What Did You Do To Your 3rd Gen Today?

[Tyleryac]

After the professional detail, the car is BRAND NEW. It looks even better in person.

 

[Number4]

Looks good Tyler. Does look new.

 

[Georgeandkira]

Hello, +1 on Tyler's good looks. Keep it up!

I helped my friend's son do a pan and filter drop on Saturday.
4.5 quarts of Mercon V at ambient temperature.
Bled off excess ON LEVEL GROUND after warm-up the following day.
Only 5-6 ounces dripped out.

What a needless annoyance those "bottom fillers" are ESPECIALLY in a Ford truck.

What's the name of that dopey fitting? What's the size of the O ring?

This is my first real post. You guys are cool. Kira

 

[Winterforge]

This week

This week? Bought an 03 Exp EB V8 4x4. Recharged the A/C and replaced 4 bad bulbs in the 3rd brake light. Replacing a burned out "fog" light tonight. Waiting until the weekend to try and find the broken wire in the drivers side door. :navajo:

 

[wbrudi28]

After the professional detail, the car is BRAND NEW. It looks even better in person.

looks great man. where are those tail lights from? i like them, they dont look too "ricey" for aftermarket tails.

 

[5whiskey]

So my 3rd gen has been one headache after the other... albeit at least one issue was my fault.

So I replaced the intake manifold because it had a major coolant leak (posted that way earlier). Well, genius me puts everything back together properly except I don't re-clamp the upper coolant hose on the T-stat housing. So I'm driving for probably 100 miles after the repair and the weather starts to warm up. Then my truck starts skipping. After a bit of investigation I learn that I have random misfires on cylinder 3 and 5. After looking further, I pull the COP on cylinder 5 and find the coil-over boot drenched in coolant. Sure enough the plug was swimming. I notice that I didn't replace the clamp on the upper coolant hose. I did that, changed the plugs, pulled all the coil-over-plugs and let them dry out (cylinder 8 was wet too... can't figure out how). Still skipping.

At this point it ran fine until the engine heated up. I've read up here and in other forums that this is a surefire sign of a faulty COP (skipping after warming up). Purchased a new COP. Driving home, planning to replace it and test drive, the rear driver side wheel bearing that had been whining decided to start grinding. So... fought that battle this week. After tearing into the rear hub I notice the parking brake pads had nothing left (knew the parking brake was out but didn't really care enough to investigate). Well now that I'm knee deep into a wheel bearing job it would be dumb to not replace the parking brake shoes while I'm here. Get it all back together tonight, drive it a good long minute (about 50 miles to be sure), and all appears well. I did in fact need that COP. I drove it without replacing it only to see my Ex start skipping again (just wanted to make sure). I replaced it, drove another 30 miles, and everything seems okay now.

Thus far (in about 8k miles and less than a year) I have...
-replaced the heater control valve (15)
-cylinder head temp sensor (15)
-new tires (450)
-intake manifold (80 with tools)
-Coil-over-plug (44)
-rear wheel bearing (120 with tools)
-front ball joints (35)
-sway bar end links (20)
-parking brake shoes (12)
-rear diff. fluid change because the LSD was chattering (35)

So can I say I miss my 2nd gen Ex now? I know some of the above was maintenance, but some of it was poor design (plastic coolant channel in the intake manifold, really??? Plus the wheel bearing issue...). Alas, I wanted my third gen so I got it. Problems and all:roll:

 

[Tyleryac]

Recharged the AC with "AC Pro"

 

[Tyleryac]

looks great man. where are those tail lights from? i like them, they dont look too "ricey" for aftermarket tails.

Here are the tail lights I bought...

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ford-Explorer-02-2005-Factory-Style-RED-CLEAR-LED-Tail-Light-Brake-Lamp-Assembly-/191225137149?fits=Year%3A2005%7CMake%3AFord%7CModel%3AExplorer&hash=item2c85e807fd&vxp=mtr

 

[apenland01]

Just finished

Finally got the front wheel bearing hubs done today with new rotors and pads. Drove it to Discount Tire and got new tires. noises all gone.......finally......

