My 2001 Ranger Edge 4x4 Supercab

[4pointslow]

Today 11-15-2020 I installed the electric shift motor for the transfer case.
It took all of 10 minutes to install, very easy.
Everything is working as it should and no more codes.

 

[CDW6212R]

Very good, how much, and what brand was that? I got a new one for my BW4406 TC years ago, they seemed to all be about $75 then. It's the same one for many Ford TC's, for the 91-01 Explorers and the bigger BW4406 models. I saw a rebuild thread of them before I had to buy one, and it looked like a good bit of work to go through one.

 

[4pointslow]

The brand is Dorman. I will update this post if it doesn't hold up over time.
I have had good luck with Dorman parts in the past, but time will tell.

 

[CDW6212R]

Sounds good. I have high hopes for Dorman, because they make so many parts that are unavailable anywhere. I have assorted parts of theirs too, the door strikers are most common to think of, but the front driveshaft CV joints are available from two companies. I have used their CV joint kit, and it worked fine. The one from Detroit Axle I would avoid, that seems to be a poor quality brand.

 

[410Fortune]

NOW take the old stock one apart and rebuild it, so when the dorman fails you can go right back to the good stuff!!!

Well done!! glad shes fixed

 

[4pointslow]

Around 5-30-2019 I installed front brakes, rotors, and Brake hoses to fix a brake pull to the left.
Today 11-27-2020 I replaced the front brakes again. New pads, new rotors, and remanufactured calipers.
I was feeling a slight brake pulsation and started hearing noises coming from the front brakes.

Now I am hard on my brakes and for a while my rear drum brakes were not doing much I'm sure. I just replaced them(pics in previous post).
Couple those factors along with the 31 inch heavy tires I installed when I got this truck and maybe that's why I am baking these brakes like they are in an oven. Or.... maybe I just need to try another brand of brake pads if these fail too soon.

I am going to break this up into a couple of posts due to all the pictures I want to show.
Here are the brake pads and rotors. There are hot spots and even some small cracking on the rotors. The pads are cracked as well.

Here is the small cracking I found on one of the rotors.
I didn't look close enough at the other one to see if it had cracks too, but it probably does.

 

[4pointslow]

New Rotors and Pads. Pretty straight forward, I will add these pads are the top of the line that they had in stock and were the same as the ones I installed back in 5-30-2019. They have a number stamped on them ending in FF which is a friction rating. Later the letter in the alphabet, the better the friction. Both being F's means the same friction is there cold and hot. I have FE's on my 2000 Explorer and will look for FF's the next time I replace them. The pads came with all new anti-rattle hardware.

The pads

The rotors

 

[4pointslow]

Remanufactured calipers.
Here is where I was a little disappointed in the quality of the parts I bought.
I ordered two Wearever brand calipers with brackets online but when I picked them up one was a brand called OEM and the other was Wearever.
The Wearever caliper was very nice looking quality, new pistons and everything looked like it was put together correctly - a quality remanufactured part. The OEM brand caliper.....just not the same.
Pulling it out of the box I saw one of the dust boots was not installed correctly and one of the caliper pistons was dented like someone threw it across the room before installing it. I did receive another Wearever brand caliper but it was not much more promising than the OEM brand one.

The caliper in the white box was the first Wearever one I received and looked very nice.
Here it is.

I did not take any pictures of the caliper with the OEM brand name on the box.
Here is the replacement caliper I got, at least it came in a Wearever box!
The first thing I saw was the caliper bracket was black, unlike all the other parts. OK?
Then I saw that there are two different pistons in it. LOL. Maybe I am being too picky.
At least all the dust boots on this one are installed correctly.
I did end up using it and it seems to work well at the moment, time will tell if it holds up. LOL.

Here is where both calipers had issues. The caliper slide bolts.
I noticed the thread was different from my original ones. The bolts heads were one size smaller too.
Then I noticed that three of the 4 bolts were short like the one on the left in the picture. The second one from the left was a bit longer huh?
The two bolts to the right are the original ones so I used them but had to use the old caliper slide pins because they were different threads.
I cleaned all 4 of my original slide pins and lubed them up real good, and also used all 4 of my original bolts and everything seems to be functional now. It is a shame that parts like this end up on part store shelves and eventually peoples vehicles, I wish the people rebuilding these calipers took a little more pride in their work.

 

[4pointslow]

Mileage Update
Getting close to that 300,000 mile mark!

 

[CDW6212R]

Interesting that your brakes look pretty bad and my mail truck brakes look okay. I don't claim my brakes look great, because mail delivery is the top severe duty application. I am very hard on brakes. But I use a decent rotor brand, nothing high dollar though I have used a few, no real difference in lifespan etc.

I try to keep my stock calipers, I have rarely had to replace any of them(two on my 91 from being undriven for years(both stuck and cooked the seals).

I have gone through all kinds of pads, I did the parts store lifetime stuff back in the 90's. I got less life from those than any aftermarket brands that were called severe duty and cost more. Over the years I have leaned towards EBC, but aside from those and a couple of other brands not typically available in local stores, OEM Ford is very good. So I don't buy any pads that are warranted, I didn't like them much, they wore out too fast.

With my 2nd gen's, the Ford severe duty pads work very well for me. I've bought the same part numbers for a few years, Rock Auto has had the best consistent prices, I've bought a couple three from Amazon too.

See if this link pulls up the Motorcraft BRSD652 pads;

More Information for MOTORCRAFT BRSD652

 

[4pointslow]

Those did come up on rockauto. Its good to know they are available.
Do you know if they have a stamping on them that ends with FE or FF?

