Jen's 03 Sport | Page 4 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

Jen's 03 Sport

Hello all...

To celebrate the final payment of my beast, I thought I should finally make a registry for it, with pictures and all!!!

When I was in college, I really wanted a 2door SUV that was relatively new and looked cool as well... Obviously that led me to the Explorer, as Jeeps are cool and all, but not all that practical as my daily driver. Sooo, the search was on! I wanted a black one, the newest year I could get for the Sport, with the fewest miles, with leather and a sunroof! :D

Eventually my searches pulled up my exact specs, but in South Dakota. I lived in Iowa at the time, so no big deal. I bothered the people at the dealership with my excessive questions to make sure it was worth the drive there to look at it. And luckily, it was! Mom and I drove out to look at it, and I ended up buying it. My first (nice) purchased car. It had 16,x.. on the clock, was a certified pre-owned from some old man so it was pretty nice, other than that saggy rear end.

First thing I did was swap out the stereo, and figured out how to wire it to the factory sub thanks to the forum! Then, add a leafs were next. I had the next several years mapped out for it when the tires would wear out and I was outta college and could finally have some money!!! I took off the step bars and added a Yakima rack and drove it like that until I moved to CO. That's when the magic started to happen, ;).

I knew I wanted to lift it from the day I bought it. When I started my big kid job out here in CO, I was able to buy new wheels, tires, shackles, and body lift to get it started! Thanks to the awesome boys from this forum (hokie, nssj2, sparkyXplorer) they got it on for me. I was of no use as I had just had shoulder surgery, but they made sure to get my on the right track :thumbsup:

Awesome! Now I'm good to go. Cranked up the torsion bars a lil, time to hit the trails!!! Got my feet wet in Ouray with the group. And by feet wet, I mean I almost peed myself on Black Bear pass, haha

Since then, I've upgraded my exhaust to 2.5 pipes from the cats back, Flowmaster 50 muffler (kinda quiet :rolleyes:) and a MAC intake. Changed out the plugs and wires at the same time, put on Motorcraft plugs and JBA cables...I also added a Yakima load warrior basket that is pretty quick to take off that holds my snowboard racks and my spare.

Mods to come ---- upgrading gears to 4.56, adding an Aussie locker (or something of that sort depending on my $$), removed gray plastic body panels to paint black, thus discovering rust on my doors GRRRRRR, need rock sliders, skid plates, and on and on.
 

Attachments

  • 123_543701036749_8564_n.jpg
    123_543701036749_8564_n.jpg
    45.4 KB · Views: 1,319
  • 194_552831349529_3776_n.jpg
    194_552831349529_3776_n.jpg
    38.1 KB · Views: 1,244
  • 194_552831299629_1210_n.jpg
    194_552831299629_1210_n.jpg
    47 KB · Views: 1,244
  • 194_552832252719_9475_n.jpg
    194_552832252719_9475_n.jpg
    49.4 KB · Views: 1,241
  • DSC_0040.jpg
    DSC_0040.jpg
    94.3 KB · Views: 1,260
  • IMG_0539.jpg
    IMG_0539.jpg
    74.8 KB · Views: 1,277



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





Cool stuff Jen, I am watching your X. Want to do the same thing to mine, get rid of rust, paint moldings and bumpers. I wanted to go with black maybe a semi or flat on the moldings and bumpers but lately I have been thinking about a flat gray. I will wait to see your pics before I finally decide.

D a n a
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





ah i haven't updated this for awhile!

i painted all the plastic as i posted before, bumpers and everything, and i has held up really well. will need a few touch ups as they have been on for probably a month and a half, but looks sooooo much better! i'll put up some pics soon, have had limited computer access since my powerbook was in the shop getting fixed up for a few weeks.

anyway, a few weeks ago on a warm day i cleaned it up too. handwash, and put on the turtle wax "black box" system and it worked GREAT!!!! i had a ton of lil scratches from trees, etc, and it covered them up nicely! it made such a difference! but of course it snowed a day or two after so i never got any pics of "after" lol. but it has really repelled dirt and grime for the past few weeks really well. i highly recommend this stuff if you have a black car.
 






27224_829023438369_14811518_46484254_1458986_n.jpg


27224_829023443359_14811518_46484255_3451843_n.jpg


a couple of pics... oh and my new taillights.. they are cool, but get wicked condensation in them. guess i need to silicone seal them or something
 


















Jen,
How long did it take and how hard was the "Black Box" to use? I'm taking it is a 2-3 part system. I haven't seen it yet, but will keep an eye out for it. My rig still looks decent enough to give it a little TLC every now & then :)
 






where did u get those taillights from? ive never seen those before.
 






