She needs attention.......project

[partsman48210]

Well This is my 2002 Sport Trac........some of you may have already seen her in other posts of mine.




This has started as just a quick repair of the trans problem but now that I have the motor and trans out I'm going to give it some attention she's needed for years.

1st I'll finish the repairs to the 5R55E and set it aside

2nd Freshen up the motor with some new seals and gaskets clean it up and maybe throw a coat of paint on.

Then the attention to details I've been holding out on for a while.

I've got some rust starting on the lip of the fenders. Also cab corner on passenger side is rusting. I wont be sure how bad until I get into the project.

I plan on pulling all the interior for a good cleaning and to seal up a couple leaks like around my rear window and also my windshield. Just a terrible job by the body shop ): Oh did I mention my truck has been wrecked quite a few times........yup I did the worst one. Rolled it about 4 times. If I ever get to looking through the basement I'll post some pics......lol fun times.

Then it had some little fender benders after that. its been painted about 4 times. Theres only one panel that still has the factory paint...the tailgate

so anyway, enough rambling. this will probably be a 4 or 5 month project so I'll probably change ideas quite a bit so rather than list all my ideas now, I'll wait until I actually do them.

Thanks for looking,
Jason

 

[just1me]

Nice project, look forward to the pics and updates. Don't see to many yellow Sport Tracs around.

 

[partsman48210]

Thanks. When we bought it there were only 2 others in michigan. I've only seen one.

I'll be looking for an orange one soon.

 

[just1me]

Yeah I think yours is maybe the 3rd yellow one I have seen, and I have seen only 2 orange ones, I wonder what the numbers are on how many of each color was produced from the factory.

 

[429CJ-3X2]

I've only seen a couple of yellow ones, and a couple of orange ones, too. And I drive a truck and get around Iowa quite a bit. Until recently, I saw very few dark blue ones, but in the last 4 weeks, I've seen more blue ones than anything else! I played softball tonight, and parked my black '01 a couple of spots away from a blue one. It was still there when I left and headed to Walmart. At the stoplight in front of Walmart, was a green one, with another blue one at the Arby's on the corner. As I turned into the Walmart lot, a gold/tan one was leaving going out the other drive!

White, silver, and black are the most common around here, probably in that order, but the #s are probably close. I read somewhere, burnt orange (not the lighter, brighter orange) is probably the rarest. Ford used a burnt orange one as an early promo, and discontinued the color about the time the first '01s went on sale, according to what I read.

Good to see one of the rarer colors getting some attention!

 

[just1me]

Yeah I was gonna say I have seen a 01-03 burnt orange Sport model, but not a Sport Trac model, someone local here has a burnt orange Sport model. Most the Sport Tracs I see around here are either blue or red.

 

[partsman48210]

Ya I definitely dont have trouble finding it in a parking lot. I'd like to find another one so I can check the paint code. The first time it was wrecked they replaced the door and removed all the factory stickers.

I dont plan on repainting now but after the rust repair I'll probably just do some type of bed liner instead of blending fresh paint.

 

[partsman48210]

ok so I got a little start to this project. I pulled off the step bar and Tupperware so I could get a better look at my rust issues. Its about as bad as I thought but not to bad. I'm going to strip down the step bar and paint it too.

I'll start sand blasting the rusted areas on the fender, door bottoms and the rockers all the way down because from what I can see the body shop did a horrible job piecing it together so I'll probably cut it all out

After all the new metal is in I'm going to use bedliner instead of priming and paint the whole side of the truck right now

Hopefully get some more time to work on it tomorrow. so here's some pics the way it sits

 

[partsman48210]

this I the first time seeing my truck with the cladding off. it looks like my front fender is bent where it meets the door. anyone elses look this way?

I'm just trying to correct all the janky work of body shops past.

 

[429CJ-3X2]

I just checked both doors on both my Tracs, with the cladding on, and they look pretty much like yours. The bottom portion lines up pretty well, but the next section where the holes are appears pushed in like yours looks in the photo. As I recall, the '01 Sport I took a fender off of in the salvage yard recently looks that way, too, on both fenders. With the cladding on, it looks like the fender almost needs to be shaped like that for the cladding to blend right, fender to door.

 

[partsman48210]

Thanks, I checked the other side and it looks the same too

 

[partsman48210]

Help

Ok guys, I had to put this on the back burner for a while and because of that I cant remember where everything goes. Please help if you know or have a pic of where these hoses go.

Number I is the line on the back of the pcv valve. I think number II goes on it??

The other line comes across from the heater hoses and the second pic will show it laying over the intake.

 

[swshawaii]

Replacing the PCV Valve
http://www.mysporttrac.com/mysporttrac/projects/ReplacingthePCVvalve.pdf

 

[partsman48210]

ok thanks. that solves part of my problem. Now i just need to figure out where the vacuum line goes

 

[swshawaii]

Now i just need to figure out where the vacuum line goes

DPFE Sensor? (Job 2)
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2469493&postcount=3

 

[partsman48210]

DPFE Sensor? (Job 2)
http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2469493&postcount=3

I found it. It went in the side of the intake manifold. Tricky little spot underneath

 

[partsman48210]

the moment when everything is good........but its not

So after the summer went by and I dealt with everything except my truck, I decided to put it all back together and do the body work after I had it running and driving again.

I replace the input sprag and planetary on my trans along with seals and the superior shift kit. Replaced exhaust manifold gaskets, plugs, wires and a few other seals on the motor.

So I got all that done and put everything back in the truck. I spent the day filling fluids, inspecting operation, making sure all the usual stuff was working correctly. Took it for a few test drives and the transmission worked flawlessly. Even the slow shift from reverse to drive was fixed.

Short lived success. All of a sudden I noticed a steady leak of trans fluid between the transmission and motor. I'm thinking what is causing it is that I reused the seals on the bolts to mount the bell housing to the case.

Time to pull it back out

 

[partsman48210]

Well it looks like case gasket and bolt seals are where my leak is. Time to order parts

 

[partsman48210]

fixed trans issue

It seems that the trans issue is fixed after pulling it out I found out that the leaking issue was because the overdrive drum was not seated properly when I put the pump on. It tore up the thrust washer, bell housing gasket and seal.


Now I can start on repairing my rust issues. I will update with some pics. In the meantime, if anyone knows where to get replacement rockers, please let me know. If not then I will just sandblast and patch them.