hiridin's dana 30 sas

i'm going to be doing a sas on my 98' Explorer Sport 4x4 its a high pinion dana 30 from an xj that will have the early bronco suspension setup with 5.5" wild horse lift springs. i'm going for about 8" of suspension lift with a combo of spring over, add a leafs and blocks to raise the rear end. it will be riding on 35" Xterrains on 15x10" black rock crawlers with 2.5" bs. so far i've gotten the front end stripped with the exception of cutting off the cross member and shock perches ect. no pics yet but i will be taking them throughout the process and will eventually figure out a way to post them or give a link to them. this should be done in under 3 weeks but who knows could be more or could be less. i'll keep ya'll posted. thanks

 

[Swee294349]

sounds like you are on a roll. i gathered all my parts for my swap in about 2-3 months and installed the whole setup in a weekend. I sure do like the ride and was well worth the money. about $2000 and i have gone to a solid. definately post some pics.

 

[hiridin]

i would love to have it done in a weekend... during the week though i can only work on it when there is nothing at the shop to do. so its stop and go alot. we are in the process of cutting everything off and then putting a new crossmember on. i'm plenty willing to do this myself but my dad won't let me use the plasma cutter so that means even if i don't have something to do my dad will most likely be working. sooo i must wait. he jus doesn't want me to break it or something. probably won't get too too much done untill this weekend. i jus hope it goes fairly smoothly

 

[Swee294349]

mine seemed to have gone smoothly. The only thing i did was put the brackets on backwards. Dummy i know. as of right now i'm installing the gears in class and getting ready to complete the 4wd portion of the axle. it will soon be 100%.

 

[jared ajlouny]

how old are you?

 

[james t]

You can rent a plasma cutter for pretty cheap (in my area anyway). Go rent one. Maybe once pops see's that you can use one properly he will let you use his.

 

[hiridin]

i'm 20 yrs old... renting a plasma cutter is prolly not going to happen, i'm strapped for cash and between my explorer and my girl i have none. i'm sure with a lil coaxing i could prolly get my dad to teach me. my dad cut off the crossmember and all the old mounts with the plasma cutter and then i used the air chissel and grinder to smooth it out. we took some measurements and found where the axle needs to sit and how high the vehicle is going to be once lifted... then put various braces and such to hold the axle in its place. then we're going to use heim joint radius arms custom built. making them today, then mount them which is what we plan to finish by the end of the day. then start modifying the frame so the coil springs can sit straight up and down. without them sitting like \ / i've seen some done like that and read it was perfectly fine but my dad wants'em straight. sooo thats fine with me. hopefully get it all mounted and together by the end of tomorrow. minus the steering being setup. i've started taking pics but not sure when i'll get them up to view.

 

[hiridin]

the frame notches are done and the frame has been boxed back in...the coil buckets are on and the springs are in... but its sittin about an inch lower than what we were going for but that won't be too difficult to fix that. radius arms are done the new crossmember is in... the tires are on the axle. now we are working on the steering... or about to start on it. i'm still waiting on the spring over perches for the back which might be in today (doubtfull) or monday. took more pics but doubt i'll get them up till the project is finished.

 

[JoshC]

I'm anxious to see the frame picture. Mine \ /'s , but i'm not worried about it.

 

[ahhjaws]

Dang, now I'm tied being the youngest with a solid axle. lol

Good luck and have fun.

 

[CarFreak146]

I'm 19, and will have my D44/9" in mine by the end of the year.... I'm goin for the record!!

--Ryan

 

[ahhjaws]

Dang, I had the record for a little bit anyway. 20 and 3 months.

