Greetings from the Cayman Islands!

[delorean]

I am brand new to the forum, becoming the owner of a 1996 Explorer XLT 4.0L on Wednesday. I think I got a good deal on the car, overall it looks and drives nice. I have a couple of jobs to do on it though, one I can manage, the other I am not sure what to do.

The first thing I am going to do is fit new hood struts as the old ones no longer function.

The second thing though I have no idea (I am a COMPLETE novice) about. The current owner says the ABS light is always on but he has had people check it out and everyone says there is nothing wrong with it.

Parts etc are hard to come by in the Cayman Islands so I guess the owner just left it. Any ideas though what it could be if everyone who has checked it out has said nothing is wrong with the ABS?

Thanks!

 

[celly]

Welcome to the site. I visited your island back in '94 and sampled a lot of the underwater treasures Grand Cayman has to offer in the week or so I was there. Stayed at Sunset House and had a riot.

Hard to fathom it's been 15 years. I always vowed to get back.

Good luck troubleshooting your Ex and welcome again.

 

[BrooklynBay]

Welcome to this forum! Find out what the code numbers are. The light represents a trouble code.

 

[Joe Dirt]

Welcome!

 

[delorean]

Thanks a million everyone! Great to be here, I've been lurking for a week or two in anticipation of buying my 96 XLT. Finally got it today!

Such a great forum, loads of useful information and tips, even for a complete beginner like me who is keen to do their own basic maintenance and servicing!

 

[Sams01XplrSprt]

welcome u got pics of the x

 

[delorean]

Hi thanks for the welcome!

I am going to Seafoam my XLT today (if my GF ever gets back from the beach while the sun is still up!) so will take some photos and a video then.

I've done a little bit of work already. I changed the air filter (big step for me, never done that before! told you I'm a novice haha!), I've also installed a new radio.

I managed to install the head unit fine, remove the plate etc. I had everything set to work and then found the harness wired in already was the wrong size.

The actual wiring was a complete dogs breakfast so rather than chance it myself I got someone else in to wire in the harness that came with my new Kenwood head unit.

Seems the wiring was worse than I thought. Someone somewhere along the ownership line had wired in all sorts of rubbish in to the stero system. Wires got patched in everywhere, some got muted, cut off in places and overall a complete mess was made of it.

Now I have all the wiring straightened out, 3 out of the 4 speakers work, thanks to checking the wiring we discovered the left rear has blown. Looks like somewhere along the line I will need to install new rear speakers. Due to the age of the car I'm just going to look at the used market, which is thriving in Grand Cayman thanks to expensive import duties and the fact online retailers are scared of Cayman credit/debit cards because they think we are all money launderers!

Today (hopefully) I am going to Seafoam the engine using 1/3 gas tank, 1/3 oil, 1/3 brake booster.

My brake booster hose has a clamp on it though. How do I remove that? Any ideas anyone?

Last thing for today is to run some 3M Adhesive Remover on the rear window to remove some crusty looking stickers from the car.

Later down the road I've an ABS light to diagnose.

Looking forward to the Seafoam experience though! Stay tune for pics and a video!

 

[nooberiffic]

just use some pliers to remove the clamp.

If you do a search for pulling codes it will tell you how. I know that for my 90 and 93 you just jumper two connectors together under the hood and then the CEL flashes the codes out.

 

[delorean]

Thanks, will give that a look. Must deal with that pesky ABS light on my dash!

As for the brake booster hose clamp for the Seafoam, do I need to put the clamp back on or can I just leave it off once I am done?

Anywho, here are the photos of my 1996 Ford Explorer XLT. Let me know what you think!

 

[nooberiffic]

just use the pliers to move the clamp back down the neck, not off. Then slide it back up when you are done. Dont want that coming off while you are driving.

 

[delorean]

I just done the Seafoam treatment! Sitting here now waiting for 20 minutes until I fire the car up again.

I put a 1/3 in the oil and just over 1/3 in the gas. The rest I put in the brake booster hose. It was vaccuming ok but as I have no working hood struts right now it was starting to be a bit too much to manage for me on my own so I stopped early. Managed to get just under a 1/3 in there though.

The car stalled once though while I was doing it, thought I might have messed it up.

Oh well, 20 minutes to wait and I will take a video of the outcome. Just a finished typing I hear a thunderstorm outside. GREAT.

If it starts chucking down outside I hope I can leave the Seafoam in there for longer than 20 minutes without messing the car up. What do you think?

 

[delorean]

As promised, here is the Seafoam video made today!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Wx5n8UHIqU

 

[nooberiffic]

good. didnt look to bad.