 

[CDW6212R]

I just went and grabbed a box of those front pads. I found three sets, two in brown boxes and one in a Ford box. I must have ordered the wrong end the last time I got brakes in the Summer. So I have too many of the fronts now, and may not have the rears at all. I'll have to dig around soon. The part numbers are all the same, 2U2Z-2V001-AD.

I never knew about these pads until one day I was browsing the Rock Auto site, and noticed three different front pads. So I doubt many people have tried them, they are among the last listed there. It's amazing how many pad choices there are(I'd guess 30+) for 95-01 Explorers.

 

[4pointslow]

Yesterday I had a heater hose blow out. I was half way to work and turned around and drove it home smoking all the way.
Overheated of course. Took my 2004 supercharged Explorer to work and still made it on time.
I replaced the heater hose and it took over 2 gallons of coolant to fill it back up.
After cleaning the engine compartment and hood from all that coolant that blew out, I road tested it and heat cycled it a couple of times.

Today I took it out and got it all warmed up, turned on the AC and beat it hard to see if anything else would pop.
Nothing popped, no overheating, and no coolant loss. The gauge seems a little more active, like when the thermostat cycles but the gauge is not going any higher than it used to. The thermostat may have been damaged from all the heat so I will keep an eye on it.

I thought I would add this picture of the blue hose that I had in my garage that I installed. I use this stuff inside my intake manifold on my 1998 supercharged Explorer for my liquid intercooler. I cut about two inches off the end and it fit perfectly.
You can also see all the coolant puddling on top of the evaporator case, it got everywhere, even in the hood insulation.
I cleaned under the hood and under the truck with a garden hose. Funny thing is I still smell coolant, but I have not lost any coolant at all in the last three days since I replaced the hose. Today I even pulled the radiator cap off when it was cold and it was filled to the top. No drop in the overflow tank either. When the new thermostat shows up I will be replacing the one that is in there now, maybe next weekend.

 

[4pointslow]

I forgot to post about it but the heater control valve(coolant shut off valve) started leaking a couple months ago. The old one looked like an aftermarket part. The vehicle only lost a little coolant as it was a trickle and not a blow out.
I had three used Ford OEM ones so I grabbed the best looking one and installed it. No more leak.

 

[4pointslow]

Update on thermostat.
I just read through all my posts on this thread and I installed a Motorad Failsafe 180 thermostat when I put the Simons Autosports housing on.
Assuming I didn't change it since, It should still be in there and probably stuck in the open position. If I find I don't have heat I will change it out with a new Failsafe one.

 

[CDW6212R]

The Failsafe units can be unsprung, carefully compressing the spring and getting it past the locking tangs to a normal position. I had two I used in my 99 SOHC, both 180* parts, and I have the old one back in it since overheating the 2nd one the last time in about 2011. So they aren't permanently hurt from getting them so hot they lock open.

 

[4pointslow]

Today I did the brakes again, they were pulsating for quite some time. These have less than a year, and only 6,001 miles on them.
I switched to the Wearever Semi Metallic ones labeled "gold" because I got the Wearever ceramic labeled "platinum" the last two times and I am not impressed with them.

The ones that came off looked horrible, just like the last time. Heat spots in the rotors and the pads are all cracked up.
I am hoping that the different pads I installed this time will solve this problem. If not I will be switching brands and probably ordering off the internet instead of buying local.
In this picture below you can see the hot spots in the rotors and cracks in the pads on the right. There are cracks in the pads on the left too, they just did not show up in the picture. I am hard on my brakes and I have 31 inch tires on this truck, but I have never had this happen to my old 1998 Four door Explorer even when it had 315,000 miles on it. I might even look into swapping the rear 10 inch drum brakes to a disk setup in the future.

 

[4pointslow]

Mileage update.

 

[CDW6212R]

Good luck on the new pads, finding the right ones can take time, there are too many to choose from.

I need to do my front brakes again soon, I'll try to take some pictures this time. I use the Ford HD pads that are common on Rock Auto and Amazon, and most middle priced rotors do fine for my 98. I can't recall the last time I saw heat coloring on my rotors, that's a rare thing.

You have the late 2nd gen pads on your 01 Ranger, it should have the same rotors/calipers/pads as the 01 Sport. I like the upgrade of that 01+ spindle on those brakes, but I kept my old calipers which let me use the stock pads for the truck. I don't think Ford has a comparable HD pad for that later caliper, they might now. Look into that, does the 01-2011 Ranger have the same front brake parts throughout?

These HD pads I use have blue backing plates and noise plates on the back, they've cost around $45 or so each time.

 

[4pointslow]

Today I replaced the thermostat and changed the oil.
It did have a fail safe thermostat in there and I replaced it with the same design.
I also use 180 degree one instead of the 195 degree stock one, I feel a slightly lower temperature is better when you get so many miles on these engines and have good success running 180's in my old blue Explorer up to 315,000 miles. After all if you lower temperature you lower pressure.

Right after I had the radiator hose blow out I noticed the coolant gauge going lower than it had before and figured the thermostat was being held open by the failsafe design. The coolant seemed to fill up the engine and radiator real quick and easy as if there were no thermostat in there.
After driving the vehicle multiple times the gauge seemed to go back to normal, so I was not completely surprised when I found the thermostat was not being held open by the failsafe design.

After replacing it I played with the old one to try to get it to hold in the open position but it would not so I am glad I decided to replace it with a new failsafe one. I think it saved me when the radiator hose blew and the engine started overheating, but didn't hold after a couple of days driving with it locked open and eventually closed again maybe from heat cycling and engine vibrations.

I am using Mobil 1 high mileage oil that is supposed to be good for 10,000 miles but when an engine overheats I am sure it has a bad effect on the additives in the oil. The mileage is 299,300 so I figure that is considered high mileage LOL. Engine was most likely replaced so who knows how many miles are really on it.