410Fortune - 96 5.0L XLT refurbish (making 1 great Ex from 2)

[FROADER]

How about a round fog in the mountaineer grill ring? Kinda like a third eye.

 

[Turdle]

cool
kinda like a Tucker

we can call it a -----

nope wont say it

Actually, it is kinda cool

Jamie, do this
use your motor control skill to make it turn with the steering, and 155 watt bulb with relay to high beams. huh?

 

[410Fortune]

hmmmm I think I have seen this idea before, not sure where, but if I recall the car company FAILED even after they made their deadline hahaha

headlight in the center is GHEY hahaha, unless its a ring of red and blue LED's then its cool, but it has to swirl to the music.

I am not less than 3 over Amber thank you very much, I love her.

Hijack all you want, I just wish I had the scratch to get this ***** painted all one color. You know how long its been since I had a car all one color? Long time

 

[410Fortune]

fog lights complete;

First I took the wire pig tails from a stock fog and spliced them (solder/heat shrink) to the female ends from the Pilot wire harness to make the pilot lights plug in like stock:

I mounted and plugged in the lights, made sure they work.

On my 96 model the factory fog lights only come on with the headlights with the low beam. I would like to use these suckers with parking lamps, low and high beams, so I searched the explorer forum for about 8 seconds and found this mod and the wiring I needed to do.

96 model fog light relay is in the relay box next to the airbox.
There are 4 wires to the fog light relay:
BK/Y = 12 V + constant
T/O = 12V switched to fog lights
DB/LG = 12V + from headlamp switch/relay (this is the + feed to the relay to say okay lights can be on, its hot in low beam mode only)
LB/BK = ground from the fog light switch ) fog light switch on dash depressed = fog light relay gets a ground - )

You cut the DB/LG wire and splice this into the parking lamp + feed which is the BROWN wire at your parking lamps and turn signals.

I just happened to have a piece of brown wire to use

at the relay box:

behind the side marker / parking lamp:

Here I never cut the brown wire, instead I use a razor blade to remove the wire shroud, then split the wire and run my new brown lead inside the copper threads, twisting them both together. Then soldered and of course heat shrinked. Some people may say "hey 410 how do you get heat shrink over a wire you never cut?" The answer is I took the brown pin out of the bulb plug so I could get the heat shrink over both leads. I want this to last for lifetime, not just until my electrical tape job comes apart and the parking lamp fuse blows because it touched ground

And of course the fogs on with the parking lamps:

geesh!!! a day and a half to wire and mount fogs! Oh well at least its done properly...

 

[FROADER]

Nice work Jamie.

 

[Trckmagik]

Very nice sir.

 

[Trckmagik]

I need to fly you down, so you can help me clean up RedBull's wiring (previous owner..... Michael )

 

[410Fortune]

wiring is what I do

 

['97 V8]

man, that looks cool. Diamand clear corners are nice.

 

[Turdle]

Good job!

 

[410Fortune]

okay so in the middle of collecting parts for my 4x4 conversion (found the tailhousing I need, will be a while before I have it) I have made another deal with a friend.
Looks like I am trading some parts for basically a 2004 Ranger Edge front end, 4.10 gears in the diff, 4.10's for the 8.8 and some Ranger leafs with 3K miles on it.

Apparently this 4x4 Ranger has larger brakes (12" rotors) and calipers then my 96 truck (or 95-01 Explorer's) so my plan is to upgrade the front brakes to the larger setup by swapping knuckles. I want to use my 96 style hubs and spindles ( i have spares already) and eventually re-gear to 4.10 If somebody lends me $3500 I will gladly install a Dixon bros kit at the same time...

hehehehe this build is going fast!

next week i will be working on the paint prep.

I want to get the Explorer basically DONE so I can focus back on the BII this winter

I am also having dreams of a mustang in my future, likely an 88 just for kicks (BII is a 88, in CO the BII will get classic plates in 2008!!)

 

[MoabB2]

Classic plates...! You suck!

HaHa, I would love to have an 89 Mustang, not too feasible with a wife and kids though.

This project keeps cruisin right along, looks good!

 

[rynstvy]

hey 410 whats the offset on those rims? that's what i'm lookin for in width

 

['97 V8]

wasnt the explorer meant to be you dd?

 

[410Fortune]

the explorer is my daily driver?
What are you getting at? Even daily drivers need love! With 155K miles on her she needs alot of suspension work still, plus this daily driver is also what I tow my boat with so gears and brakes are quite important.
the 4x4 conversion will more then pay for itself in gas and tire wear

the rims are standard truck rims, 15x8", 3.75 backspacing...

 

[STEVE-O]

Sounds like the project is moving along nicely.



And you can't go wrong with a mustang.

 

[cgriffin_5139]

Okay well after working on this SOB for the last few weeks, with thoughts of actually driving it I am back thinking I want to go lifted, not lowered.

Speaking of long travel Explorer's check out the new Baker Motorsports Explorer (well it still has an Ex frame anyways):

Drool all over the floor

wow!

 

[ITSA 5-0]

WOW, I wouldnt believe that that was my old truck, sept i remember selling it to you and brett that sad sad day in littleton. First off, i'd just like to say what an excellent job you did putting her back together(i know there was a lot of half-assed stuff i did to it but i was a kid experimenting with whatever 20$ i could find). Second off, I have got to get down there to meet up with you sometime and see it, if youd let me of course Anyways, pm me sometime and maybe one of these next couple of weekends i could come down to see it. once again, nice job!

 

[410Fortune]

Hey Skylar whats up!! Congrats on the 5 oh Mounty!!
Hell yeah you are welcome to check it out, I was waiting for full paint before I came to give you a ride, but its close enough now, and 4x4 no more AWD hehehehe

 

[ITSA 5-0]

excellent! think you wanna change out the awd in my mounty for 4wd too? hehe anyways i will be down in denver two thursdays from now if your free it would be awesome to check it out. however i lost brett's phone number some time ago so if you wanna give me a number i can reach you at and expect a call well, in two weeks i would be much obliged later