The 4.0 Swap was chump change compared to this - Look inside... | Page 46 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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The 4.0 Swap was chump change compared to this - Look inside...

Nice job on those hinges...Come on Summer time.
Those Chevy TRE ends not only stronger but have more flex also.
When I did my steering I had a very hard time finding one that had either R or was it L hand threads? Only place I could find it was Parts Mike who told me that he could not get the either so he had to have a bunch made up himself that he sells...Well he did a couple years ago anyway.
Here's his link to his TRE page great info with pics if you scroll down. He even sells to us Bronco guys.
http://www.partsmike.com/tech-help/tr-dl-id
 



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as predicted, a nod to Rookieshooter here, my shock towers have been having problems, I cut them both off and I am going to build a triangle shaped gusset off the back so I have more support and surface area to weld to. my driver side shock mount came off and dented my hood lol. shouldn't have gotten myself in such a damn hurry.
 






Any time frame on the roll cage? I know I keep bringing it up, just don't need ya all banged up. It's not like you guys don't do hard trails out there. Also wondering about once you remove the doors, will there be any side protection in that area, as in tube doors? I know you guys wheel hard, and don't need to get those sharp lava rocks inside the cab area.
 






Any time frame on the roll cage? I know I keep bringing it up, just don't need ya all banged up. It's not like you guys don't do hard trails out there. Also wondering about once you remove the doors, will there be any side protection in that area, as in tube doors? I know you guys wheel hard, and don't need to get those sharp lava rocks inside the cab area.

yeah one of our friends who has a desert race/prerunner shop is having a show/get together at the end of march and the bdos needs to be caged and have a front bumper built, soon this month its cage time, we have a samurai in the shop we are waiting on a part for and then we will have space. so while i'm waiting to clean up the shop and get caged I am going to pull out my front axle, build a truss, build a new passenger side link mount(like the driver one I built last year), and I need to relocate my panhard mount and clearance the driver side coil mount for the new steering, hoping to get a solid start on that this weekend.

Yeah I am gonna have a door bar inside so that the door will still fit on, it will be done after I finish the cage, and I will probably put plexiglass inserts on it for stickers and such. I am hoping to run in a 5 event rock crawling series here in Idaho called Idaho x rocks, i'll run in the 35" tire and under class, based on previous competitors even with an open front I should at least be competitive, we will see how it goes I guess.
 






ok I needed an axle truss, i'm not going to have the dinero to build the d44 this year so the d30 is going to have to stay. so last night I went over to the shop and put this together,

cleaned up the axle tube,
3E0-20E2561CA0ED-8191-00000965E613191A_zpsd2688073.jpg


I got a piece of 3" .25" wall tube (od of the d30 axle tube is 2.5") and split it in half with the plasma cutter, and cut rounded rectangle windows in to make them look cool and give me more surface area to weld to.
B21-5DE93A70D1ED-8191-00000965EDD817FB_zpsd5abc58b.jpg

B56-F3C1E96148BC-8191-00000965F632E872_zpsd7417f55.jpg


then I clamped them on, I extended the bottom piece all the way under the coil bucket, so it goes all the way to the C, and tacked them in place.
FEF-0B85B4665837-8191-000009660352D919_zpsf20d0cfe.jpg


I welded the seams first, and ground them smooth to make it look like one piece,
488-0206A0687750-8191-00000966145A60D1_zpsb69330fd.jpg


and then burned in the "windows" there are 5 in total,
408-6B4475D2F200-8191-000009661EFB93E0_zpseded440d.jpg


not a great photo but here it is all finished up. now I need to build a link mount for the passenger side and completely redo my panhard mount, the current one is hideous and its in the way of my new ruffstuff steering that is supposed to be here today. its a lot of work for a dana 30, but I think that it will probably go in the front of my Explorer when I put the 44 in the bdos so a little extra fab time will make it useable for both.
 






alrighty so I finished assembling everything and started on my steering, first I measured and cut the tie rod and then installed the axle, with it in I measured for my drag link, and welded them up, no pics all kind of boring stuff. I did decide that I wanted a brighter color for my steering so that spotters would pay more attention to it so I painted it the same red as the stripe on the bottome of the rig and the front bumper,
B27-61189276420E-5709-000007F89B0FF7A1_zpsddd1c4ab.jpg


now I reamed my knuckles for chev 1 ton TRE's and had just finished up my pitman arm, which took forever, and realized I had a problem, bk I had gone knuckle over my drag link and panhard were waaaaay different angles,
E77-68D4F548CA7B-5709-000007F8AFECC682_zpsf143b8e5.jpg


enter a good friend of mine with a prerunner/desert racing shop, they have 2wd rangers galore over there, and I was able to score a flat pitman, I reamed it out today and this is the geometry I came up with, not perfect but much better,
207-2643C649FED4-5709-000007F8B70ED8F8_zps43533393.jpg


went for the first test drive and I can tell you that my previous steering set up was very sketchy compared to this new set up, it drives great, plus I have 1 ton TRE's, my steering is made of 1.5x.25" round and its about 2.75" higher that my old steering was. VERY worthy modification, I had a small amount of money to spend and I'm glad this is what I spent it on. I have a few rigs in the shop that need some finishing touches and then i'll have the SlaveII in the shop for a cage. here are a couple random pics after I drove it,
333-D38050D9BCBA-5709-000007F8BFE4C4AA_zps0f552fad.jpg


E7D-E47F7FD1C6F3-5709-000007F9467C6955_zps26d3c7bd.jpg
 






Looks good, the change of pitman arm changed the angles considerably. Looks like you removed some of the lower part of the engine cross member.
When you go to the 44, have you gave it any thought on a High Steer kit? Besides the obvious benefits, it would also produce some shallow angles for the drag link compared to the steering link. Just make sure the track bar is same. In fact on mine it put the drag link so low that I had to mount the TRE that went to the pitman arm from bottom mount to top mount. But eliminated all bump steer cause of the shallow angles.
 