Loan 3 years. lol

 

[hiridin]

ok... so far we've got the front setup. getting an alignment done right now. still have to get shocks, lengthen the front driveshaft and i still need my gears swapped. the rear is soa with four door leaf springs and an add-a-leaf for about 8" of lift no blocks were needed. and suprisingly i also don't need to extend my rear driveshaft or brake lines and also don't need to buy new rear shocks. if i were to get some different shackles or something to increase flex i would need longer shocks and probably a longer driveshaft but as it is its works fine. i don't have massive amounts of flex like some but it flexes better than it did. the front is not going to flex like the back but will be better than stock sooo... i can't really complain. hell i can't complain neways cuz my dad did all of the custom fabrication and all and absolutely HATED doing it. so that'd be pretty $h!tty of me to complain about anything at all. so all in all i'm happy, jus want to see it done and get it back on the road. and i've been taking pics along the way so i'll get them up sooner or later

 

[boominXplorer]

email me pics at lowxploher at aol dot com

 

[hiridin]

its done, finally. only thing left is that when the guy who changed gears and did the back he left out that ring or whatever that gives the speedometer reading and odometer reading. so that needs to be redone. but ohwell. i got the front driveshaft lengthened 3" but it also needed that lil boot thats on it. so i thought no biggie jus buy another boot. well Ford doesn't sell the boot. they sell the nearly $600 driveshaft with the boot. so crap... then looked into getting a used driveshaft and risk the boot tearing again. didn't want to do that unless we had no other choice. and then still have to get it lengthened again. i really didn't want to do that. i checked parts stores to see if maybe they sold the boot by itself but no they didn't. the next thing was to see if we could rig up a boot that would work. so we got a large cv boot and were able to make it work. all of the pictures looked great. u could clearly see them on the camera. so i finally uploaded them onto the computer and with the exception of a few the were all too dark to see. why? i tried brightning them up and any thing i could find to do and i still can't see them. yet on the camera itself they look fine. why? so whatever no big deal i'll take more. still can't see them! they're too dark. is it a crappy camera or what? so my problem now is getting some pics u can actually see so anyways i'll get them and i'll get them up. I PROMISE, i've jus been really busy with work and everything else and every time i try it doesn't work. but there will be pics!

 

[hiridin]

i jus e mailed some pics to boominxplorer sooo... sooner or later i should have some pics up. none yet of the completed project as it has been rainy and dark outside lately. but they will come. my transfer case went out on me and decided to get a borg warner 1354 manual to put in. so i did, that went in w/o any problems. jus lengthened the shifter to compensate for my body lift. i bought the driveshaft that came with the transfercase and jus need to get it lengthened now. should be done this week hopefully. before my tc went i had finally got it offroad and in some good mud. it had no power at all.i got stuck 3 times. once b/c my 4wheeldrive wouldn't engage and i dug myself in a hole. second time i hit the mud hole in 4 low and my tires wouldn't clean the mud out of the tread so i spun like i had slicks so i put it in 4 high and hit the gas and nothing happened. i couldn't even spin the tires. no power... with the pedal to the floor if i was in deep mud even in 1st gear 4 high i couldn't get my tires to spin. i tried hitting it with some speed and having the rpms up when i hit it and i would jus stop when i hit the mud. i had absolutely no power. even though the engine was running and all... i jus couldn't get through nothing big. very much super dissapointed. i have a thread asking if my motor (4.0 ohv) is jus that underpowered or if my maf (which i have now replaced with a new/used one) was causing it or perhaps the ring gear thing in the rear end that the speedometer/odometer reads off of could be screwing the computer up to where it no work right. b/c at this time i do not have it in.

 

[hiridin]

I finally have a few pics up... sadly enough it took forever to figure it out since i'd never done anything like that before. and at first was too lazy to try but anyways i have some up... still need to take tons more but lighting today is horrible and so are most of the other pics i took so i couldn't use them. i don't know how to put up a link but if u go to Cardomain.com select Ford Explorer Sport and for user name or my name on there its "jt22784" i will get many more pics but not till next week most likely. but since i figured out how to do it it won't take me a month or two to get more pics up sorry it took sooo long. and one day i'll figure out how to put a link up for it.

 

[section525]

http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=730638


Looks great! I'll send mine over right away.

 

[Hokie]

EDIT: Dagnabbit ~ Section beat me to it

Looks great!

 

[Swee294349]

That's a nice and clean job! Is your truck pretty much level with the leaf springs, add a leaf and front coils? Mine sits a little nose down, but i'm thinkin i need the 4" waggy springs.