My 2011 Expedition EL Limited

[CVguy]

I’ve been super busy lately, haven’t had much of a chance to update this thread.


September 13th 2024, Can you spot the coolant leak? This was due to the driver’s side coolant crossover gasket failing. An unwelcome surprise on my way to night shift...

With the cooling system already needing attention, I decided to go through and replace everything while I was at it.

267,114 miles, new crossover gasket (only the driver’s side can be replaced without removing the entire intake manifold), Motorcraft thermostat, Motorcraft water pump, and Motorcraft VC-13 “yellow” coolant. The water pump was cheap insurance, in case the original 267K mile pump decided to fail next.

Side note about that coolant - Ford started using orange coolant in 2011, which is what this car had in it. They recently (within the last handful of years) released the yellow coolant which is backwards-compatible with the orange. However, it cannot be mixed with the 2010 and older gold coolant due to the different coolant types chemically reacting with each other. Food for thought for those of you with later 2011+ 3rd gens.

Now that all the excitement was dealt with… Back to the fun stuff!


I’d been wanting a way to keep an eye on the transmission temperature, among other things, so I picked up this super snazzy UltraGauge MX v1.4 (not a sponsor). This allows me to monitor coolant and transmission temp, and battery voltage better than the little dummy gauges in the cluster can.


October 4th 2024, 267,963 miles. Oil change day.

I’ve been using Valvoline Restore and Protect 5W30 (again, not a sponsor... sadly) for the last couple oil changes. It’s supposed to be full to detergents that help clean out sludge and reduce buildup. This is what that oil looks like after 4,000 miles, nice and dark. To the naked eye I’d say it’s working as advertised, it definitely can’t hurt anything and I’m sure this engine doesn’t exactly look spotless on the inside after 267K miles.


November 6th 2024, reached another milestone. Pretty crappy looking picture, but you get the idea. Getting closer to 270K at the time of writing this post.

Here in a little bit, I’ll be replacing the spark plugs and changing the transmission fluid/filter. I’d like to get that knocked out before the snow starts falling soon.

 

[CVguy]

You could probably guess by my signature that I also have an affinity for Ford Panther cars.

This hobby obsession leads me on a lot of unusual adventures. So, when a 2003 Lincoln Town Car (very similar to the one I own) popped up as a part-out 2.5 hours away east of Columbus, the Expedition made light work of it.



Turns out you can fit 99% of a Town Car interior (literally the whole complete thing, minus the front seats) plus a door in the back of an Expedition EL, with room to see out the rearview mirror. This thing is an absolute workhorse, handles everything I throw at it, and it's a lot of fun using it for hauling stuff like this. I've actually hauled racing go-karts with it in a similar fashion. But I digress...



These parts will be used to finish restoring my fixer-upper 2003 Town Car, which was a mouse hotel back when it sat for over a decade - hence this totally new interior that it needs now.



This will be a fun puzzle to deal with later…

Remember a while back I mentioned this car came from Granville OH? The drive out east took me right through its old home town.


Enjoy an old pic from back in summer. Missing the warm weather and sunshine already.

 

[ExplorerTom]

I have an Ultragauge as well. Love it. I’ve got it set up to display 8 gauges.

 

[CVguy]

I have an Ultragauge as well. Love it. I’ve got it set up to display 8 gauges.

These things are awesome. I much prefer the larger display on the UltraGauge over its rival, Scan Gauge. If I ever get around to it, I'd like to configure a couple extra displays with more gauges too. Definitely a worthwhile thing to have!

 

[1111ExpyEL1111]

I wish my 2012 Expy EL Limited (and 2016 shortie) had fixed running boards! Have retractable boards on both and they are a PITA to keep functionable here in Wisconsin. Ford really 'effed up in my opinion for not making them greaseable, or at least making it easy to remove, lubricate and reinstall the pins.

EDIT - is there ANYTHING that can be done to be able to brighten the numbers/letters in the dash readout during the day? It's nearly impossible to read during the daytime.

 

[CVguy]

I wish my 2012 Expy EL Limited (and 2016 shortie) had fixed running boards! Have retractable boards on both and they are a PITA to keep functionable here in Wisconsin. Ford really 'effed up in my opinion for not making them greaseable, or at least making it easy to remove, lubricate and reinstall the pins.

