My 2000 5.4l Eddie Bauer 4x4

[Hit By Thunder]

Had a huge reply and lost it. Try again then edit it lol

going to be a long reply but in my threads I like those.

I read your whole thread from begining to end and sure was fun to follow along in your journey, yes you Expy deserves your laying out of your hard earned money. Great job on bring back to life an Expy that just may have been run into the ground with any other owner. Obviously to pride in ownership is there and it shows

interior, dirty and gross,....I think I got you beat there. My $400 Eddie Bauer I think had a dead dog in the back, could not get the smell out of the back. Replaced the carpet from a donor from the wreckers, shampoo'd the metal floor, painted the floor cleaned all plastic trims. My 97 has no rear air and "had" 3rd row seating, all is good now.

seats were replaced with 2003 f150 supercrew seats cloth and heated

yes even my little back flip out windows, the hardware, was painted too, lol. Everything you have done overtime yup been there, and when its all back together its a job well done and done right.

hail damage,...my hood had a corrosion spot about 4" around on the drivers front corner. I replaced it with one from the wreckers $40. When I pulled it, it was very dusty so I didn't want to wipe it, you know black paint. Got it home, washed it, ......bang 27 hail dents. I bought a cheap paintless dent repair kit, you know the ones with the little glue gun in the kit. Works great, pulled them all out with ease(for others reading its hot melt glue and rubbing alcohol does the same thing) blackhood looks breat now lol

your wheels,.....if not too late save the "ugly ones" for winter and use your good ones for summer. Here in Alberta the salt they use to melt the ice is bad on wheels. Any gearhead here has 2sets.

gold trim,....like the one guy said "loose the gold",...well thats to each his own. I am partial to the all black theme. To me any vehicle clean and looked after looks great and yours does just that,....looks great.

thanks for the thread, I will be subscribing and adding you as a friend cause we are alot alike. Keep up with the great posts

ps, you need lightning wheels lol wink wink

 

[ExplorerTom]

Thanks Rob. It's been a journey. An enjoyable one. The old wheels are long gone. Those thing were horrible. To be honest, I wouldn't want to slum it around on those ugly things for half the year just to save my inexpensive current wheels. Plus they don't use salt here so I'm not worried at all.

Also, got the windows tinted today. I went with 30% on all windows.

Just in time for the Mercury to hit the 90s.

 

[Hit By Thunder]

Looks good Tom, my F150 fronts are 30% too and love the look. Want to do my Expy but windows are too scratched up and afraid they will really show the scratches bad. Watching the wreckers for better ones.

 

[ExplorerTom]

My late 20th century truck has finally entered the 21st century with the addition of a DVD player with Bluetooth.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Got the backup camera wired up and working. Probably need to adjust the parking assist lines on the head unit, but it works pretty good.

 

[ExplorerTom]

I don't like chrome but since I have it, might as well make it look decent.

Before:


After:


Before:


After:


The front bumper is pitted pretty good. Not sure if there is too much hope for it to look great.

 

[Hit By Thunder]

Ya Tom I ran out of "elbow grease" on my 3rd one so I blacked out the bumpers lol hehehe sure looks good though. Any chrome thats clean will catch the eye. Great job buddy

 

[ExplorerTom]

Replaced both wheel bearing with Timkens. Pretty sure they were original. No noticeable play in them but I thought I detected some groaning from time to time. 195k miles.



Pretty easy job. 35mm on the axle nut which my impact seemed to easily handle. None of the bolts holding on the caliper or bearing themselves posed any issue either.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Did the water pump and fan clutch last night. My AC performance on hot days while not moving fast was not the best. But once on the highway, it cooled like it should. It's not the blend door and the AC charge is pretty good.

I figured they were both original so if it was my clutch going bad, the water pump was nearing its end as well. I got a new Motorcraft pump off Amazon. The impeller design has changed over the years. The fan clutch is a Hayden heavy duty unit.




Getting the fan/clutch/shroud out is pretty easy- the second time around. I washed the radiator fins out really, really, really well and as a result I thought it was leaking when I started to fill the radiator and went back in with the intention of removing it. Turns out the fins trap a ton of water and that is what I saw dripping. Once I started the motor, the fan sucked all that water out and all over the engine bay.

