What can I do to my 07 SSV?

[LiverpoolFC]

I picked up an 07 Expedition SSV at the government auction and I have been stripping off the remainder of the police wiring and equipment. Lots of wires, fuse panels, and even two VHF radio receivers. This will be a project until I can bring it up to somewhat consumer grade, or as close to it as possible.

This truck has 48k miles on it so practically still a baby.

Will update this thread as things happen and post pictures of what I'm doing.

For now, this is what I want to do to it. Would love some feedback as to what can/cannot be done.


1. Head unit swap with Android w/backup camera and possibly proximity sensors.

2. Add 3rd row of seats.

3. Middle row has 2 side seats which I suspect are missing their middle brother since they don't have armrests. Wanting to add a middle floor console and possibly armrests if the console isn't high enough.

4. Strip the vinyl flooring and add carpeting.

5. Add heated element to driver/passenger seats with buttons in center console below the radio.

6. Add center floor console with heater/AC controls for 2nd row. Would of course remove the shifter.

7. Add overhead light console with sunglasses holders.

8. Paint doors to black.

9. Cover the holes in roof.


Following are the pictures I took yesterday as I was working on it.


Stickers removed with heat gun and patience.




Pulled both side panels to discover of wiring and equipment.



But before...had to pull this out of the back. It's huge heavy and I'm sure I will find a use for it somewhere in the garage.



Wires I pulled out of the truck.


And of course, your friendly box of 10 minute flares. WHOHOO!

 

[JExpedition07]

Welcome to the forum and congrats on your purchase

 

[Michael McC]

I used to take the middle seat out of my 2003 for long trips and replace it with an ice chest. 6 or 8 bolts. Still room for family of six with some space between kids. You can probably find a middle seat at a junkyard if you want.

 

[Adieu]

Cool flares, wish mine came with that.

Middle midrow seat will fit, however find it more convenient without one installed. Ditto on the armrest console, kinda nice to have a walkway all the way front to back.

Strange yours doesnt have a sunglass holder or lights, my SSV came with a standard headliner which had those...does yours have vents for rear A/C at least?

Mine was OK but I hated the grey color and replaced it with a camel EB liner from a junkyard for ~$100... vents lined up and worked, wiring plugged right in. Btw mine is an '09 the donor was '07 and that wasnt a problem.

With doors the way they are, probably easiest to vinyl wrap them. Use the real 3M stuff, the ViVVid crap on Amazon is more like contact paper and doesn't stretch or conform just cracks and creases.

The steelie wheels look a lot better with center caps off and some bedliner sprayed on.

3rd row bolts right up, make sure to grab seatbelts too and the rear pillar covers with holes unless you wanna take a reamer to yours. Untapped holes should all be there & bolts are all self-tapping. Ive heard power can be hooked up too but I never bothered on mine


Running boards are a popular mod on SSVs, bought some but never got around to putting them on yet

Headlights could seriously benefit from an upgrade. Anzos Spyders etc have projectors and can be retrofitted with HID. With stock lighting, LEDs ***look*** good... but don't have any throw to speak of so you can't see jack shit.

Front seats can be swapped over to leather, beware you'll probably need to hotwire the connectors to get any of the controls working though

Vinyl floor is something of a keeper imho, after a few spills I've grown to love it

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

View attachment 22063

That box is for weapons storage. There are people that will pay big bucks for them. Depending on the size they can be quite expensive when new.

 

[Adieu]

That box is for weapons storage. There are people that will pay big bucks for them. Depending on the size they can be quite expensive when new.

If it's something like this one, some dude on the internet (authoritative source innit?) claims they retail at.... $2k.



Did it come with keys?

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

If it's something like this one, some dude on the internet (authoritative source innit?) claims they retail at.... $2k.

If you go to www.truckvault.com the double layer version that LiverpoolFC has is worth about $3000.00 You probably get a discount from the site but they show it as value.

I configured one for a standard 17

Your Vehicle
2017 Ford Expedition
3rd Row Seat Folded, Rear Air Conditioning
C-FDEXPN3-17D
(C-FDEXPN3-03D, $3095, 306.11lb, 45L)

Product Selection & Options
Mid Length Special Ops Command Center
Black Exterior Carpet
Gray Interior Carpet
Black Composite Drawer Fronts
Push Button w/key Drawer Locks
2 Long, 2 Short Std Height Dividers
Product Value3095.00

Product Additions
Total Value:3095.00

 

[fuzzmanmatt]

They retail for a ton! I do search and rescue, we work closely with the sheriff's department and they have their trucks crammed full. I was looking for one of these when I bought mine, but I'd hate to take it out every time I wanted to carry people in the third row. I ended up with a 55 gallon tote from Home Depot to carry my SAR stuff. If you want to ship the radios I'll certainly take them off your hands! Heck, I'd take the pushbumper for the cost of shipping, too.

