mileage and old), was my first mail car. That 86 Crown Vic I had installed double SS braided high pressure hoses onto, which would never leak. The mistake was that it would not flex or twist, so removing it pried on the heater core ends. That created a leak after about the 4th time I R&R'd those hoses. They were badass, but I'll never use those again.

Cool, thanks for the info ! Hoping for the best, in the event if it does turn out to be the heater core I at least found a YouTube video on the entire process on the explorer lol. I'm just really hoping it's not the timing cover of all things as I don't think I have the time and capability for that repair job lol.

Now I'm trying to find a Optima Digital 400 12V Performance Maintainer and Battery Charger to try and recover my yellowtop as well, ugh lol.

 

[willzilla]

Vac filled the coolant in the Xploder and jump started the truck back up (took a long time to get it up... battery needs replaced or I need an Optima charger and hope for it to recover the battery)... Truck started up and ran very well... Let it heat up fully (electric fans kicked on perfectly)... No leaks... Ran it for a good 20 minutes or so.. No leaks. Powered the truck down. The big test will be tomorrow when I heat cycle it again which is when it leaked last time :-/

 

[willzilla]

Some additional details... Did some more work today on the Xploder (that makes 2 days in a row.. I'm on a ROLL!! Lol!!). Jumped the truck again (battery still shot but have the Optima Digital 400 12V Performance Maintainer and Battery Charger ordered and on it's way to be delivered tomorrow) and let it run for another solid 30 minutes. Kind of chirpy for the first few minutes as it warmed up and then sounded nice for the remaining 28+ minutes.

NO LEAKS!!!!!

I couldn't find any leaks on this second heat cycle so I'm feeling pretty positive now! I laid down some paper towel where it had leaked before and ran the car, revved it, etc, etc... Not a drop (well, other than the few drops from where I spilled a bit topping off the radiator). I will be out tomorrow and Saturday but if all still looks good Sunday I will dump the water and replace it with actual coolant.

A quick fly around the engine compartment...



A shot of the dual Contour electric fans after the truck reached the appropriate temperature that initiated the Delta PWM fan controller to slowly ramp the fans up until what sounded like a jet (max) and then after a bit the fan speed backed down a bit and remained steady...



Short video taken sitting inside the truck with the front doors closed, front windows open, back windows and doors closed. The AF gauge seems to not really change oddly enough even when I rev the truck up a few times. The "boost" gauge sits steady at around 20 vac and jumps to almost 0 when I rev it (this is normal I'm assuming? lol). Truck sounds pretty nice overall I think...



And a short video of the electric water-pump after I kill the engine... Can hear it running for a little while after powering down the truck (pretty damn loud lol)...



I was lucky and got stung while crawling around under the truck by a wasp.. Ugh lol.

If leak stays away after I swap water out for coolant I have a ton of cleaning to do in the engine bay and the entire truck eventually (old remains of those mud wasp nests scattered around, dirt, webs, a nest, etc). Immediate need is to tighten camber bolts if I can and get an alignment, fix my HIDs (passenger side flickers and is dead half the time.. may be wiring or just the cheap ballast/bulb took a crap finally), new rotors and pads, relocate the A/F sensor from the rear of the truck to near the front where an old unused o2 sensor bung is located (capped off currently), re-flash the Henson tune, recover or replace my YellowTop battery, clean up wiring in the engine compartment, fix my sluggish rear door lock motors (seem to move like snails and sometimes not far enough to unlock at all??), and I'm sure 10000 more things.

 

[willzilla]

Is James Henson still doing Explorer tuning and what not? His website seems to be MIA when I checked.

 

[willzilla]

I found an old email chain with James and sent an email to check if he still tunes... Got an immediate auto email bounce back with the message:

customerservice@hensonperformance.com <customerservice@hensonperformance.com>
11:49 AM (0 minutes ago)

to me

To whom it may concern:

Our company would like to thank all our customers for many years of support. We have chosen to finalize this chapter and start with a new one. As of 16 October 2015 Henson Performance, Inc. will be closed indefinitely.

Thank you
James Henson
Henson Performance, Inc.
2055310598

Dang :-/ Who do people use for tuning now?? Lol.

EDIT: From searching around the board it seems that Don Lasota is the person to use now..

 

[CDW6212R]

I knew that James had stopped the tuning, and concentrated on his business at home. I didn't know that he shut down the website.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

try don lasota. very smart, and patient person when it comes to tuning

http://www.lasotaracing.com/

 

[willzilla]

try don lasota. very smart, and patient person when it comes to tuning

http://www.lasotaracing.com/

Thank you. That is what I seemed to have found as well... Nice to still have someone reliable lol. Prices seem good as well ($150 for a tune if you have everything already). They recommend a different wideband than what I have but I think the one I have should be fine once I relocate it closer to the front of the truck as planned. A tune refresh is low on my overall plan of what I need to do anyways lol

I got my "fancy" Optima battery charger in Friday while I was at work. Got home and hooked it up to the Yellow Top Optima battery that I reinstalled back into the Xploder and it came on, detected the battery (the other 2 battery charger/maintainers that I have don't even detect it at all), and it displayed "Conditioning 12v Optima Battery - 12.9 Volts DC / 1.3 Amps DC.

I left for a family trip to Nashville Friday night (water park) and got back last night (Sat evening) and checked the charger which now says, "Maintaining 12V Optima Battery - 11.4 Volts DC / 4.0 Amps DC" and display 100% charged Opened the car door and my interior LED's came on and all seems well. It was dark and I'm sunburned a bit and tired so went to sleep.Unhooked the battery charger today and the car started right up still, woohoo! Lol.

Warmed the truck up some more and noticed some chirp type sound coming from the front of the engine.. Perhaps a bad belt pulley? The sound goes away once it's warmed up but returns if I rev the engine up.. I replaced most of the pulleys a while ago so confused a bit :-/ Probably need to pull the belt off and spin each one by hand and see if that brings the sound back to a specific component or something.

Video of the sound while warming up...



And a video of the sound revving the truck up after being warmed up...



Had replaced (cpl yrs ago when I had everything pulled apart) the tensioner assy, the idler pulley, and another I think (all Gates).

Still no leaks that I can see so I "think" I'm in the clear! Though until I'm actually driving it around I won't know for sure... sure. Lol.

Has anyone had issues embedding pictures and videos with Chrome lately? Didn't have any issues a few days ago but today it just freezes up every time so I was forced to do so with Edge... Also my previously embedded pictures that displayed fine now show as broken for all the pictures I embedded from Google pictures and my google drive :-/ Wtf.

 

[CDW6212R]

How old is the cam synchronizer(dist.)? That sound like those when they get old, the bushing in it will squeak, and the fix can be just a few drops of oil down under the sensor(to the shaft).