92 beater 4x4

hi all, this is my explorer. it is a 92 4 door factory 5 speed and manual t case. 150k miles, rusty and paint pealing.

built it for a cheap wheeler to slightly modified

day i picked it up from jersey for $1100

interior gut, look at those twin sticks!

carpet out

dropping the bumper for a custom winch bumper with a Warn M8000

34x9.50 TSL's no lift= ****load of trimming

lots of wheeling

then hydro locked it by driving in a pond lol

rusty rocker removal

 

[Rwrighttt]

motor swapped with a 91 out of a parts expo i picked up. also got tired of the tires hitting the body so i ended up with a super lift 5.5

then picked up a full 96 limited interior at the local yard for $100. swapped the seats on my manual track\

seats

ill get better picks soon

super lift kit installed, along with some 15x8 rims rather 15x6

 

[madbutcher]

hehe.. that lift helped alot

Keep posting

 

[Rwrighttt]

did some wheeling today, got her stuck too

time to winch

 

[Rwrighttt]

worked on a rocker replacement today. just got some 1/8'' box tubing and welded it to whats left of the rockers. also added some tabs to it too to stiffen it up. not really a rock slider, just to protect the bottom of the doors.hard to see the final product from the pic.

 

[Rwrighttt]

before i did the rocker slider things, i patched where i had to cut the cancer off the door jams. got some sheet metal from work, turned out good. forgot to take a pic of it grinded down and painted tho. now people don't have to worry about cutting ya let to shreds when you jump out
rust cut out

metal cut

time to grind

 

[Rwrighttt]

in all her glory

 

[Rwrighttt]

saw this on craigslist the other night, couldn't pass it up. 76 early bronco d44. got everything besides the steering componets for $450. gonna rebuild it then figure out what I'm gonna do with it.

 

[Rwrighttt]

blew a head gasket on the donor motor. can't say i blame it. had 240+ miles

set the dana 44 up with 4:88's along with all new bearings and seals. plus welded it solid

 

[Mike65]

Randy,
Look closely between the valves for the cylinder that had the low compression for a possible crack in the head. I just went through this with my 2000 Ranger w/4.0 OHV, I was chasing an engine miss for about 1 year. It would foul out the spark plug in #-4 cyl, I would replace the plug & it would run good for about 1 month then foul it out again. I went through that for about 1 yr until replacing the plug didn't work any more I did some research & found these motors are prone to cracking the heads. I pulled the heads off to find a crack in the heads between the valves for #-3 cyl in the pass side head, & between the valves for #-4 cyl in the drivers side head. I replaced both heads w/new heads & now the engine runs great.

 

[Rwrighttt]

Randy,
Look closely between the valves for the cylinder that had the low compression for a possible crack in the head. I just went through this with my 2000 Ranger w/4.0 OHV, I was chasing an engine miss for about 1 year. It would foul out the spark plug in #-4 cyl, I would replace the plug & it would run good for about 1 month then foul it out again. I went through that for about 1 yr until replacing the plug didn't work any more I did some research & found these motors are prone to cracking the heads. I pulled the heads off to find a crack in the heads between the valves for #-3 cyl in the pass side head, & between the valves for #-4 cyl in the drivers side head. I replaced both heads w/new heads & now the engine runs great.

Thanks a lot! I'll give it a check when I get off work. Didn't know these 4.0's had head issues.....

 

[Rwrighttt]

Randy,
Look closely between the valves for the cylinder that had the low compression for a possible crack in the head. I just went through this with my 2000 Ranger w/4.0 OHV, I was chasing an engine miss for about 1 year. It would foul out the spark plug in #-4 cyl, I would replace the plug & it would run good for about 1 month then foul it out again. I went through that for about 1 yr until replacing the plug didn't work any more I did some research & found these motors are prone to cracking the heads. I pulled the heads off to find a crack in the heads between the valves for #-3 cyl in the pass side head, & between the valves for #-4 cyl in the drivers side head. I replaced both heads w/new heads & now the engine runs great.

