Vaslestad
New Member
- Joined
- September 17, 2011
- Messages
- 4
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Ski, Norway
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 1995 Ford Explorer
Hi, greetings from Norway! I'm Thomas (or Tom if you like, the Iowans did, once lived there for a year) In case you're wondering, Vaslestad is the name of the farm where I live. I've been lurking here on and off for a few months, getting a lot of good input since I brought home a '95 Explorer in late May this year. It had 292500 km (about 182,000 miles) on it. No really bad rust (by Norwegian standards: they use road salt very liberally in the winter time here) and overall nicely kept. It has/had a few issues that the previous owner didn't take care of and which I'm still in the process of sorting out.
I'm not that much of a mechanic, but a gearhead (though electronically inclined) since infancy so I tend to see most problems as a challenge, at least to a point... We have two old Ford Tractors on the farm (a Fordson Major and a Ford 5000), an early 80's Czech Zetor tractor, a 1980 Claas Consul combine harvester (with a Ford diesel engine) and a brand new 21 HP Snapper tractor mower, so there's plenty of machinery to care about already. My two previous cars were European built Chrysler Voyagers ('92 and '95) with the 2.5l engine and manual transmission. The Explorer is obviously vastly more complex but there's a lot of good info to be found out there. I got the Chilton manual for it, which is helpful to some degree. I do most of my parts purchases on eBay, out of convenience and (often) to save money.
So far I've changed the oil, oil filter, air filter, plugs, a bad coolant thermostat, front brake discs and pads and oxygen sensors. The most nagging issue has been the excessive fuel consumption, about 30% higher than it normally should be. (And winter approaching...) So most of my short term efforts will be about engine tune-up and fuel economy.
New O2 sensors seem promising already, but I'm still less than halfway into the first tank since they were replaced, so we'll see about that (mileage)... I'm also getting the CEL frequently/intermittantly and two codes (214 and 542), plus the overdrive occasionally shuts off requiring a computer reset to make it work normally again. Other than this it starts and drives perfectly well all the time. I'll address these issues in the appropriate forums when I run out of clues.
See you guys!
I'm not that much of a mechanic, but a gearhead (though electronically inclined) since infancy so I tend to see most problems as a challenge, at least to a point... We have two old Ford Tractors on the farm (a Fordson Major and a Ford 5000), an early 80's Czech Zetor tractor, a 1980 Claas Consul combine harvester (with a Ford diesel engine) and a brand new 21 HP Snapper tractor mower, so there's plenty of machinery to care about already. My two previous cars were European built Chrysler Voyagers ('92 and '95) with the 2.5l engine and manual transmission. The Explorer is obviously vastly more complex but there's a lot of good info to be found out there. I got the Chilton manual for it, which is helpful to some degree. I do most of my parts purchases on eBay, out of convenience and (often) to save money.
So far I've changed the oil, oil filter, air filter, plugs, a bad coolant thermostat, front brake discs and pads and oxygen sensors. The most nagging issue has been the excessive fuel consumption, about 30% higher than it normally should be. (And winter approaching...) So most of my short term efforts will be about engine tune-up and fuel economy.
New O2 sensors seem promising already, but I'm still less than halfway into the first tank since they were replaced, so we'll see about that (mileage)... I'm also getting the CEL frequently/intermittantly and two codes (214 and 542), plus the overdrive occasionally shuts off requiring a computer reset to make it work normally again. Other than this it starts and drives perfectly well all the time. I'll address these issues in the appropriate forums when I run out of clues.
See you guys!
