CodePoet said:
The front will be open (all explorers are). The auto hubs break easy, go ahead and replace those with a set of warn manual hubs...much better! If you're going in the direction of a pre-runner you may also want to start looking into a nice set of deaver leaves for the rear and some cut and turned beams for your front. Put some early bronco coils in for a softer /more flexy front end, some good shocks, good bump stops and go runnin
The Deaver leaf springs are great. Take a pounding, and no sag. Ride is good too. They told me I could get 14-16" travel from them, and that the stock shackles would be fine. Well, I got about 13" metal to metal travel with stock shackles. I found soon that the stockers would bind on compression tho, which is bad. I made some 2.5" longer shackles, and they have freed up a ton of wheel travel (unfortunately they also raised it more than 1.5") Even with a 2" bumpstop spacer to keep the 33's out of the body, I have more than 14" vertical travel still. Good stuff.
Softer/flexier coils is NOT the way to go for a 'prerunner'. The problem with conventional coils, is that to get a reasonable spring rate, you end up with either limited wheel travel, or a stupidly tall truck. Coilovers solve that problem, and give you a huge choice of rates. Ya, they are not cheap, but the performance is such that once you've been there, you will have a hard time ever using conventional stuff again. Pricing out a pair of springs and some good shocks, its really not that far off. Right now I'm running an initial rate of 265lb, with 650 final, and air bumps after that. It flexes well on the trails, yet has enough rate to soak up good landing when I air it out, with 16-17" travel. ride height is about 4-5" over stock to level out the rear, but is easy to change, from about 3-6" lift.
The Explorer IS a good all around choice. 4 people and their gear camping, or trail running, grocery getting, or a trip to the dunes, it does pretty much everything except what others use purpose built trailer queens for.
Are you looking to just buy gears, or take it somewhere for the purchase/install? Supporting your local 4x4 shop is a good idea if they are decent.
The locking hubs just allow the front to not turn when in 2wd, by disconnecting the wheel hub from the axle shaft. THe stock automatic hubs are generally problematic, and failure prone.
33's and 4.56 sounds good for all around use. I find the 4.10's a little on the weak side, but great for highway, which I used to do a lot of. The 4.10/31's felt REALLY good. The OHV motor has damn good bottom end torque, and zero top end horsepower, so its OK to use it that way.The auto trans will suck power no matter what ratio you go for, but its very weak, so help it out by using the deepest gearing you can live with, IE 4.56 or 4.88 with 33's.
For locker/Limited slip info, do a search, I bet its been covered 100 times. IMO a limited slip is a total waste of money unless its a trutrac. Standard clutch type LS is basically locked by clutches ALL THE TIME until the going gets tough, then it lets go. A total waste. If going around a paved corner will 'open' it, then its not going to be much use anywere else. If its built 'tight' to prevent that, you've basically got all the downsides of running a spool or welded diff, except that again, wehn the going gets tough, it goes home. A truetrac is pretty much throttle activated. when the wheels are turning about the same speed, its open, for good handling. The more torque you input, or the more wheelspeed discrepancy there is from side to side, the tighter it locks. If you have a tire in the air spinning, a touch of the brakes will lock it up. Its a pretty slick design. Superb for street/trail and snow/ice driving, good but no where near optimal for hard core rock crawling. Kind of like an Explorer
Have fun, and don't be afraid to beat on the Exploder. THey take a real pounding. THe frames are considerably beefier than the Rangers too, being double walled through all the critical areas.
Wow, thats long.