The rig gets some much needed TLC | Page 14 | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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The rig gets some much needed TLC

Josh S - rear glass, suspension, manual tcase

Hey guys I'm back! Well it's been a while since I've done anything major to my truck and it's high time! For starters, I've been running off of one shock in the rear forever and the shock will bottom out if I hit too hard. It was just a thrown together setup cuz I got some free 5150's so I slapped em on.

Anyways, it now has 1.5" per side widened beams up front with rigid bumpstops, kings, eibach coils still. The front end hangs pretty good right now minus the jacked alignment, but that's alright for now cuz I haven't been driving much.

The imminent plans include:
1) Cleaning up the rear fender hackage, round the corners and trim up the body straight so it looks cleaner, then maybe wrap the edges into the wheelwell.

2) mount the rear fiberglass quarter panels. These will be ordered in the next few days from Fiberwerx. I have the mounts already for the fenders, courtesy of Camburg. These are preferable and less of a PITA that dzus fasteners, and I like the look too.
Fenderwasherkit.jpg


3)finish rear suspension. This will involve the most work. after a lot of thought over the past year or two(while not having any spare $$), I have decided to keep the shocks under the bed instead of coming up through the floor. I have been in Sirhk100's old X that was set up this way and it hung hard enough for what I plan on doing. I just would like to bomb around the desert mildly(not fullon race speeds) with a bit of jumping in the mix, with also doing trails of course.

Having Kings up front I would like to stick with em, and also match them with 2.5s. I'm having trouble finding some used right now so they may have to be ordered new :( I'm estimating that I will need around a 10" stroke, but cycling will tell the truth.

I will disassemble the Deaver leaf pack that is on there currently, and just have the main leaf to cycle the suspension, and get some rough measurements off of an "imaginary" upper mount, then I will know the right length to get. A crossmember will need to be fabbed for the shocks to mount to, as well as some of the stock spare tire mount cut off. gooood, my sawzall is getting a bit of dust settling on it :D

in this same time I will mount my Radflo 2" stroke hydro bumps in the cans I just picked up from Camburg. These will be nice for the harder hits in the whoops or on dropoffs or mild jumps. The short stroke and bodies of these custom bumps work great for mounting under our explorers and fitting underneath the floor. After this is complete I will measure for and order some limit straps to keep my leaf pack and shocks together at droop.

While this doesn't sound like a whole lot, it's going to be a lot of work for me but I know it is going to be awesome!

One more current event lol...I ordered a manual t-case from a guy that will be waiting for me when I get back to Chico. Just need to track down some linkage and a shifter and I'll toss that baby in to get rid of these darn shift motor blues :rolleyes:

I'm down in OC right now and won't be back up home to the truck in chico for another week or so, so not really any pics of the stuff...but you can count on this thread having mad amounts of pics once the work starts!!!
 



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37's
 






I think everyone is pretty much going to say 37's. :D
 






Had a few too many last night and inadvertently blew the majority of my paycheck on some goodies for the race motor:D
Hooker Blockhugger headers
hok-2001hkr_w.jpg

K&N 4"x14" intake
knn-60-1290_w.jpg

Trickflow fabricated aluminum valve covers
tfs-31500803.jpg


Also threw together the crappy mockup motor last night, waiting on the rest of the parts i just ordered to get the footprint for building around. Need to get my tires and beadlocks...looking at Walker Evans beadlocks, 17"
 






Never go grocery shopping when hungry, and never buy goodies for your truck when intoxicated.

And i vote 37s too. :)
 






Never go grocery shopping when hungry, and never buy goodies for your truck when intoxicated.

And i vote 37s too. :)

Words of wisdom! :chug: I ALWAYS find myself grocery shopping when I am super hungry, buy $100 worth of crap then get home and wonder what the heck I am going to eat for dinner??

I'll go take a snapshot of the mockup motor for kicks...Warning: It ain't pretty!

I'm kinda leaning towards MT/R's for this thing, what do y'all think? I always thought I wanted BFG AT's for the desert, but I'm thinking I need something more aggresive.
 






I just re-read the whole thread from the beginning and WOW I used to do some pretty hack work lol. Thanks to y'all for supporting me along the way. Here are a couple pics of the crappy mock-up motor. Remember, this is a MOCK-UP MOTOR which does not represent the motor that will eventually be dropped into this truck.

It was definitely interesting for me to go back and look at the old crappy shock hoops I was trying to wedge around the brake booster. Learned my lesson...never try to "half" build a truck, you need to go all the way.

P3140060.jpg

P3140059.jpg


Ohhhhhhh and for another interesting update...you guys remember that sweet ranger I built this summer? 2000 4x4 4.0L DBR kit? Yep, turns out it will soon be mine.Thread here

Selling this:
P7030001.jpg


For this:
P8150005.jpg
 












Got some welding that needed to be done on the cage finished, gonna be a PITA to fix the body lol...Bondo;)
P3140006.jpg


Got the driver's seat in, need to make more tabs to mount the pass side.
P4040002.jpg


Rolled a new 35" BFG KM2 from a customer's rig over to the explorer for fun. I'm thinkin 35's are gonna be the ticket.
P4040005.jpg
 






37 37 37 cough cough

check out the Mickey Thompson Baja MTZ, its a great tire for a mostly trail rig IMO, sand, rocks, mud, snow, these tires kick ass

I love the MTR but they are getting to be old technology
 












your welds are amazing, subscribing
 












anything new?
 












subscribing
 






Well she is for sale sadly. Don't have enough time/$$$ to build two rigs and the ranger has more potential for what I intend to do. It is a great platform with all of the PITA work already done. Just needs suspension and a driveline!:p:
 



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What ever happened with this Exploder? Did it get sold o finished
 






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