5.0 2to4wd 4406 and tons

[allmyEXes]

Late today when I was up under the front of my truck, then I saw the front mounting points for the old AWD differential. You want to make
a curved tube, removal crossmember to reinforce the front after cutting out the stock one.

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Late today when I was up under the front of my truck, then I saw the front mounting points for the old AWD differential. You want to make
a curved tube, removal crossmember to reinforce the front after cutting out the stock one.

Yeah exactly, the old one is already gone.
You can see in the pic, if I’m careful I can get away with two bends. I don’t have a bender so I’m going to try this with a torch.
Anyway, this way it will be removable to get at the oil pan should I want to do that. I do have a leaking main seal I didn’t fix when doing the transmission swap lol

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Went ahead and bought a HF pipe bender. Took a scrap of 1-1/4 .125 HREW and just made this real quick, took less than an hour. All I did was pull the angle, 1/2 it and bend to that number in multiple bites since it’s a pipe and not a tube bender.
Looks like tube bumpers and a transmission crossmember are in order. Also have an idea for some shock hoops I’ve never seen.
Not entirely sure how frame stiffening affects things, but something definitely changed. I flexed it out a bit and nothing made contact before my jack ran out of throw, so I believe that means I added travel somehow? The rear was hitting body before this. Idk but that seems like a good thing to me.

 

[410Fortune]

Every shop needs the the orange harbor freight pipe kinker, they come in so handy! Nice work
Yes adding a crossmember there for sure puts back some strength there are not many x members in the explorer frame adding another or beefing that new one up a bit (double it) might be a good idea!

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Got a bunch done today.
Replaced the inner grill and tossed in the new lights. Got the transmission cooler mounted and plumbed. Was going to paint and use this grill but it’s too broken so I ordered another one with the outer Cs. Using the stockish grill so I can access the winch controls. I figured out that 1/2” sprinkler pipe will fit on the evap connector and allow me to easily reroute that around the box. It will probably fail, I have no idea what it’s made of. Trying to figure out where I’m going to mount these front brake lines to avoid chafing and allow travel, not sure yet since I still need to build some kind of shock tower.

 

[allmyEXes]

Looking good. The pitman arm looks a lot better. Nice that the pan can come off to fix the rear main seal. Later could change to a steel pan.

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Went to get all the lights installed to see what I want to convert to LED, looks like all of them actually, but now I have no headlights hi or low. I’m not sure if they were working before I started all this.
Tried all the easy things, no power to the plug. All fuses good, power at fuse 21, 22, and maxi 11, no power at 15,33,8,4. So I’m guessing I have a bad light switch because I do have the flash to pass circuit, though it does seem dim. Battery is only at about 11.7 so that could be the reason for that.
Any ideas other than that?

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Most of the plumbing is done. Waiting on an AN kit to make the pressure side for the power steering, and I still have to plumb the hard lines. This setup is L-L, L-Ax2 for the trans and just one large liquid to air for the steering.
The new “paint to match” grill came in chrome so I’m going to plasti dip that black for now. Got kind of a wild idea to make a full metal one, but not right now. Also still gotta figure out these headlights.

 

[Scotts96sploder]

If anyone is interested in converting the power steering to AN, the magic combo for the pump side is an M16 1.5 to -6 O-ring fitting with a plastic crush washer in place of the O-ring, torqued down until Jesus starts to bite his nails, then another 1/4 turn.
Could probably try to find one made of steel so it’s not so nerve racking.

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Junkyard haul
Any reason I can’t run this 02 sport trac gauge cluster? Everything looks really similar and it fits.

Anyhoo, headlight problem was the main switch, and I figured since my dash panel was falling apart I would head to the yard and grab one with all the parts. After about 20 or so I found a good one in a 00 manual sport (I think), those things are brittle! I tested the lights and they work, but then I had a major smooth brain moment and left the door wide open as a storm came through with all the electronics exposed. So I have that drying out with a couple bags of damp rid and a box fan, I’ll get it all put together tomorrow afternoon after it bakes in the sun.
Also found some manual seats in decent condition! Since the originals were soaked I went ahead and changed those.
Grabbed the leafs out of a 2000 something ranger and the plan is to make a ******* pack for my rear to level it out. The worn main spring with the eyes will be cut and “military wrapped” into the Ranger spring, and put the pack back together with no overload or helper. Should be close, might have to do it a couple times till I find the right combo. I’ll do that when I pull the rear to regear it.
Got the grill complete, even grabbed a Ford badge from the yard I was able to polish back to good enough. Grabbed the fog light plugs so I can start figuring out that circuit and a happy location for those.
Steadily getting closer to driving this thing!