The ex is lookin good.
 












i think i have just seen the first 01-03 sport that i liked! very nice indeed.
 






looks good jen keep up good work
 






Looks nice. I'm going to paint the tupperware on mine eventually. Haven't decided what color though. You ought to get some bed liner and paint the top of the rear bumper pad so the paint doesn't quickly wear and scratch off stepping on it and getting in and out of the hatch.
 






Hi Gen,

Will you please tell me where you got your roof rack cross bars to go with your stocker parallels? Expensive?

D a n a
 






thanks for all the compliments everybody, i think it looks a lot better now as well.... not ever finished but getting closer ;-)

gman, the black box thing is like three steps, it took a few hours... the first evening i washed it then did the first step, it was like a cleaner step, goes on kinda like wax and use detail spray to remove. then i ran out of light, and had to wait til the next day to do the second step. second step was the wax, using the detail spray to remove that and buff too, then a third finishing step with more detailing spray. everything is black tinted and really buffs out the surface swirls, it was pretty crazy. definitely worth the money, it was like 17 bucks for the set i think.

muddinexplorer, these are like one of the only aftermarket tails i've found for the sport... they are called "crystal eyes" and run like 250 bucks i've seen online... but i was Google searching for them and a craigslist post came up, somebody was selling them for 40 bucks, i guess he cash for clunkered his truck and took them off. so i got them for a steal!
here is a link to an online seller.. http://www.duraflexbodykits.com/010...il-lights-crystal-eyes-crystal-c-p-65766.html
 






Looks great! :thumbsup::thumbsup: I love the sticker in your back window. :D

haha thanks, it's some snowboarding sticker a buddy gave me... it has a flower coming out of the barrel lol

i think i have just seen the first 01-03 sport that i liked! very nice indeed.

glad to hear it!!! muchas gracias

Looks nice. I'm going to paint the tupperware on mine eventually. Haven't decided what color though. You ought to get some bed liner and paint the top of the rear bumper pad so the paint doesn't quickly wear and scratch off stepping on it and getting in and out of the hatch.

yeah, that's a good idea... i've thought about doing something like that. it's held up pretty well, i actually did the whole bumper in the duplicolor gloss black and it matches the paint better than the fusion, but the fusion is pretty close too. i was nervous to use the fusion on the bumper metal part, but it's all held up well so far. i definitely will have to touch them up during the summer sometime, i didn't put enough coats on

Hi Gen,

Will you please tell me where you got your roof rack cross bars to go with your stocker parallels? Expensive?

D a n a

hey dana, it's a yakima load warrior basket with yakima lowrider bracket thingys that hold the crossbars. brand new, the set up is pretty spendy, but i snagged a deal off craigslist years ago...
(edit these pics don't have my basket on there, haaha but anyway..)
 






Awesome job, really love your rig! I've got similar plans for my '01 Sport once I'm making money again.

I'm glad you posted pics of the painted bumper/trim. I've been thinking about spraying mine after I saw some "bumper paint" in the store last week (it even had a pic of a sport/sport trac on the can lol). I was thinking of going with flat black or bed liner but seeing how nicely the gloss black turned out on yours it's got me thinking again.
 






Awesome job, really love your rig! I've got similar plans for my '01 Sport once I'm making money again.

I'm glad you posted pics of the painted bumper/trim. I've been thinking about spraying mine after I saw some "bumper paint" in the store last week (it even had a pic of a sport/sport trac on the can lol). I was thinking of going with flat black or bed liner but seeing how nicely the gloss black turned out on yours it's got me thinking again.


thanks, i'm pretty happy with it too... i could've prepped better probably, but it's holding up well. i just cleaned the plastic really well with some simple green, then alcohol, and hoped for the best. i did do the rear bumper with the duplicolor black with the Sport on it ;-) give it a try! it was really a lot easier than i figured it would be, and really didn't come out too glossy. i didn't clear coat it though. good luck!

and yeah, it sure can suck in the $$! i have a lot of lil projects that take up all my cash, but at least i don't get bored ever lol
 






got a little muddy this weekend!
25236_381525126621_501616621_3959707_6619637_n.jpg

gotta love colorado!
 









Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.











Back
Top