Andrew's 1996 Explorer XLT | Page 2 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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Andrew's 1996 Explorer XLT

do u got pics of the hids
 



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wish i had as much knowledge as you. seems i have a lot to learn. what is your estimated price on how much you have done? i want mine to be as perfect as yours. my favorite part is the aftermarket running boards and for the same reason. to keep out salt and moisture.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299822
 






i would love for you to do most of this stuff to my 97 mountaineer. plus you dont live too far away from me. maybe you can answer a question of mine. i bought an aftermarket radio. got the correct harness and i have the 97 mountaineer with the sub in the back. i was TOLD by a tech at best buy that i needed to wire some wire from my radio all the way to the back because thats where my antenna wire is located? so i took my radio in to get professionally installed. i just noticed that my antenna wont go down with the radio off and even the car off. does you know what is wrong, or did the place half ass the job? and did i even need to go to get it professionally done? the only reason i did is because i thought i couldnt handle it myself after what the guy at best buy told me.
 






do u got pics of the hids

6000k headlights, regular middle lights with blue lenses, stock fogs with silver stars
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wish i had as much knowledge as you. seems i have a lot to learn. what is your estimated price on how much you have done? i want mine to be as perfect as yours. my favorite part is the aftermarket running boards and for the same reason. to keep out salt and moisture.

http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299822

Well the amount I've spent totals over 10 grand. But, that includeds having to replace the engine myself too which was right around $3,000.

As for the running board conversion, I started that whole project because the rocker panels and dog legs were rusting out. So, I spent around $2,000 in that. I bought and replaced the panels myself but then had to pay a body shop $1,500 to paint it... Most of the work done to my explorer has been in labor. Cleaning, waxing, undercoating, and detailing is esentially free and that is what makes a vehicle look so much better than most others on the road.

About your radio. Mine doesn't have an electric anttena so I'm not real familiar with that. But from reading the instail instructions with my radios I think there is a seperate wire that has to give power to the anttena motor somehow to tell it to go up or down. I think it is some kind of relay to be honest which could be why the best buy guy said the wire had to be run to the back of the truck.
 






Well the most recent mod was getting a custom tune from James at Henson Performance! On the premium 93 octane tune I am running a 10.7 sec 0-60. Stock 0-60 was 11.2 sec. I haven't driven it enough yet to say if it helped gas mileage at all but I'll find out about that this spring when the snow clears! :)
 






extra lights?

Andrew, in post #7 (front view) you have fog lights inside the bumper. do those give a really good light spread at night? The reason I ask, is that we have an EXTREME deer population here in this county, and you literally can't drive down any main road and NOT see a fresh roadkilled deer... I've hit a deer before in a truck and the damage it did, although not too severe, I can't afford to fix on our explorer on our very limited income now. If they give better sight range or width, I'd love to try adding some to our truck.

Thank you in advance.
 






Andrew, in post #7 (front view) you have fog lights inside the bumper. do those give a really good light spread at night? The reason I ask, is that we have an EXTREME deer population here in this county, and you literally can't drive down any main road and NOT see a fresh roadkilled deer... I've hit a deer before in a truck and the damage it did, although not too severe, I can't afford to fix on our explorer on our very limited income now. If they give better sight range or width, I'd love to try adding some to our truck.

Thank you in advance.

I can't really say that they add that much to the visibility. I've found that the smaller lights that do fit in the bumper like that don't really help much.
However, if you mounted some to the roof rack or bellow the bumper that were bigger; that would help a lot. I used to have a Westin brand Safari Bar (basically a bull bar without the skid plate) with 4" lights on it which helped a lot. I had to take that off after an accident dented it a little and broke the lights though. Amazingly the bar isn't bent just dented in one spot.

Anyhow.. I hope that helps
 






Custom Shackles

The most recent mod that I just finished was building a custom set of rear leaf spring shackles. I didn't want to pay for a set of warrior shackles nor did I want a full 2 inches of lift. Mine are made out of 1/4 inch stainless steel strips. Overall lift from these shackles was about 1 inch. From center to center the holes are 7.5 inches apart compared to the stock ones at 5.5 inches.

