wow nice set up

 

Oh damn!!$$$$$$$$$$

 

Got the rcvs in. Just waiting on the drive flanges and ill have 4wd back.

Found this when I took the also broke **** out. Never seen one break like that. lol






Only had to bore out the last 3/4inch of the spindles .010 to get clearance around where the splines on the stub shaft are. Just used a die grinder.



Got some Longfield spindles bushings to get rid of the gay spindle bearings.




Ground bottom ball joint flush with nut.







My sweet dust boots until I get the drive flanges.

 

because you will be rolling on'em long befor I will...lol

 

Those are sweet.

Not so budget built anymore. Starting to look money!!

 

For getting the tires I have been eye balling. lol

 

Yea, I said to throw the budget build part out the window a couple pages back when I got the James Duff stuff. lol

 

haha

 

dude this thing is sick, cant wait to see what you do next

 

Got the drive flanges today.





Bought a $1200 set of axles and got a free beanie and ordered a $200 set of drive flanges and got a free hat AND a free little lunch bag thing. lol Thought that was kind of funny.

Planning to go to Harlan, KY next weekend and do some wheeling. Cant wait.

 

nice progress, look forward to seeing how it does on the next trip.

 

Well Harlan was badass. Definitely cant wait to go back.

Day before were supposed to leave the Explorer starts f'ing up. Went to go get lunch that day at work and it would just click when you try to start it. Dern oh well. When I left to go home started fine. Got home and started messing with it and it would spin over and slowly die like the batter was weak. Went and had it replaced and same thing.

Then got to messing with it some more and if it was cold it would start fine. Soon as it warm up a little it would just quit and click.

Took the starter off and put another one I had on it and same thing. Though maybe they were both screwed up so I took one and got it tested and it tested fine. So came home and made a new cable from the battery to the starter and same thing yet again.

So as a last ditch effort went and bought a brand new starter and what do you know. Same thing yet again. Spin over good cold and soon as it warms up it would quit.

Last thing I could think of was ground cable and sure enough that was it. Ground cable from block to frame was almost corroded in 2. Made up a temporary one real fast and spins over likes it never spun over before. lol Finally got it right around 12am thursday night and we were leaving 5am friday morning so loaded everything up and got ready to go.

Didnt get many pics but got a couple vids. Was having a blast riding the trails. They have tons of trails. We rode like 80 miles and only rode the trails leading to and from camp more then once.

Only carnage from the weekend was a cut tire and burnt a hole in the air locker line. Thats probably my best weekend yet and I beat on it pretty good trying out the new from axles.

The axles are niiiiice by the way. Turn it to full lock and just let it eat and there as smooth as butter.

Couple pics:




Vids:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGr165lTpI8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfXIFqGAQoQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG0crMpsWzw

Cant wait to go back and ride the trails again. It was well worth the ride.

Oh yea. On my way home from work monday I hit the brakes and head and big clunk and was like uh oh. Got out and somehow this happened. Dont know if a rock hit it from wheeling or what but it broke clean off. Atleast I know the welds were good. lol

 

lol damn, yeah I guess that bracket was welded good enough

 

Just for reference here is a Heep on the rock garden. About 1:10 in the vid is the ledge I crawled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pgg81F719A

 

great build man you rig looks amazing. how much money do you think you have invested to this point

 

pretty sweet , i must say , good job

 

The way it sits now I probably have $5500 or so in it including buying it. So its still a budget build compared to some of the other builds out there.

 

Looks like an awesome trip. Can't wait to get up there someday.

 

Went and picked up some 2x2 and 2x4 steel tubing for the rock sliders yesterday. Also got some new caliper brackets from the local speed shop. There about twice as thick as the old one so hopefully they will hold up.

Started cutting out the rocker panels today. To get ready for the sliders. Cut a little over a inch out of the bottom of the doors and all of the rocker panels. About 4.5 inches total.





Rust in the normal spot.






Drivers side done.


Passenger side full of mud. lol


Starting to rust out.




Passenger side finished


Scrap


Going to try to get the frame cleaned up and painted and the sliders made up and welded on this week or next weekend.

 

Well a few updates I forgot to mention.

Swapped on a set of manual doors and took the snorkel off a couple weeks ago but no pics.

Went and messed around in the woods with a buddy last friday and I ended up being the jeep recovery vehicle. My buddy got a little brave and ended up flopping his jeep. Pics dont really do much but its a little downhill off camber turs with a big rock you have to climb up one cause the is a tree in the way. It leans like crazy when your on it. He got a little brave and went too high up on the rock and over she went.





Only damage was busted out the windshield and dented the a pillar. Didnt even knock the side mirror off. We flipped it back over and kicked the windshield out and kept on truckin.



Made up some new power and ground wires with some 1 gauges welding wire my buddy had laying around. Replaced them all. Spins over fasssst now.


Got some new stickers in the mail today.




Also got all the old pieces of the old sliders ground off the frame so it ready for the new ones to be welded on. Going to try to get them on the week sometime.

 

That is one mean explorer you have there. Im going to be following this thread from now on for sure.

 

Impressive for such a low price tag!!!


Thing looks great :)

Sucks about the starter issue, I hate when I have a problem and I replace a bunch of other stuff and it ends up being the one thing I didn't look at or the smallest thing that is easy to fix haha. Oh well, at least you know your starter and battery are good!

 

much better with the rockers cut. going to function/look way better once the sliders are done. I always liked that look

 

x2

Diggin it!!

 

Got the rock sliders on. Left a nice platform to tie in a exo cage later on down the road.