92 Ex for B2 suspension mockup?

[Nomad84]

I bought a 92 Explorer for parts a couple of weeks ago mostly so I could swap the axles into my B2, and if the motor ends up being in decent shape it might get swapped later down the road. I don't plan on actually swapping axles for a while. That's partly because the B2 is my winter vehicle to get me around on the few days that we get snow and ice in Oklahoma. It's also partly because I'm not sure exactly what I want to do with the D35. I feel like I could come up with a pretty good long travel setup using some ideas from other long travel builds, but I don't want my B2 to be down for a long period of time while I play with different ideas. I was thinking about it over the last couple of days and came up with the idea of building the beams the way I want without ever installing them on the B2, then once it's all ready to go, I can go through it with new bearings, seals, u-joints, etc., then put it under the B2 and figure out what coils to use and take care of the upper coil mounts, shock mounts, and radius arm crossmember/mounts.

My main question is this: are the 86 B2 and 92 Explorer front ends (frames, crossmembers, suspension mounting points) the same? If not, are they similar enough to use the Explorer for mockup so I can take my time piecing everything together the way I want it? I'm fine with cutting fenders, so I don't care about clearance there. I think I can use my engineering background to come up with a pretty good suspension and steering design as long as I have plenty of time to play with it. To do that without having the B2 in the garage for several months would require a way to mock everything up where I can try different things with the suspension and cycle it to see how it moves. So am I in luck with the Explorer? :scratch:

 

[410Fortune]

they are basically the exact same
meaning the dana 35 will bolt in place of the dana 28 100%

the frames are the same, the coil buckets, the steering box, everything is BASICALLY the same so you are good to go!

 

[CopyKat]

So am I in luck with the Explorer? :scratch:

Yes you can use the explorer for mock up. Some fine tuning may be needed once it's moved over to the B2.

The only Major difference is the frame rails forward of the coil buckets. Steering gear is mounted in the same place. Rearward of the coil buckets may be slightly different.

All the axle mounting points are in about the same place.

 

[Nomad84]

Awesome! Thanks guys. I was hoping that was the case. I'll likely do the beams and radius arms on the Explorer then. I'll probably rough in the steering there too, but wait until I transfer it over to finalize it. This should give me something cheap to tinker with for a while to keep me busy

Out of curiosity, since I know 410 has cut and turned beams, I've got some questions to ask. First, since I'm strongly considering a cut and turn, I may make some minor changes at the same time. For one, I've read that the Zimmermanns cut the passenger side axle at the C clip groove in the diff to allow it to push further into the diff at full droop. With this in mind, I may try widening the beams very slightly to compensate for this. When the slip joint is at is maximum "stretch", what is the minimum amount of engagement I need between the slip yoke and the intermediate shaft (I think that's what it's called)? I also read that you widened yours out and used a custom shaft on the passenger side. Can you tell me some of the details on that? How much wider did you go, where did you add the length (inboard of the diff, I assume?), etc. Thanks!