As you can see in the pictures I put another piece of steel on a diagonal between the 2 vertical pieces for support. To be honest I only drilled the holes and tack welded them together while my dad took them to work and had a friend finish welding them. I'm very happy with the way they turned out!

The stock ones were in pretty bad shape anyhow
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Photo Shoot

Yesterday I went out and took a few pictures so I thought I'd share them on here!

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This is of all my street legal toys

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And a close up.
I've never talked about my motorcycle on here but it's an 85 Honda Nighthawk 650.

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5.0 Swap

So, the explorer sickness has finally got the best of me.. I'm preparing to start my own 5.0 swap into my 96. On Friday I picked up a 97 mountaineer with AWD to be my donor truck.
It has 174k and runs great. The problems with it are a mile long though.. bad exhaust leak, cats are cut out, leaky axle seals, bad cam sensor, leaking power steering cooler, possibly a bad powersteering pump, bad tires, broken hood release cable, several interior problems, and a BAD case of cancer. Nothing terminal that I can't fix though!

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So here is the plan short a sweet. I plan re-building the 5.0 and making it a stroker 347 with all the up grades, rebuilding the trans and adding performance parts, doing the F150 transfercase swap, and then hopefully put the V6 from my truck in the mounty and selling it.

This project isnt going to start immediatly yet so in the mean time I plan to drive it this winter and utilize the AWD!!
 






Here is a link to the 5.0 (now a 347) build thread: Build Thread. It is finally mostly finished, just tuning to complete it.

I did swap the V6 from my explorer into the Mountaineer and drove that for about 6 months. A friends brother plans on buying that from me this weekend I think. Only thing is i think it needs another new computer and Ford discontinueed them so its back to the junkyard I go!
 






Here is the most recent mod I did over the weekend I installed Alloy USA hardened axles and a Ford Racing axle girdle. The 347 running good with a couple of bugs to work out but it has plenty of power that now I'm looking to get some Caltrac traction/ antiwrap bars.

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well... you won't be breaking those anytime soon.
 






well... you won't be breaking those anytime soon.

As long as I get my wheel hop fixed soon or stop doing burnouts they won't! ;)
 






Traction Bars Required

Even with the stock V8 traction bars the wheel hop was too bad to leave it alone. I invested in a set of CalTracs traction bars from Calvert Racing in California.

Install went really smooth. Hardest part was taking the leaf springs off and having the aluminum bushing pressed into the front eye (I had a local spring shop do that for me).

I am very impressed with the results, no more wheel hop and pure power off the line. It drifts like a king as well ;)

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Calvert modified a set of stock explorer shock mounts
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A machinist friend of mine slotted the bushings to help retain grease
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I would recommend these to anyone!
 






Most recent mod I added was 2 degree axle shims to correct the pinion angle that got messed up by lengthening the shackles by 2 inches. I haven't got a chance to test drive it yet to see if there is a difference but I'm sure there has to be because I did the geometry and it works out just about right where for every length of shackle you add, you angle the pinion up by 1 degree on our trucks. The reason I did this that ever since I made the shackles longer, I could feel a driveline vibration around 70mph and above. Sorry no pictures right now..
 






Explorer

Awesome explorer!
Lots of great upgrades you have done there.
Got a question for you, Do you remember what size the front leaf spring bushing outside diameter was? I believe it is 1 1/4 inches but cant measure to well with the spring still in the truck.
 






I tried to do a little digging and I can't come up with what that dimension is. I was thinking it was more than 1 1/4" but can't say for sure because that might be right.
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year or try it out for $5 a month.

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front leaf spring bushing

Turns out the front leaf spring bushing in my "4 leaf" spring from a 1998 4 door explorer was 1 7/8 outside diameter. Definitely have to pull that spring down to measure that bushing. Don't know if all 2nd gen explorer front bushing are the same size. Probably not.
 






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