What to do? trash or build the Explorer more | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

  • Register Today It's free!

What to do? trash or build the Explorer more

Dannyboy

Other Make & Models Mod
Elite Explorer
Moderator Emeritus
Joined
February 16, 2001
Messages
5,418
Reaction score
25
City, State
43°48′48″N 91°13′59″W
Year, Model & Trim Level
91 4 do'
Well, after yet another mild 4 wheeling trip turned ugly I'm trying to figure out what the next move for my Explorer should be. I've spent 8 years with this truck and I swear if it could happen, it's happened to me.

I've tried hard to build it to go, but I've got a bad habit of 4 wheeling like a crazed fool sometimes. Everytime I wheel with Rick something bad happens, and it's not even on the hard trails. This time the tranny is completely toasted per our run last sunday. Now I need to decide if I want to rebuild the A4LD again (I've got a shop that can build it for $3K www.HillKiller.com) to be as strong as possible, or build the 700R4 installed for about $5900. I don't have the time or knowledge to learn about tranny swaps so these 2 options are there. When they are done with it the 700R4 should be unbeatable, but knowing me it's not the case

OR

Do I look for a manual 4 door Explorer and move everything over

Or

Do I part her out? I've made friends of ten years on this site, not owning an Explorer wouldn't feel right. Part of me wants to pick up a '94 Limited for $3K with a stock tranny and start over on the same truck, but this time it won't have 8 years of my mistakes being patched up all over it. A fresh body, good interior, working AC, no rust and run that out for a while, then build the tranny for a later date.
 



Join the Elite Explorers for $20 each year.
Elite Explorer members see no advertisements, no banner ads, no double underlined links,.
Add an avatar, upload photo attachments, and more!
.





I bet you could do the 700r4 swap for cheaper then almost 6k. Look for bkennedy thread on his swap using a jeep t case instead of the ranger. it seems to be the best bang for the buck way to go. He has all the parts figured out just collect them all up and a shop should be able to stuff them in pretty easy.
 






Since you are not driving this on the streets that much anymore, why not look into the C4/5 as a swap. A 700R4 is a lot of money to keep an overdrive that you don't really need/use. There are several on here that have gone this route as well.
 






I PMed our resident tranny guru to see if he would be interested in doing a rebuild for you. If he did, you can bet it would be as strong as possible.

Here is yet another option, http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150239 his kit will allow you to run any tranny that was behind a small block Ford behind your 4.0 V-6.
 






5.0 swap?! :D
 












Michael's suggestion is the best so far.

Swap in a C4/5, fix up the other misc stuff like A/C and hit the road/trails!
 






Thanks for the tips guys. I've made friends with the owner of www.hillkiller.com about a year ago in my boat business, made him some good deals knowing this day would come. They tack on about $1000-1500 in goodies for their fully built trannys and claim them to work really well, but also told me their 700R4 is 90-100% stronger than the A4ld.

There's so many explorers in the phx trader for $2k that I'm sure have been grocery getters for 10 years that it seems too easy to consider that route first, maybe even a 5spd.
 






Swap the drivetrain from your new to you F-350 into your explorer! :)
 






dude, i tihnk your gettin ripped on that tranny rebuild, or at least ya need to make friends with someone who is in that field, a long time ago when i traded my tahoe for a 4dr 2wd auto explorer and a 97 taurus, i found out from him that the tranny in the explorer that he had, was built by a buddy at a tranny shop, $1200 and it was built to all hell, it had drilled passages, all the high stress shift bands, pretty much built bulletproof, it was literally built to handle full throttle drag racing, they put a 2500 stall converter in with the tranny, heh, lets just say it was sluggish if you tried slowly accelerating, but stomp it and it would get up and go like all hell (quicker than a guy can get out of a bedroom when a redneck dad finds ya with his daughter), ship it down here and i could get it rebuilt for ya as a favor
 






DAMN $5900! My 700R4 swap cost me less than $2500!
 






full foot notch said:
ship it down here and i could get it rebuilt for ya as a favor
as a favor wow!!!!
 






YEAH, I'm open for ideas. I know I'm paying out the @ss in labor, but I'm working over 50-60 hours a week at this time of year and don't have free time to work on anything else.

If anyone wants some cash, I'm open for ideas
 






I hope you're not considering the $5900 Dan. For that much I think you could buy two rebuilt trannys and carry one as a spare;)

Which way do you want to go? A built up C4/C5 is a good choice for an automatic, but you lose OD and it may have trouble passing emissions if you don't switch to a computer from a manual trans truck.

The 700R4 swap has worked well for some. I think Brian Kennedy and Diffwhackdaddy both like their tranny swaps, but Maniac and Jefe both have had problems. Decisons desicions;)

I'm moving this thread to the transmission forum.
 






I offered a Frankentranny for $2k. Just so everyone knows that option is available. I also want to see a "bulletproof" A4LD from a shop and what goes into it.
 






Hell mate, I'm with whoever said 'put the F-350 tranny in your X'....sounds like a good idea......or you could prob'ly get another F-250/350 tranny for the kinda money u r talkin' about spendin'....just get this guys kit then buy a tranny outta a F350 diesel, then u could go anywhere w/o worrying about trashin' the tranny, what ya' think guys? :)
 












Back
Top