One solution I could see for that would be to disassemble the hinges and drill and tap some grease fittings in them. That’s something I’m considering trying out with my old running board hinges.

EDIT - is there ANYTHING that can be done to be able to brighten the numbers/letters in the dash readout during the day? It's nearly impossible to read during the daytime.

Is your backlight dimmer wheel turned all the way up? Usually I can read my digital display pretty clearly unless there’s insane glare, like driving during sunrise/sunset.

 

[1111ExpyEL1111]

Yes

 

[GlennSullivan]

Those 2010 - 2014 DICs are known to be ridiculously low light

 

[1111ExpyEL1111]

Those 2010 - 2014 DICs are known to be ridiculously low light

God I wish there was a way to make them brighter!!!

 

[GlennSullivan]

God I wish there was a way to make them brighter!!!

You and every other person that owns one! At one point I had a 2011 and a 2014 and they both had the same issue. The 2011 now lives at our place in FL and if you leave the sunroof or sunroof shade open the display is completely invisible.

 

[914rrr]

Encouraging to hear. Love Our 2011 Navigator w 130,000 miles. Bought it from a dealer as a one lady Dr. owner trade-in from FL with 80,000 miles on it.

 

[CVguy]

Mileage is 270,540 as of January 5th 2025. Recently topped up the oil with half a quart when I last got gas. No new issues to report.



Gave the Expedition a much-needed interior detail. Vacuumed the trunk area and wiped down the floor mats with a damp cloth.
So far I'm liking the Husky mats, they cleaned up very nicely with minimal effort. They've settled and formed nicely to the shape of the floor, no weird warping either.





While I was at it, I re-did the passenger side ambient light bar (from the Ford Accessories kit) by removing some plastic wire clips and tucking the bar up above the metal tabs with zip ties to keep it in place. Helps it look more factory in my opinion.


I also replaced the battery after a recent cold snap killed my old one. Went with a Duralast AGM from AutoZone. Ever since the battery replacement, the ambient lighting started working again. I guess the lighting module was not so happy with the old weak battery... Nice that took care of that issue! One less thing for me to deal with later.

I also just finished an HID projector retrofit, which I will likely outline in a separate thread here in a little bit. For now, here's a pic of them installed on the car.

 

[CVguy]

Made it through winter without a whole lot of excitement. Replaced the driver’s front window regulator back in February or so, along with an oil change and all new idler pulleys.

Recently, I replaced the sunroof slide mechanisms, since the left side broke suddenly and would bind up when closing the sunroof.
Not a difficult repair, just time-consuming tearing apart the interior and removing the sunroof assembly. Overall it took me about four hours to complete.





Just recently had the windows tinted as well! Originally I wanted 35% on the front sides and the rear factory tint taken from ~20% down to 10-15%.
What the tint shop ended up doing instead was applying 15% tint over the factory tint… I guess their instructions weren’t clear enough.
So now it’s extra-dark back there. They’ve offered to redo it for me since it was substantially darker than what I’d actually wanted. I don’t hate it, but I still haven’t decided if I’m keeping the limo tint or having it redone.

At any rate, having some quality ceramic tint has helped cut down on heat in the sun dramatically. Especially with the black interior.



The window tint makes a huge difference appearance-wise too. Here she is back at Red River Gorge KY during our day trip yesterday.

As of today, writing this thread, the Expedition has 273,550 miles on it. Hasn’t seen much use other than around town errands since I’ve been commuting with my Jetta TDI for work.

Once the weather starts improving, it will be time to catch up on some maintenance since I didn’t get around to certain items before winter. Spark plugs, transmission service, etc.

I’ll try and be back with updates once I get those knocked out.

 

[Limoguy25]

I wish my 2012 Expy EL Limited (and 2016 shortie) had fixed running boards! Have retractable boards on both and they are a PITA to keep functionable here in Wisconsin. Ford really 'effed up in my opinion for not making them greaseable, or at least making it easy to remove, lubricate and reinstall the pins.

I bought my 2014 Max Limited without any running boards. I installed aftermarket boards, if anyone replaces theirs I would like to buy them.

EDIT - is there ANYTHING that can be done to be able to brighten the numbers/letters in the dash readout during the day? It's nearly impossible to read during the daytime.

 

[aptroxel]

I just got my King Ranch last month. 2014 and just turned over 178k. So far so good! I flew to Idaho me drove it 550 miles home. About to test fit these bad boys.