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Ford Explorer Community - Maintenance - Modifications - Performance Upgrades - Problem Solving - Off-Road - Street
Explorer Forum Covers the Explorer ST, Explorer Sport, Explorer Sport Trac, Lincoln Aviator, Mercury Mountaineer, Mazda Navajo, Ford Ranger, Mazda Pickups, and the Ford Aerostar
good day to all, i need to remove the body from the explorer, the problem is that they are stuck beyond belief. and suggestions to try and remove them, we tried the impact and a grinder. are there other methods that i could try before resorting to a oxygen/accetelyne torch?
thanks
i just did a body lift on my truck last weekend ended up breaking the bolts getting them out. cause of the 9 years of michigan weather rusted them in place. both rears and both front bolts to the mounts were broken. only way i could possibly get them out was to use a recipacating saw on them with a 6" blade. be prepared to pay around $15 a piece for each mount (insulator as they call them). a large 3' breaker bar made all this distruction possible. oh and yet one more thing if the bolts do break off in the mount as mine did. try using a punch if that don't work then it's time to break out the 1/2" drill bit and drill them out.
like jason said, get some Penetrating Blaster, that stuff is awesome..soak em down really well and let it sit for a few hours. Then go after it with a cheater pipe if possible
tryed your recomendations, i now have a really messed up and mutiated bolt. torch time
a friend of mine was saying, that when the body goes off, it might start to twist and warp, were gonna brace it, but i would like to know how much of a problem this would be.
you guys are great, thanks for all the quick responses
lift 1 side at a time. might be little easier with 2 jacks but one will do it. only had a jack that would lift 21" (cheap 2 1/2 ton pro lift). ended up using a 8"x8"x8" block of wood to get it all the way up. jacked about right at the back edge of the front door behind the body sem . ending up getting them all in from that posistion but then again mine is a sport. little tip as your lowering the body on the new blocks let it down really slow and keep checking the line up of the blocks and holes. even once it was down i had to tap a couple to line them up with a small hammer.
There is thread lock on the nutts , All ya need to do is heat the nutts a bit from the bottom, then hit them with a impact gun. Just did a body lift on mine and it worked great. Other wise they are a pain.The heat really works!!
Heat worked really good when I did mine also. I only broke 1 the one by the gas tank that I was afraid to heat. Just a little propane blow torch would probably work.
alrighty, i'll give heat a try. oh, btw, i'm not doing a body lift, i'm swapping in the f-150 drive train and i need the body off to fit the tranny. i was also thinking that with the body off, i would be nice and easy to replace the brake and fuel lines (12 years in canadian winters really screws them up). so yeah, the body's comming completyly off.
Take a bunch of pics of this swap. sounds cool. Also, heating the nuts to a nice red glow will make them come off really easy. I remove some unimaginable bolts at work that way everyday.
i was thinking about a body lift, sounds like you guys have done it a few times. i was going to have a shop do it. but if it is not that hard i would like to do it. what does it involve exactly. how much time? $? where did you get your lifts from? do you guys have before and after PICS? thanks in advance
a bodylift should in therory be easy. it all depends on how siezed the body bolts are. after there off, install the spacers, put in the new bolts, and youre done.
ok, i got the body bolts off, cheater bar and torch work wonders!, anyway, are there other thing connected to the body that will prevent it from comming off? i know about the steering and fuel filler hose. what else?
Your radiator will probably hang up, actually I think it is the fan that hangs up on the fan shroud. I just relocated my fan shroud down a couple inches.
Good luck.