 

[DintDobbs]

She's lookin' good, pal!

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Still waiting on suspension parts so I decided to start in on lighting. Converting everything to LED, I think it looks great! I did discover that when shopping for LEDs “with resistor” doesn’t mean it’s built in, just means it comes in the kit.
So my current conundrum is do I install 6 load resistors for the turn single circuits, or do I just find LED rated relays? I’m thinking relays would be nicer, I guess I’ll need 4 and I’ll have to figure out where they all are.
I did get the factory fog light circuit working. It was a bad switch, and I just happened to grab one while in the yard the other day, so that was easy. Saw something about modifying it to run without the headlight circuit, so going to research that also.

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Well ruff stuff FINALLY sent my towers. After some rough fit up I discovered I could just plate the frame with some 1/4” flat bar and clearance for the steering shaft and the AC dryer. It still touches the dryer but it’s not pushing on it, and I also broke a grub screw in the box steering joint while I was doing this, oops.
While I was waiting on these I used the blueprints to take rough measurements for shocks, and just looked through rock auto till I found something close. The rear shocks from a 2016 f150 should have about an inch more droop than what I have in suspension and a couple extra at full bump. If I was wrong, no big deal because I bought the cheapest ones at $18 each lol.
Going to flex it out tomorrow morning to see what I have and then start plumbing the front brakes!
I’ve replaced all the lights with LED, and a cheap flasher relay has it all working normally. MUCH much brighter all around. Probably going to add some marker lights of some kind in the rear.
I do have a little bit of a lean to the driver side that I’m hoping to fix when I swap out the rear springs while doing the gears in the rear. After that it’s ready for a 2wd test drive!

 

[410Fortune]

*****in!!

 

[Scotts96sploder]

I was able to move it under its own power yesterday. Just spun it around and backed it in. Other than just being a completely different vehicle, it felt very similar to driving the excursion, only smaller and lighter. Steering seems fine, I can definitely tell there are multiple joints, and I should probably shim the stabilizer heim joint which has some slop around the shaft. Brakes are kinda smooshy, could be air, might need a larger master. I have the master from a (2500?) I don’t remember, but it’s larger and basically bolts in. I was already going to do it that swap when I delete the ABS.

Did the explorer or ranger have a different rate rear spring for the diver/passenger side? The weight on both is biased to the driver side so I’m wondering if that was just countered with the torsion bars or if the rear played a roll? I may just have a bent frame but if the springs are different than I can fix this lean.

Going to yank the rear back out. Weld the tubes and add a Barnes mini truss to make adding the anti-wrap easier. 5.38s and a Yukon grizzly going in should bring back the rowdy.

 

[97Sandbox]

To my knowledge both rear springs were the same rate each side. Many Explorers have the lean your talking about depending on how full the gas tank is.

 

[Fix4Dirt]

To my knowledge both rear springs were the same rate each side. Many Explorers have the lean your talking about depending on how full the gas tank is.

Yep AFAIK both were same rate. The cheater fix I did was loosen the PS tbar slightly to let the weight even out.

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Ok cool thanks. I think I’ll swap in the less worn out springs in the rear and shift some weight around over time. Battery to the passenger side, that kind of thing. I’ll keep all the recovery equipment and jacks on that side. Current half ****ed idea is to make a tire carrier on some kind of glide system. Maybe I can build it biased to the passenger side.

 

[Scotts96sploder]

Well got the rear end blown apart, tubes welded, truss installed, working on gears.
Ran into a small problem and I figured one of you probably knows the answer to this even though it’s not explorer related.
10.25 gears into a 10.50 housing, I didn’t read enough and ordered 10.50 bearings. Come to find out the hard way that the inner pinion bearings is 1.20 deeper in the 10.25. So, can I just get a 10.25 bearing/race and use everything else? Everything seems to fit fine other than the pinion being too shallow. I also found that Yukon sells a shim, but I’d rather have the bigger bearing I think.
Anyway if you know, thanks!

 

[410Fortune]

Let us know the solution! I have both 10.25 and 10.5 rear axles here so it’s good to know the differences in the differential

Well done! That’s a huge spare lol