 

[LiverpoolFC]

Sadly. no keys... I looked around the truck as I was cleaning and found 1 key which appears to be for some other car, but nothing small enough to fit the lock.

Mine isn't the double layer. More like the one Adieu posted, minus the combination lock. Mine has lockable twist handles. Like a filing cabinet type of a lock. But not strong enough... as I was pulling it out, I pulled on the handles and the drawers opened, despite me having "closed" them. The latch is aluminium, quite soft. But, this is fantastic info! Even if I can get rid of it for 500 USD, i'm happy. It'll help finance the rest of the stuff I want to do to the car.

I am pricing out head units now, and I was looking for a controller similar to the BMW idrive rotating knob. You'd think there would be aftermarket units out there, especially with the whole line of Android head units available, but nothing that is made specifically for cars.

A former coworker vinyl wrapped his Mercedes in a matte black finish, it looked like a different car and quite nice as well, He paid about 3K for the wrap. I don't want to spend nowhere near that much. Trying to keep the whole fixing budget at the 1-1.5k range.

 

[Adieu]

They retail for a ton! I do search and rescue, we work closely with the sheriff's department and they have their trucks crammed full. I was looking for one of these when I bought mine, but I'd hate to take it out every time I wanted to carry people in the third row. I ended up with a 55 gallon tote from Home Depot to carry my SAR stuff. If you want to ship the radios I'll certainly take them off your hands! Heck, I'd take the pushbumper for the cost of shipping, too.

Who wouldnt "take" a pushbumper for cost of shipping??? Could come in useful

 

[Adieu]

Sadly. no keys... I looked around the truck as I was cleaning and found 1 key which appears to be for some other car, but nothing small enough to fit the lock.

Mine isn't the double layer. More like the one Adieu posted, minus the combination lock. Mine has lockable twist handles. Like a filing cabinet type of a lock. But not strong enough... as I was pulling it out, I pulled on the handles and the drawers opened, despite me having "closed" them. The latch is aluminium, quite soft. But, this is fantastic info! Even if I can get rid of it for 500 USD, i'm happy. It'll help finance the rest of the stuff I want to do to the car.

I am pricing out head units now, and I was looking for a controller similar to the BMW idrive rotating knob. You'd think there would be aftermarket units out there, especially with the whole line of Android head units available, but nothing that is made specifically for cars.

A former coworker vinyl wrapped his Mercedes in a matte black finish, it looked like a different car and quite nice as well, He paid about 3K for the wrap. I don't want to spend nowhere near that much. Trying to keep the whole fixing budget at the 1-1.5k range.

Nah for vinyl wrapping doors you can do it yourself, probably take you all of 30 minutes... its the complex shit like bumpers thatll drive you mad.... roll of the stuff will set you back like $100

Check 3M site maybe they even got some black in free samples....you have to lie and impersonate a designer or some such manner of business, but they'll ship you 2 free rolls from a random-looking list (probably cancelled orders or stuff that turned up after getting lost) and flipbook-sampler thingie of all available colors

 

[Adieu]

Then again....in this day and age....


As one of my buddies says, maybe just keep the police kit, procure some DHS or ICE stickers and a cheap black suit, and set off a-highway-robbin collecting "donations"

 

[Muddy Bean]

I think your fix up list is aggressive for $1500. But maybe you can be creative with the funds and mods. I like the SSV steering column shifter. Really wish I could delete my console shifter and switch to a column shifter but that's probably not practical. Enjoy your truck, those are low miles!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[LiverpoolFC]

1. Head unit swap with Android w/backup camera and possibly proximity sensors.
This should set me back 300 dollars, could be less depending on what I want.

2. Add 3rd row of seats.
These seats would be a bit pricey. I'd say roughly 4-500 dollars. Have seen a few junkyards around Sacramento (about 1 hr away) that have a few options. But they aren't essential at the moment, just very nice to have.


3. Middle row has 2 side seats which I suspect are missing their middle brother since they don't have armrests. Wanting to add a middle floor console and possibly armrests if the console isn't high enough.
I'm leaving this empty for now, will decide after I've gotten the rest of the stuff done.


