05warrior
Member
- Joined
- January 2, 2008
- Messages
- 46
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Greenville NC
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- '98 E V8 AWD
Well I guess I'm a transplant from the LincolnsVSCadillac forums... since I don't own a Lincoln anymore. My name is John and I am the previous owner of a 2002 Lincoln LS, black on cream leather with stock chrome 17's. Unfortunately, beauty doesn't repair engines, and that car needed at least $3000 worth of engine work, so I sold it to Carmax for $4000 and bought myself a 98 Eddie Bauer V8 AWD for $3500.
I'm not new to cars or working on them, my first car was an 88 Saleen Mustang convertible; I was under the hood of that car every other day. I was limited in the amount of repairs I could actually accomplish on the Lincoln, everything has a nice coating of plastic and it had a sensor for everything. I swear if I sneezed hard it would throw a code. Eight individual ignition coils, that have to be pulled out to get to the spark plugs, along with the valve cover covers! Everything, everything was a pain in the ass on that car. I'm glad to be rid of it, and I'm glad to have a car I can work on again. I popped the hood on the Explorer and took a nice long look... at the concrete I could see below the engine, the exposed spark plug wires, the nice easy to get to upper manifold. Then I saw the belt tensioner was about as far away from easy reach as God, but... all in all, I'm happy.
Ok, here's the car. I don't know how you guys look at miles here, over at LVC the lower miles the better, but maybe you guys are more forgiving. The truck has 174,000 miles. Blue and tan on medium prairie tan. It's in great shape, no dents or dings; little key scratch about 12 inches long on drivers rear quarter and the front bumper is bent down; Ima take a floor jack and a piece of 4x4 to it, hopefully bend it back up. Needs a console cover (obviously) .. ordered the recover kit off eBay, hopefully it works like they say it does. The kid I bought it from threw in a Pioneer head unit, about $125 from what I found online, even though the stock unit works fine. I wired the aftermarket in anyway, just because I want to plug my iPod straight up to the stereo. I yanked up the antenna, I don't really care if it goes up or down automatically, I just want it to go up and stay up; of course it was stuck down.
The autolamp was leaving the lights on for 5 minutes after I turned the truck off; kid I bought it from said sort of jiggle the switch on the mirror until it goes off. That got annoying after about 2 tries and I just unplugged the damn thing. Now I turn the headlights on like normal people.
I removed the front driveshaft because it needed u-joints on the front, and since it's AWD and I haven't figured out how to change that yet, I talked to my mechanic and I just figured I'd pull it and save some gas until I figure out how to wire it out of AWD, if that's possible. Front diff and transfer case are great; no worries there. Ima get a front end rebuild kit off eBay here in a couple weeks, it needs ball joints on the top and bottom pretty soon; I might as well do it all.
I replaced a noisy idler pulley yesterday, that gd belt tensioner is a pain in the ass to get to. I'll need an alternator before long too; it's got a little squeal to it.
All the electronics work; power mirrors seemed to stop working after I ran it through a car wash yesterday... no worries, they're set for me. Seats aren't cracked at all, a little worn, obviously, but no cracks or holes. Found bail release papers and a ticket for misdemeanor possession in the truck for the kid I bought it from, so I had a buddy run his police canine through it and sure enough, dog went nuts at the center console. Cop looked in and said he couldn't find anything, but the kid had, at one time, kept his dope in the center console and the dog was smelling the residual. Told me to clean it out real good and should be fine; no worries. I thought it was a good idea; I sure hell don't want to get pulled over for speeding and go to prison for a K of coke stashed in the back that wasn't mine.
Ok now the questions for you guys.
1. Where can I get odd switches; or rather switch covers and knobs... cruise control resume button and rear windshield wiper switches, for instance. I'm watching a dash panel on eBay; the one that wraps around the radio.. that will solve that problem and it will also give me a the 4x4 switch that leads into my next question.
2. In installing the radio, I found the four wire wiring harness that feeds that non-existent 4x4 switch that would be next to the radio. The molex connector plugs into a little plastic caddy on the back of the dash panel; plugs into air basically. Since I have this wiring harness, does it mean that I actually have all the capabilities of 4hi, 4lo, Auto or the brown wire mod? Did Ford actually take a normal Explorer, pull the switch and change the dash panel, and call it all wheel drive? If that's the case, I'll fix my front shaft and do the brown wire mod and call it a day. Please advise guys.
3. How do Explorer generations work in terms of interchangeability? For instance, my 02 LS would only work with parts from 00-02; the PCM was changed in 03 and nothing from the 03-06 vehicles would work in the previous generation. Can I get heated seats from a 99-00, for instance. I think that's the only option I don't have, but someone may know something I don't.