The new fan clutch seems to draw way more air through the radiator/condenser than the old one. I did all the tests prior to determine if it was bad and didn't come to any conclusive evidence other than seeing somewhere that a fan clutch will lose about 100 RPM a year. If that's true, I was down 1600 RPM. The true test will be today.

 

[reece146]

Tom, did you take a good look at that new impeller design? Off the cuff, and looking at the images, it makes me say "hmmm" with regards to how the shrouded portion is affixed to the blades. Spot welds? Looks well retained?

Probably just enginerd's brain going into analysis paralysis...

This is all PM I need to do with my truck also. I need to take out the heater core so might as well do this at the same time while the system is drained.

 

[ExplorerTom]

I did look at it a little. Seemed pretty sturdy. I wasn't worried.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Added an iPad mount to my dash. It's a Ram Mount with a surface mount. Suction cup mounts are OK but it puts the iPad farther away, they aren't as stable and I can't use my sun shade with it stuck to the window. Only the surface mount ball is permanently in place- the arm and iPad holder get removed between trips.



Also just got back from a 2200 mile trip to a resort near Benton, KY. Truck did fine. Stopped in Uranus, MO on the way back.

 

[Jay87LX]

More pics of Ipad mount please

 

[ExplorerTom]

More pics of Ipad mount please

Here's the surface mount:


Take a look at the Ram Mount website for more detailed pictures of the mount and arm- they have several different styles. Someone gave me this one.

 

[ExplorerTom]

A guy at work drive this Excursion:


Just when I think my Expedition is big, I go and park next to him like this. This much lift, IMO, is too much. Plus it's impossible to get this much lift on an Expedition and keep the torsion bars.

If I do lift, my end goal is to still be able to park in my garage. And there's not a lot of room above the roof rack now. I haven't measured it yet (just moved into new house) but there might be 2-3 inches available.

 

[acolic]

Great thread.

Looking forward to the build.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Replaced all of my steering components today- finally. Over a month ago I noticed some excessive play in the steering with a wheel in the air. And then while driving it would get the shakes. I ordered the parts and they've been sitting due to lack of time (moving into new house and KY road trip).

New parts are in. For the tie rods I also got new adjuster sleeves- not because mine were bad but because I couldn't get the tie rods out of the others.

The pitman arm was a PITA- not much room for the puller. I ended up removing all of the bolts that hold the steering box to the frame so the box could be manipulated enough to get access for the puller.

Once all back together the excessive play is gone! My steering wheel isn't quite straight but it seems to track ok. I'll get an alignment soon. And steering response seems really good now- but maybe I've got some toe out now..... who knows.

No pictures. It was a pretty messy install- lots of grime up there.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Did the Door Seal Mod I found on ford-trucks.com to the front 2 doors:
http://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/593740-doing-the-door-seal-mod-on-the-ex.html
The rear 2 doors and the hatch are yet to come.

WD-40 brand silicone spray worked pretty well for this. Definitely not a single person job- I had my 10 year old help me.

I haven't actually driven it yet but the doors shut much tighter- much more solid. I did notice that at the upper rear corners of the door, the tubing was pulled tight and therefore wasn't making great contact with the seal on the door when it closed. It took some massaging to work some slack into the area, but I think I got a pretty good fit. And I bet over time it'll work the rest of the tension out by itself.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Oh and I got an alignment after the steering work. Prior to the alignment it was VERY responsive above 45 mph. Pretty sure I had some toe out going on.

And the pre-alignment readout confirmed the toe out. Now it's all back within spec and it drives nice and normal now.

 

[ExplorerTom]

Like many 10th gen F-150s and 1st gen Expedition owners, I've had issues with my odometer not always displaying. After watching a YouTube video or 2, I took the instrument cluster out and soldered the circuit board where the problem is supposed to be. I may have seen a crack in the solder joint but it was pretty small. My odometer would go for a long time working just fine and only be out for a short period so this repair will take awhile to show up as fixed.




I didn't get any pictures of the process or with the circuit board out- there's a bunch of videos on how to do it.