 

[mcclain61]

I'm normally against the night shades crap because people tend to lay it on way to dark or they suck at spaying and it gets globby but I think mine turned out pretty good

Just done the 3rd brake light for now

Oh and I pulled it off the explorer and completely apart wet sander with 100grt turned out fairly glossy

 

[Limited02]

I'm normally against the night shades crap because people tend to lay it on way to dark or they suck at spaying and it gets globby but I think mine turned out pretty good

Just done the 3rd brake light for now

Oh and I pulled it off the explorer and completely apart wet sander with 100grt turned out fairly glossy

Nice! I think you mean 1000 grit because I can't see 100 grit ever being glossy

 

[mcclain61]

Nope used 100 on the light before spraying it in about a week I'll hit it with some gloss clear

 

[Limited02]

Nope used 100 on the light before spraying it in about a week I'll hit it with some gloss clear

Interesting because 100 grit is fairly coarse and I imagine it'd leave lines. Either way it seems to have worked out and looks good.

 

[Joe in NY]

I flushed my entire brake system. Fluid was nasty! Oh yeah, guys, brakes fluid is supposed to be clear, not green! Brakes feel much better

Also, grabbed my paint gun and filled the can full of used motor oil and started spraying down the underside. Worked far better than I would have thought!

Reason for doing so is my Explorer is southern car and only surface rust on the welds for the frame and the running board brackets. The NY winters have taken a toll on our 07 Suburban and I don't want that happening to my Explorer. 74,000 and rust free!

 

[PeteSlev]

Good idea Joe in NY, for spraying your under carriage. There is a product we use in aerospace by Loctite called Maxi- coat. We use it to protect our steel tooling when stored out side.
Started soaking front axel nuts and bolts with PB for bearing replacement.

 

[WhiteTrash]

More like what did I do this week...
Wash and waxed. New tires. Replaced both rear coils overs as both were broken, more like shattered. Replaced both front upper ball joints and both sway bar links.
I normally have my friend do all the work on my cars because I just hate working on my cars but now I want to learn and hes been patient with showing me what to do and helping me along and it feels great to fix even these simple issues almost completely on my own.

 

[rkh58]

Gave my new to me 3rd Gen some love today. Good old fashioned hand wash and wax. Followed by some chrome and gray center caps, new window visors, bug deflector and floor mats.
Hopefully it'll stay this way for a day or two.

and 1 more very personal touch......

New bigger rubber next.....so much wheel well, so little tire.

 

[Number4]

Finished up the drivers side grab handle. Installed it a year or so ago but left the hole plugs at the wrecking yard. Finally picked them up, finished the hole so they fit.

 

[Number4]

Apparently this discussion isn't as popular as on the 1st and 5th gens. Seeing as I was the last person to post back in March.

Anyway. In 2008 or so my '05 was mistakenly repo'd. Came out one morning to find it on the curb, facing the wrong direction. Should have been in the driveway. Wasn't until talking to the neighbor a couple days later that I found out what had happened. Repo truck took off with it and then brought it back after realizing they were idiots.

In the mean time, I paid $500 to have this Viper 5701 installed. Overall, the alarm was nice, I've had Vipers before. BUT, the key fobs were the biggest POS's I've ever had (to loosely quote Viper after I called them "these are our most popular fobs.")

More times than I can remember, we'd come back to the car only to find it running. Even if we utilized the "lock remote" function. In my pocket or my wife's purse, the remote start would get activated.

Now, almost a decade later, I finally removed the POS having not used it for some 7 or so years.

Why haven't I used it in 7 or so years? Because the remotes got intimately close to a 5lbs sledge hammer. Photo of what fob should look like attached.

 

[IPcamper]

Wow, someone revived this discussion.
This morning I replaced the front right wheel bearing / hub on our 2003 explorer. I ordered Timkins. It went fairly smoothly until I had to separate the old hub / bearing from the knuckle, no amount of pounding on it would get it started. I took an old brake disc and placed it on the hub and then placed three sockets between the disc and the knuckle, holding the disc about an inch from the hub. I then put the lug nuts back on and tightened then a little at a time to keep even pressure. After a good bit of cranking the hub / bearing was pressed on the knuckle. Tomorrow, I will do the left front bearing.