Looks great man. I dont know why I ever decided to use Heim Joints on my steering instead of Tie Rod Ends. The Tie rod ends were such an improvement! The lasted longer than a year too. There are some poly bushings you can buy that replace the boots on the tie rod and also eleminate the dead spot in the steering caused by the tie rod rolling to the front or the back. Cheap too. JCRoffroad http://www.jcroffroad.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_code=J&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PLYBSH
steeringbushinginstalled.jpg
 






Looks like you removed some of the lower part of the engine cross member.
When you go to the 44, have you gave it any thought on a High Steer kit?
Yeah I cut that part of the crossmembe out when I originally did the SAS, next winter i'm gonna pull my engine and get rid of it all together, build a tube replacement. when I go to 44 I think I will go to full hydro and back half the BII, 4 link rear, basically a buggy, this thing is going to go as hardcore as possible now that I have the explorer as the "mild wheeler", that will actually be the new home of the d30 and this steering kit. I also have new plans regarding the d44 swap. I have a waggy 44 but it it low pinion, my dad has a HP44 but its closed knuckle/drum brake, the plan is to cut the knuckles off and narrow it to waggy width, then weld new C's on, that way I can set pinion angle and caster to my absolute satisfaction and I'll have a better center chunk besides. so the 44 swap will take a bit longer but will be much cooler when done.

Looks great man. I dont know why I ever decided to use Heim Joints on my steering instead of Tie Rod Ends. The Tie rod ends were such an improvement! The lasted longer than a year too. There are some poly bushings you can buy that replace the boots on the tie rod and also eleminate the dead spot in the steering caused by the tie rod rolling to the front or the back. Cheap too. JCRoffroad http://www.jcroffroad.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Store_code=J&Screen=PROD&Product_Code=PLYBSH
steeringbushinginstalled.jpg

Thanks Kirby i'm pretty glad I went TRE's as well, i've driven rigs with heims in the steering, and they get sloppy with a year or 2, and I plan on reusing this steering on my explorer along with the dana 30. i'm going to order a set of those bushings, I could feel the dead spot in the middle, this should just make it handle that much better, do you need them on all 4 or just the tie rod ones?
 






Just the Tie Rod ones. Lets hear the details on the 44 build plans. I know how I would do it if I had it to do again.
 












Just the Tie Rod ones. Lets hear the details on the 44 build plans. I know how I would do it if I had it to do again.

well its a hp 44, when I change axles i'm going to go to 4.88's, with my doubler its reasonably low but a bit lower would be nice, currentley have 3.73's. so i'll regear it, probably run a spartan(I get dealer pricing on yukon stuff) wagoneer length chromos. the tricky part about this one is i'll probably need to cut down both sides of the tubes, I'm sure that the short side is longer on a full size ford than on a wagoneer, but I have to change the c's anyway so no big deal. I have a pile of chevy 10 bolts, the c's should be the same, i'll just chop those off, don't want to ruin this waggy housing, I think my cousin might use it. but I think i'm gonna set caster at around 6deg with the pinion pointed straight at the tcase. I'm going to do a full truss that goes over the top of the center chunk for this one, bk i'm going to need it for the upper link mount. when I do all this the bdos is gonna be relegated to full on buggy status, so I think i'll just go to full hydro, seems like a smarter plan than buying a whole new steering kit, and hydro assist and getting less performance from my steering set up. basically want to build the ultimate 44, I plan on running 37-38" tire and its a pretty light vehicle. I think the wheelbase might need to stretch as well, i'm at 100" right now, but when I backhalf and link the rear 6 extra inches won't be a big deal. I also want to shave my 8.8, always thought it would be cool to do just for kicks, that stupid lip on the bottom has held me up a few times.

any suggestions beyond that rambling mess?
 






freaking brake line started leaking on me, was coming up on a T intersection and I pushed my brakes almost all the way to the floor, thank god I still had a little in the front. made it home and realized all my brake lines in the rear are rusted pieces of shiz. guess i'll fix all that this afternoon, annoyingly my explorer is taking up my garage waiting for wheel bearings, so i'll have to fix the brakes on the wet gravel in my driveway, lame.
 












You know you're welcome to use my garage and tools...

that would require about 3 hrs of tool organizing so I think I'll pass. On the other hand if I show up at the right time I can get fed delicious food by your gorgeous wife, its something to think about :D
 












Thats a good point... What if I go and arrange the tools for you, should take me about 15 minutes...

lmfao yeah sure, 15 min. I can't drive the thing anywhere anyway, it has 0 brakes now
 









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