Pic of my new ride!!

[sirhk100]

Here's my new ride. It's a spotless XLT auto w/98,000miles. Interior is leather, super clean, aftermarket power sun/moonroof. I already put in my system as you can see in the sig. I'm going to put a front sway bar on it for now cause it doesn't have one and it sways like crazy at highway speeds. Future plans in the following order are:

Sway bar to stop rocking until suspension is built.
4:56 gears and Detroit in the rear.
Full front and rear 98' fiberglass,
Adjustable heavy duty coil buckets
"King" Prerunner res. shocks up front
Extended heim joint radius arms
4"-8" widened front TTBs
National leafs in the rear w/ more king shocks.



Here it is!!!!

What do you guys think of my rig and future plans?

 

[PLRBEAR]

Nice ride. Don't all Explorers come with front sway bars??

 

[espnfreak]

ya, hollow ones i believe

 

[NoBoundaries]

The ride looks nice! Sounds like you have some good plans in place as well.

 

[sirhk100]

Yeah, I can see where mine used to be bolted on but the guy that owned it before me took it off. I don't see how he could drive at 65mph cause it rocks back and forth like a boat. I would much rather have it on and go through the trouble of disconnecting it for the dirt then to drive on the highway with it the way it is now.
Khris

 

[CHH777]

sirhk100,

Can you give me details on the adjustable heavy duty coil buckets? How much? Where to get them?

Thanks...

 

[sirhk100]

Click here for picks of Adjustable Coil Buckets
The pictures are of a 2wd truck but you should get the idea.

Adjustable coil buckets replace the stock flimsy upper coil mount. They are generally heavy duty and used in vehicles that are driven hard and do occasionally bottom out. The adjustment part is a large bolt on top that can be used to actually raise and lower the front end. This changes the steering geometry of the truck so other adjustments need made also. A lot of people do this so that instead of replacing the coils when they sag from hard use, you can just crank the front end up higher. Generally people upgrade the coil bucket cause they want something heavy duty and they want to mount shocks with a different upper eyelet then stock like shocks made by "King" or "Sway-A-Way" that have Heim joints on the end. the adjustable part is just an extra feature that people do since they are already building the custom buckets. I'm going to try and make my own but a couple of places that can make them are:

Camburg
Click on Custom products/Prerunners/4x4 Explorer. That's an awesome front end they are building. these guys can build the buckets

McNeil Racing Perry's
These to sites are two shops owned by different family member that can build them also. I looked to buy one of McNeil racings Explorers but it was out of my price range. The guy did tell me that they charge $250 for their buckets.

AutoFab
This guy does insane work but you pay the price with your wallet.

Dead Link Removed
This is where I'm looking to get most of my future mods from. I'm going to try to do most of the work my self but I'll let these guys widen the front end and build the radius arms for me. I want the stage 2 kit with a couple of extra things.

These are all SoCal places and I saw that you're in Texas. I'm sure that there are Fab shops around there that can do it for you. The buckets around here go for about $250 a pair. A relly good set up is to run the adjustable bucket with a stock F150 extended cab 4X4 coil in the explorer with a good set of dual shocks or 1 resevoir shock like a king or sway-a-way. Well, I probably said way to much then what you were looking for but if you have any more questions feel free to ask!!
Khris

 

[jasonb]

sirhk100.. how does the aftermarket moonroof do? no leaks? i had thought about doing that later on...like in a year or so. nice truck ya got there.

 

[sirhk100]

Well, I've only owned it for a week but I did spray the hell out of it with a hose just to see if it did leak and I didn't see anything. I'm not sure of the brand off hand but I can check the paper work when I get home if you're interested. If I didn't tell anyone I don't think anyone would know it wasn't factory. It's the kind that has the inside cover that manually slides back into the roof. The glass is controled with 4 buttons up on the ceiling. It can either pop up in a vent position where the rear is up but the front is down or it can slide back into the roof. The only thing that looks wierd is that the assembly that it all slides back into when it opens is like a box above the head liner. Instead of pulling the headliner tight around the edges it has some free area where it goes from covering the box that hangs about an inch below the true headliner to where it's glued to the original headliner. That probably doesn't make any sense but I don't know how better to explain it. So far it seems to work really well. I live in SoCal so the water issue doesn't really bother me as much as the fact that I'm worried about the headliner coming unglued and sagging from the heat. Let me know if you want the brand name. The previous owner gave me his recipts and I remember seeing the one for the sunroof.

Here is the lamest simplist scetch of what I was trying to explain about the head liner. The outline is a side view of what the headliner looks like except it's not steep where it goes from the sunroof box to the roof like the backslash below. Hey, can't say I didn't try with this picture!!
Headliner
Sunroof __________
_________/

Khris

 

[BajaXplorer]

Nice ride- my new X is the same color as yours. Im going to swap over my new BFGs (31") from the Jeep before I sell it.

I would work with Camburg over Rich Minga @ Baja Concepts any day.
They are schisters and wont get your vehicle done correctly.

 

[sirhk100]

Really, that's good to hear. I've never dealt with Baja Concepts, just seen there web page and the prices. I'm considering purchasing the parts through them and doing the install myself. I also think I'll try to build my own coil buckets before I pay to have a set built. I'd go with Camburg but they are friggin expensive. There are a ton of small fab shops around San Diego that I know of, it's just a matter of finding time to go check them all out and get estimates from them and see what kinda work they do.

 

[BajaXplorer]

Talk to Wally at ORW Escondido. hes a friend of mine.

He may refer you to XtremeFab in Escondido or H&M in San Marcos.
Dead Link Removed

 

[Ray Lobato]

Khris,
Clean truck!
Now all you need is some rocker panel protection.

 

[rustytr]

Nice explorer, sounds like you'll be very happy with it.

 

[sirhk100]

Thanks for the compliments guys. So far it's working out alright. I think the drivers side front Hub is about to go cause I'm getting some popping from it in 4low under torque. I'm going to try and get in on a group buy for some Mile Marker hubs going on through the broup buy forum. I need to fix the Tach. The needle stuck up at 3000 and goes up from there. I found instructions on how to deal with that, just waiting for some time to do it. I'm hoping to put in some 4:56 gears in it and a rear locker with in a month or two. As for rocker protection I need to poke my head under there and see if I can make my own set. I made some for other vehicles so I'm hoping I can on this one too.