4. Strip the vinyl flooring and add carpeting.
I have seen carpets on car-parts for about 100 or less.


5. Add heated element to driver/passenger seats with buttons in center console below the radio.
These aren't expensive. 70-80 dollars for a set of 2 on Amazon, with a nice dial for controlling the amount of heat.


6. Add center floor console with heater/AC controls for 2nd row. Would of course remove the shifter.
I've been seeing these in car-parts.com for as much as 150 but lots of cheaper options too.


7. Add overhead light console with sunglasses holders.
30-40 dollars maybe


8. Paint doors to black.
there's also the plastidip option. I'll allocate 1-200 dollars for this.

So far I have about 1200. I will go as cheap as possible and since I'm doing most of the work myself I am saving on the labor factor.

 

[LiverpoolFC]

One thing I wanted to point out... There are several Android and other types of head units out there, all touch screen, yet little, very little in terms of controllers outside of the screen itself. Yes, some integrate with the steering wheel controllers, if there, but if not then it's limited choices.
I was looking into options and possibilities of some form of a console controller similar to the BMW idrive system. In case you don't know it, it's the below.... the knob rotates and clicks and also the other buttons are there too. That way you're not looking at where your fingers are but at the screen/road.






It seems someone in a BMW forum has been able to integrate this very controller.
http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1405225

Given that my tech skills don't involve programming, I've settled for lesser options. One of them is a Kensington Trackball mouse. It should work since Android does support mice but whether it will serve my purposes that's yet TBD.

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

I'd like to figure out how to integrate one of these...



Sorry I couldn't resist.

 

[LiverpoolFC]

heehehe wouldn't that be grand. maybe a less murderous version though

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

heehehe wouldn't that be grand. maybe a less murderous version though

I agree on that.

 

[LiverpoolFC]

So far everything is still in pieces. Most of the molding and plastic covers are out of the car. Seats are out too. Wires everywhere. I've done work on cars before but nothing to this extent. I'm pretty much learning as I go. Youtube helps a great deal too. Though I'm figuring out stuff on my own most of the time.

Things done:

1. Installed the seat warmer pads in the two front seats after a serious wash of the cloth with 3 kinds of detergent and a stiff brush on a power drill.

2. Hooked up Android head unit and rear view camera. Turned out the camera cable was a tad short... managed to find RCA coupler and an RCA cable to extend the length. Head unit was a pain too since I needed a 12 volt ACC wire. Thankfully someone had done a similar install in these boards and their post pointed me in the right direction. Something to do with a blue wire with white stripes under the steering wheel.

3. Hooked up Kensington mouse. It works, as I expected, but not as I had hoped. There's an Android app called Tincore that can remap buttons, will try it out. Also, it seems Android's own accessibility settings may provide some form of a solution as well. So far so good on that.

4. Box cutters do quite the number on plastics, especially when trimming down the Metra faceplate for the radio. It now fits like a glove. Even OJ would be jealous!

5. Scored a center console and a full carpet, front and back. Black. Dyson did its job then more soapy big brush, this time hand driven. I think I've discovered muscles I never knew I had At least it smells nice and clean. On the console... I'm suspecting I might need a mounting bracket bolted to the floor. I guess I'll find out in the next few days.

6. Painted the car. Valspar Tractor and Implement plus mineral spirits plus Valspar enamel hardner. Roughly 60/20/20. Small dense foam roller. Loads of fun. And curious neighbors looking to see what this crazy nut is doing with a roller on a car. Turned out mostly OK. Not looking to win any beauty contests on this. But come summer, I'll do a couple more coats. Kind of a pain these days, too cold and it's been raining too. I'm leaving the top white. There's a tiny rust spot which I will sand down and give it some spray paint. For now I'm just going to tape the holes on the roof. Come warmer weather I'll do a more permanent fix with bondo and some better paint.

7. Removed the vinyl floor cover. Chugged it.

Things still to do:

1. Vacuum the floor. It's pretty filthy.
2. Put in carpet, seats.
3. Install seat warmer switches to console and to power.
4. Figure out if mouse will work with head unit the way I want it to.
5. Seems front passenger seat is powered. Harness is hooked up under the seat, motors too, but the harness wires that go to the floor wiring are cut. Just need to find a side panel with power switches for that seat. I'm thinking sometime early next year.
6. Put in center console.
7. Smog, register, and take a trip to Lake Tahoe!


Will post pics when done.

 

[chuck s]

I assume you've checked closely that the doors are really painted white? I've seen many that are simply vinyl wrapped in white.

-- Chuck