4. Can I re-dye my leather? Would I be better off paying someone to do it? How much roughly will I pay?
I think that's everything I can think of for now. I'm happy to be here, I love the truck, and I'm so looking forward to not only a car I can work on that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg when something breaks, but also the support and camaraderie of the guys and girls on this board. I'm a 22 year old college student in Greenville North Carolina, btw. Everyone have a great new year.
I'm not new to cars or working on them, my first car was an 88 Saleen Mustang convertible; I was under the hood of that car every other day. I was limited in the amount of repairs I could actually accomplish on the Lincoln, everything has a nice coating of plastic and it had a sensor for everything. I swear if I sneezed hard it would throw a code. Eight individual ignition coils, that have to be pulled out to get to the spark plugs, along with the valve cover covers! Everything, everything was a pain in the ass on that car. I'm glad to be rid of it, and I'm glad to have a car I can work on again. I popped the hood on the Explorer and took a nice long look... at the concrete I could see below the engine, the exposed spark plug wires, the nice easy to get to upper manifold. Then I saw the belt tensioner was about as far away from easy reach as God, but... all in all, I'm happy.
Ok, here's the car. I don't know how you guys look at miles here, over at LVC the lower miles the better, but maybe you guys are more forgiving. The truck has 174,000 miles. Blue and tan on medium prairie tan. It's in great shape, no dents or dings; little key scratch about 12 inches long on drivers rear quarter and the front bumper is bent down; Ima take a floor jack and a piece of 4x4 to it, hopefully bend it back up. Needs a console cover (obviously) .. ordered the recover kit off eBay, hopefully it works like they say it does. The kid I bought it from threw in a Pioneer head unit, about $125 from what I found online, even though the stock unit works fine. I wired the aftermarket in anyway, just because I want to plug my iPod straight up to the stereo. I yanked up the antenna, I don't really care if it goes up or down automatically, I just want it to go up and stay up; of course it was stuck down.
The autolamp was leaving the lights on for 5 minutes after I turned the truck off; kid I bought it from said sort of jiggle the switch on the mirror until it goes off. That got annoying after about 2 tries and I just unplugged the damn thing. Now I turn the headlights on like normal people.
I removed the front driveshaft because it needed u-joints on the front, and since it's AWD and I haven't figured out how to change that yet, I talked to my mechanic and I just figured I'd pull it and save some gas until I figure out how to wire it out of AWD, if that's possible. Front diff and transfer case are great; no worries there. Ima get a front end rebuild kit off eBay here in a couple weeks, it needs ball joints on the top and bottom pretty soon; I might as well do it all.
I replaced a noisy idler pulley yesterday, that gd belt tensioner is a pain in the ass to get to. I'll need an alternator before long too; it's got a little squeal to it.
All the electronics work; power mirrors seemed to stop working after I ran it through a car wash yesterday... no worries, they're set for me. Seats aren't cracked at all, a little worn, obviously, but no cracks or holes. Found bail release papers and a ticket for misdemeanor possession in the truck for the kid I bought it from, so I had a buddy run his police canine through it and sure enough, dog went nuts at the center console. Cop looked in and said he couldn't find anything, but the kid had, at one time, kept his dope in the center console and the dog was smelling the residual. Told me to clean it out real good and should be fine; no worries. I thought it was a good idea; I sure hell don't want to get pulled over for speeding and go to prison for a K of coke stashed in the back that wasn't mine.
Ok now the questions for you guys.
1. Where can I get odd switches; or rather switch covers and knobs... cruise control resume button and rear windshield wiper switches, for instance. I'm watching a dash panel on eBay; the one that wraps around the radio.. that will solve that problem and it will also give me a the 4x4 switch that leads into my next question.
2. In installing the radio, I found the four wire wiring harness that feeds that non-existent 4x4 switch that would be next to the radio. The molex connector plugs into a little plastic caddy on the back of the dash panel; plugs into air basically. Since I have this wiring harness, does it mean that I actually have all the capabilities of 4hi, 4lo, Auto or the brown wire mod? Did Ford actually take a normal Explorer, pull the switch and change the dash panel, and call it all wheel drive? If that's the case, I'll fix my front shaft and do the brown wire mod and call it a day. Please advise guys.
3. How do Explorer generations work in terms of interchangeability? For instance, my 02 LS would only work with parts from 00-02; the PCM was changed in 03 and nothing from the 03-06 vehicles would work in the previous generation. Can I get heated seats from a 99-00, for instance. I think that's the only option I don't have, but someone may know something I don't.
4. Can I re-dye my leather? Would I be better off paying someone to do it? How much roughly will I pay?
I think that's everything I can think of for now. I'm happy to be here, I love the truck, and I'm so looking forward to not only a car I can work on that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg when something breaks, but also the support and camaraderie of the guys and girls on this board. I'm a 22 year old college student in Greenville North Carolina, btw. Everyone have a great new year.
