A few months ago I took my 94 Explorer to Rausch Creek. While it held its own, it escaped with a few bumps and bruises. I caught the bumper on a stump and bent it. Knocked the running board trim clear off, minor stuff. I thought I got away relatively unscathed until we got back to the main area and I heard this god awful metal grinding noise coming from the front. I started freaking out because still had to drive the thing back home. Luckily Jay diagnosed it as a broken passenger side u-joint. Mixed emotions but I drove it home with no problems. Once I got it home I started looking for a donor car and stumbled upon a 1992 2 door explorer on craigslist for 500$. All I really wanted was the axle and a junk yard would cost me about as much for just the u-joint. So I bought it. It seemed to be fine, relatively clean minus the fact that the owner was a smoker. I had the intentions of gutting the axle and parting out what I didn't need. So I jump through the hoops for the DMV since it was my first time buying/registering a car in my name.
That's supposed to be attached to something right?
So I go to pick up the car and drive away into the sunset thinking that I made out pretty well. The truck drives nice, minus the fact that the only gauge that works is the spedo and the brakes are mushy as hell. But the radio works.
Then the next day I went out with the good Explorer. I came out of the movies to find a nice big puddle of coolant. I figured cracked head due to the rate at which the fluid leaked out. She sat in my yard for weeks before finally getting her to a mechanic for a proper diagnosis. (Turned out to be the freeze out plugs.) At this point I made the decision to just make the red truck my daily driver until the other one got fixed so I started doing my OCD cleaning routine.
Here they are, big sister and little sister!
The biggest thing that had to be taken care of was the brakes. They didn't catch until my foot was just about on the floor causing them to go full on at the last second causing me to look like a dumb ass who didn't know how to drive. For the first three weeks I pretty much just had slow controlled rolls. We bled the brakes several times but with no effect. (Turned out to be two vacuum leaks.) It brakes like a charm now, no walls required.
Then it was time to start going down the long laundry list of stuff that I wanted to do like fix the door handle:
As I said, the previous owner was a smoker and the car wreaked. There were ashes all over as well as some cigarette burns and a layer of tar over everything. It was a shame to see a car in such nice shape tainted like that. After scrubbing everything down with several douses of alcohol I gave up on the console and just took it out. If you look in the upper right you will see the original color of the carpet. A buttload of rug shampoo almost returned it to it's former glory.
Realizing I had no tow points, I took the front hitch of Eleanor and picked up a used rear hitch and all hardware for <100 off craigslist. I think I have a car up on ramps almost every other week. XD
While putting the front hitch on I found out that the sway bar brackets were bent. Some one probably tried towing it by the sway bar. I left it off. More flex right? I didn't realize how much the 2doors roll without a sway bar. Exit ramps and curvy mountain roads are slightly more white knuckle than before.....
As I said, the car had a film of tar over everything. I took out the center console and started giving it a viscious rub down but ultimately gave up because of how nasty it was. Nothing against smokers as I still enjoy the occasional bogey, just don't let it destroy your car. Smell I can deal with, ashes and stick everywhere. No. I needed a place to store my stuff (ipod, sunglasses, harmonica) probably the only three things in the car of any value. I bought an ammo box and mounted it to two rails which I then bolted to the existing console bolts. Kinda rednecky but it keeps my stuff secure. Sadly, I did,'t think about drink holders til later.
The finishing touches:
So now I was finally ready to hit the beach. I tested the autohubs so I didn't have a repeat performance of Eleanor's first time on the sand. (autohub failure) Everything was set. I ride out to Smith Point, air down, hit the 4WD button and lo and behold, I start rolling!! Everything appeared to be fine until this obnoxious clicky/grinding noise came from the front followed by both autohubs intermittently locking and unlocking. Wonderful. Of course it's in front of a decent size beach crowd. And of course I get stuck so I put it in reverse to try and rock it out. Whaddya know, reverse works perfectly. So we just drove in reverse the whole way there and back. Here she is on the beach, hood open because there's no airflow when you go backwards.
Despite the looks of awe and mockery, we made it home alright. Silly me for putting any faith in autohubs. The next day I picked up a set of manuals from the Truck Shop. I set up shop and start taking the tires off, well I tried. Whoever had put the tires on last overtightened them to a point where I cracked a socket and stripped most of the lug nuts.
Once I got the tires off, it was all down hill. At this point I also decided to replace the door hinge pins (Thanks derocha!) since you had to do a lift and drop when you wanted to close the door, hence why the inner handle was broken. It's pretty embarrassing getting in your car through the passenger door in front of all your coworkers. I hunted down the hinge pins and had a hell of a time grinding the old pins. My doors close with two fingers now.
Then I wash,wax,buff,buff,buffed it which made a huge difference.
I took the CB radio and antenna mount from Eleanor and put it in the red one and got a 36" whip antenna from Radio Shack which works alright. Finally, I hit the beach once more with complete success. Here's a shot of the little camp me and my girl setup:
Then last weekend I drove her on a 400 mile round trip to Monticello to meet my brother at camp for a canoe trip. Plenty of rocks but the camp guy yelled at me for playing around. I only got one or two pics before they told me to park like a normal person. They're just jealous their mini vans can't climb curbs, just scrape them.