Well Mike, you were right. I do have a small hairline crack across between the valves, but only on one cylinder. One of the ones that had good compression. Or around the same as the others..... Could a crack there, cause the bubbles in the overflow bottle tho?? The cylinder that had much Less compression from the others had no signs of cracks

 

[Mike65]

Well Mike, you were right. I do have a small hairline crack across between the valves, but only on one cylinder. One of the ones that had good compression. Or around the same as the others..... Could a crack there, cause the bubbles in the overflow bottle tho?? The cylinder that had much Less compression from the others had no signs of cracks

IIRC a crack in the cylinder head could cause bubbles in the overflow bottle. Pull the 2 valves out of the head for the cyl with the bad compression & you will probably find a crack up above the valve seat. My pass side head did not have a visible crack, but when I pulled the valves out I could see a crack up past the valve seat. I bought 2 new cyl heads off E Bay from J & C Enterprises for $385.00 for the pair with valves & Springs.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-4-0-FOR...m542648819d:m:mXt4X5XYloND5OuoTflYS5Q&vxp=mtr

 

[Rwrighttt]

well looks like the heads are trashed, also the block. looking at the bores and came across some serious scoring on the cylinder which had low compression. so i think after all this my head gaskets were fine. so on to another motor!

believe I'm just gonna try to pick up another explorer and steal the motor, currently looking into a 94 with 130k on it.....

 

[Rwrighttt]

so i ended up buying that 94. 130k miles, good trans, motor solid, and had a clean interior. $1200. shame I'm just taking the motor!

read a lot that you can't put a 94 motor into a 91 or 92 because of the SEFI, cam sync, EGR, etc. without swapping the whole computer in and wiring harness. but i figured its the same motor so if i just got rid of the egr and left the cam sync unplugged, i could just run it off my batchfire 92 computer and wiring harness. and it worked!

yanked both motors out. trashed all the egr nonsense and just plugged welded the fitting in the header up nice and thick. i read online that different color injectors means different pounds(?) or something. the 94 had red, so i swapped in the ones out of the junk motor which were black. left the cam sync unplugged. dropped it in and wired it up. come to find out i forgot the block plate lol so had to fix that setback. stuck my non egr upper intake onto the motor. she fired right up! idle is great, runs solid. has tons more power than that clapped out motor.

put a good amount of miles on it and all seems well. time will tell.

swapping once again!

back to running strong

 

[Rwrighttt]

been sorta busy with the explorer lately. decided to move the winch up front. got some 1/4 L channel and fabbed something simple for a rear bumper with a receiver hitch as a tow point. going to figure the front winch mount out soon.

 

[Rwrighttt]

at the local junkyard found a 97 explorer XL with manual windows! rare around here and gold to me, always wanted manual windows. hate power windows. half of them in blue didn't work anyways. but sadly someone stole the front 2 doors and left me the rears. bought them both for $80.

heard online that the manual window doors are different than power, so you can't swap them over. so i was debating on moving the whole door over, but decided to strip my donor expo power window door and the manual door down to see the differences.... turns out there the same. just the speaker is mounted in a different spot. move the speaker in a power door, and the manual regulator bolts right in there. the manual window track bolts exactly where the power one did. window mount to track is interchangeable between the too.

so i started the swap. drilled all the rivets out of the manual window track and regulator and fished them out. then jumped over to blue and did the same for the power JUNK. got that out and trashed it. moved the speaker to the lower door hole where it mounts in a manual door, and bolted in the manual stuff in with 1/4 20 hardware. all went in no problem. fabbed some custom door pulls from work because the xl pads were toast. took about 2 hours.

so you can swap rear power windows out for rear manual with keeping your factory door. even manual doors from a 2nd gen into a first. this worked for rear doors, guessing it will be the same for fronts. now i just need to find front doors lol

thinking of making a separate thread just for this so people will actually see it.... haha

97 manual doors

stripped down 97 manual door.

testing donor 94 power door
(don't know how to flip the pic)

SAME!!

everything you need from manual doors

stripped power junk out of blue, manual stuff installed
speaker relocated

door panel installed, with custom door pull

 

[Rwrighttt]

got the parts from the junkyard and finished the power swap. just need to find some door panels, hard to come by for a first gen. also started my SAS. going to be using stock coil buckets with 5.5 bronco coils. hoping it doesn't come out too tall....

manual regulators

power out, manual in

last wheeling adventure before sas

ttb out, junked the 94 explorer too

axle under, waiting for parts. cobra moved next to the expo (not sure why its upside down)

 

[Rwrighttt]

finished up the interior for the manual window swap. bought these off of brian1, thank you! they were tan, but i dyed them with dupli-color grey and the match about perfect.

update on the SAS soon, still collecting parts and working as i go

 

[Brian1]

Turned out awesome! Nice solution for the weak door pulls too!