Jerry Healy
New Member
- Joined
- September 6, 2008
- Messages
- 1
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- Brookhaven, New York
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 96 XLT
Hi Everyone,
My name is Jerry. I recently retired as a fleet maintenance supervisor for the local gas and electric utility company where I spent 13 years as an automotive and heavy equipment mechanic and 22 years in supervision. I bought my 96 Explorer XLT new and she has been good to me over the years. However, I recently found that she needed some front end work. Having been in the automotive repair field for almost forty years I opted to do the work myself.
The problem I encountered was with the R/S upper control arm assembly and I see from reading posts on this site that a number of you are familiar with the two piece vs one piece designs. After researching several sites I was confident that I could replace my two piece design with a one piece as long as I also replaced the factory non-adjusable cam bolts with adjustable ones. I purchased Moog parts from EnergySuspensionParts.com which included the one piece K80068 and the installation went without incident.
Off to the alignment shop I went. After a while the technician approached me and asked if the original control arm assembly was two piece. He explained that with the one piece design he could not get the camber closer than -1.3 without adversely effecting the caster. He told me I needed to put the two piece assembly in place and that he would re-align the truck for free.
I contacted Energy Suspension Parts and after some research they got back to me and said that ball joint portion of the assembly was available (Moog K8710T), but that there is no aftermarket for the control arm part of the assembly. Now, I could have ended this saga buy purchasing the K8710T and new control arm bushings, but I had committed the cardinal sin of throwing the old parts out before the job was complete (Ouch!).
At this point is was either off to the junk yard or Ford. I chose to call the local Ford dealer and the parstman confirmed he had one on the shelf (Thank God!). I asked him if it was the two piece design and he responded yes. The next day I arrived at the dealer to find that the part had just been sold and was set aside to be delivered. I asked to see the part to verify that it was what I was looking for and to his surprise it was a one piece design. (What's with that anyway? Did some engineer forget to take his medicine the day they designed the frontend? Why would you need different adjustment designs side to side???) Anyway, back to the computer he went and found that the part he had superceeded the original two piece design. Additionally, he saw a notation that said to see the shop manual for alignment information.
Can anyone clarify this? I can get a hold of a shop manual, but I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to introduce myself to your site and hopefully someone will have had a similar experience with a positive outcome that they can share.
Thanks,
Jerry
My name is Jerry. I recently retired as a fleet maintenance supervisor for the local gas and electric utility company where I spent 13 years as an automotive and heavy equipment mechanic and 22 years in supervision. I bought my 96 Explorer XLT new and she has been good to me over the years. However, I recently found that she needed some front end work. Having been in the automotive repair field for almost forty years I opted to do the work myself.
The problem I encountered was with the R/S upper control arm assembly and I see from reading posts on this site that a number of you are familiar with the two piece vs one piece designs. After researching several sites I was confident that I could replace my two piece design with a one piece as long as I also replaced the factory non-adjusable cam bolts with adjustable ones. I purchased Moog parts from EnergySuspensionParts.com which included the one piece K80068 and the installation went without incident.
Off to the alignment shop I went. After a while the technician approached me and asked if the original control arm assembly was two piece. He explained that with the one piece design he could not get the camber closer than -1.3 without adversely effecting the caster. He told me I needed to put the two piece assembly in place and that he would re-align the truck for free.
I contacted Energy Suspension Parts and after some research they got back to me and said that ball joint portion of the assembly was available (Moog K8710T), but that there is no aftermarket for the control arm part of the assembly. Now, I could have ended this saga buy purchasing the K8710T and new control arm bushings, but I had committed the cardinal sin of throwing the old parts out before the job was complete (Ouch!).
At this point is was either off to the junk yard or Ford. I chose to call the local Ford dealer and the parstman confirmed he had one on the shelf (Thank God!). I asked him if it was the two piece design and he responded yes. The next day I arrived at the dealer to find that the part had just been sold and was set aside to be delivered. I asked to see the part to verify that it was what I was looking for and to his surprise it was a one piece design. (What's with that anyway? Did some engineer forget to take his medicine the day they designed the frontend? Why would you need different adjustment designs side to side???) Anyway, back to the computer he went and found that the part he had superceeded the original two piece design. Additionally, he saw a notation that said to see the shop manual for alignment information.
Can anyone clarify this? I can get a hold of a shop manual, but I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to introduce myself to your site and hopefully someone will have had a similar experience with a positive outcome that they can share.
Thanks,
Jerry