Whew, so that is my story this far. She's been my daily driver for a month now since Eleanor's bearings are going and I sound like a UFO coming down the street. The red one doesn't have a set name though she's been called many things (Christine because she tried to kill me, Karen, Sid(Like Sid and nancy), you stupid f$@**kng pice of sh@t) but I'm open to suggestions.
That's supposed to be attached to something right?
So I go to pick up the car and drive away into the sunset thinking that I made out pretty well. The truck drives nice, minus the fact that the only gauge that works is the spedo and the brakes are mushy as hell. But the radio works.
Then the next day I went out with the good Explorer. I came out of the movies to find a nice big puddle of coolant. I figured cracked head due to the rate at which the fluid leaked out. She sat in my yard for weeks before finally getting her to a mechanic for a proper diagnosis. (Turned out to be the freeze out plugs.) At this point I made the decision to just make the red truck my daily driver until the other one got fixed so I started doing my OCD cleaning routine.
Here they are, big sister and little sister!
The biggest thing that had to be taken care of was the brakes. They didn't catch until my foot was just about on the floor causing them to go full on at the last second causing me to look like a dumb ass who didn't know how to drive. For the first three weeks I pretty much just had slow controlled rolls. We bled the brakes several times but with no effect. (Turned out to be two vacuum leaks.) It brakes like a charm now, no walls required.
Then it was time to start going down the long laundry list of stuff that I wanted to do like fix the door handle:
As I said, the previous owner was a smoker and the car wreaked. There were ashes all over as well as some cigarette burns and a layer of tar over everything. It was a shame to see a car in such nice shape tainted like that. After scrubbing everything down with several douses of alcohol I gave up on the console and just took it out. If you look in the upper right you will see the original color of the carpet. A buttload of rug shampoo almost returned it to it's former glory.
Realizing I had no tow points, I took the front hitch of Eleanor and picked up a used rear hitch and all hardware for <100 off craigslist. I think I have a car up on ramps almost every other week. XD
While putting the front hitch on I found out that the sway bar brackets were bent. Some one probably tried towing it by the sway bar. I left it off. More flex right? I didn't realize how much the 2doors roll without a sway bar. Exit ramps and curvy mountain roads are slightly more white knuckle than before.....
As I said, the car had a film of tar over everything. I took out the center console and started giving it a viscious rub down but ultimately gave up because of how nasty it was. Nothing against smokers as I still enjoy the occasional bogey, just don't let it destroy your car. Smell I can deal with, ashes and stick everywhere. No. I needed a place to store my stuff (ipod, sunglasses, harmonica) probably the only three things in the car of any value. I bought an ammo box and mounted it to two rails which I then bolted to the existing console bolts. Kinda rednecky but it keeps my stuff secure. Sadly, I did,'t think about drink holders til later.
The finishing touches:
So now I was finally ready to hit the beach. I tested the autohubs so I didn't have a repeat performance of Eleanor's first time on the sand. (autohub failure) Everything was set. I ride out to Smith Point, air down, hit the 4WD button and lo and behold, I start rolling!! Everything appeared to be fine until this obnoxious clicky/grinding noise came from the front followed by both autohubs intermittently locking and unlocking. Wonderful. Of course it's in front of a decent size beach crowd. And of course I get stuck so I put it in reverse to try and rock it out. Whaddya know, reverse works perfectly. So we just drove in reverse the whole way there and back. Here she is on the beach, hood open because there's no airflow when you go backwards.
Despite the looks of awe and mockery, we made it home alright. Silly me for putting any faith in autohubs. The next day I picked up a set of manuals from the Truck Shop. I set up shop and start taking the tires off, well I tried. Whoever had put the tires on last overtightened them to a point where I cracked a socket and stripped most of the lug nuts.
Once I got the tires off, it was all down hill. At this point I also decided to replace the door hinge pins (Thanks derocha!) since you had to do a lift and drop when you wanted to close the door, hence why the inner handle was broken. It's pretty embarrassing getting in your car through the passenger door in front of all your coworkers. I hunted down the hinge pins and had a hell of a time grinding the old pins. My doors close with two fingers now.
Then I wash,wax,buff,buff,buffed it which made a huge difference.
I took the CB radio and antenna mount from Eleanor and put it in the red one and got a 36" whip antenna from Radio Shack which works alright. Finally, I hit the beach once more with complete success. Here's a shot of the little camp me and my girl setup:
Then last weekend I drove her on a 400 mile round trip to Monticello to meet my brother at camp for a canoe trip. Plenty of rocks but the camp guy yelled at me for playing around. I only got one or two pics before they told me to park like a normal person. They're just jealous their mini vans can't climb curbs, just scrape them.
Whew, so that is my story this far. She's been my daily driver for a month now since Eleanor's bearings are going and I sound like a UFO coming down the street. The red one doesn't have a set name though she's been called many things (Christine because she tried to kill me, Karen, Sid(Like Sid and nancy), you stupid f$@**kng pice of sh@t) but I'm open to suggestions.