BradR's 99 XLT Registry

Well I thought I'd make one eventually.
I made a somewhat of a mini one when I first signed up in my introduction thread, but I didn't know about this whole registry thing back then.

So, I'm Brad, I'm 17, I've had my truck since September 09, I got my license on 9/9/09, I live near Detroit, Michigan.

I've replaced...
Lower ball joints
Every puller under the hood, except for the crank, only to find that it's the whole tensioner assy making that gawd awful squeaking noise.
Rear Diff fluid (pics below)
Trans Filter (also a pic below)
My grill, Billet Aluminum, It's bent, but couldn't beat the price.
Also, black grill (part that wraps around the lights and whatnot.)
CD Player, Kenwood

I also have...
Night shade corners (pics below)
"Cool Blue" Headlight and Foglights (can't tell in pics below)
35% tinted windows in the front, yes they are illegal.
2 12" Rockford Fosgate Subs
800w Lanzar Amp
Kenwood 4 Channel Amp
iTrip for iPod (hate it)

I'm the second owner, my cousin bought it new in February of 2000.
I bought my truck for $1000
- 2 payments of $500
It's from Arizona, the 09-10 Winter will be it's first ever winter.

Now for some pics!

Fresh paint...

Clean, before paint..

Very clean!

Icky!

I learned this trick from this forum...

Who needs a lift kit when you have one of these!

Clean trans pan.

 

[storlied]

Nice, you gonna change your wheel/tire setup?

 

[BradR]

Thanks, Eventually, after upper ball joints. Probably new tires, but I like the tear drops.

 

[storlied]

Are you gonna lower or lift?

Some HID's would change up the look of your truck also.

 

[BradR]

Oh, I already know I'm getting HIDs, and I'll probably get something to help the rear end, I lifted the front end and inch with the tbars and it sits pretty nice.

I'll wait til I get the 31s to see how much lift I wanna do.

And how can you even dare ask if I'm going to lift or lower it, it's a 4x4 Explorer, not a AWD Flex.

Which, off subject, If I had a Flex, I'd make that thing look so sweet, sittin like 2 inch off the ground. woo buddy, lol.

 

[storlied]

A lot of people here have made their trucks into pretty nice and powerful street machines. I currently have 31's and I soon after wanted 33's... I'll be doing a lift soon for sure.
Checkout my registry.

31's are nice, but you'll soon realize... it's just not enough.. lol

Only differences between my truck in the pic is the headlights and I now have 4 Hella's on the front bumper..

Oh and for the record, my truck is AWD... but I love it.. lol. Definitely can be fun on our crappy roads and treadin through snow.

 

[Sams01XplrSprt]

nice x u got there keep up good work

 

[gmanpaint]

Ahh, brings back memories of the Black Hole when it was stock. If it only knew what was in store for it back then...lol

Sounds like you have a great rig to start your Mods with. Enjoy it, and take a lot of pics along the way.

I really like the black grill trim, it really gives it a different look then the rest of the Ex's on the road. Have you tried to bend the insert back into shape?

The tear drops are an awesome looking wheel, but being 7" wide, they can only accommodate up to a 11" wide tire. For some, that is plenty wide, but I prefer a wider tire.

Keep the updates coming, I just love a modded black Ex

 

[BradR]

For the grill insert, I did try once with a screw driver, but that only nicked it, so i need to get my hands on some rubber ended pliers or something like that so i dont damage it to much. And I kind of want to cut out the center of the grill and get the Ford emblem back in there, I think that would look pretty cool.

Well It is my daily driver, so I think 31s are plenty until I get another vehicle (which is bound to happen, ya know. )

I will definitely take pictures, but it's cold out! lol!

I'm going out to another job site in a few here, and theres a big patch of ice and snow in the back, so i think i might do a few burnouts, nothing to crazy! ill take pictures for sure.

I'll have to remember to look up all your guys registries when I get home.

 

[BradR]

So there is a fine line between having fun, and ya know.. death of explorer cause of rollover.

Can't see it real well but there is 2 spins and then i finally came to a stop as i started going up the driveway into Tuffy around the corner from my house.

Now when I say fun I don't mean I was doing spins on purpose, I was locking up my wheels and just sliding forward, but my wheel must have been ****ed just a touch enough to steer left so i kind of let off and just turned into, there was not traffic, but that didnt work so i countersteered and countersteered again and again leading into the spins.

All in all I'm okay and no damage was done.

 

[storlied]

The thing about our Explorer's are .. when in a slide.. the rear is gonna want to come out from behind ya and go to the side.. for me.. it's my passenger side..

 

[Glen4X4]

Nice truck to start with. I know the situation on 31's mine now look too small for the truck when they did look good before lol.

 

[BradR]

So, a friend with the Jeep picked up so new 31" BFGs for his Jeep, more like a second set, the ones on it now have to be at least 60-70% but the ones he picked up were 90% at least, so hes gonna mount up the newer ones and he said he'd give me the other ones. God thank him, even if they were 30% I'd still take them just to get rid of that crappy look the 235s give my truck, Definitely gonna space them out around a inch or so. Pictures will definitely come once mounted.

 

[BradR]

Oh, I have a question btw, my front bumper, the grey/chrome, I hear that it's just a cover of the real bumper, if this is true, what's under that?

 

[Glen4X4]

Yes its a bumper cover but the real bumper isn't really much of anything, if you want like a metal bumper you could get an off road one or get one from a 95-98 Ex

 

[BradR]

oh, thanks Exploder, maybe I'll just paint the once i have, it's just starting to change some colors (you can see above)

 

[Glen4X4]

Brad I'd recommend using Krylon Fusion black (unless you're planning on a different color) it seems to stick to plastic pretty well without doing any prep work besides making sure the surface is clean. A lot of members here used it on several pieces, I used it on my wiper vents over the summer and they look like new with a nice shine

 

[BradR]

Thanks again, The rest of my pieces are that grey color though, so not sure how well that would look, id might have to do the whole truck! i guess the word is, murdered out?

 

[BradR]

So, this week I installed my Viper 791.
Wasn't to bad, we had to try 3 different types of bypasses, first two were the ring around the ignition cylinder, the 3rd one (the one that works) was the ignition wire tap in. PMK-all or something like that.

 

[BradR]

This hasn't been updated in over a year! Holy cow!!

Well I guess not much is new/different... I'll try to revamp this later today or this weekend.