99 Explorer Limited Coil Over Conversion

[griz700rocket]

As purchased off craigslist for $650. 99 Explorer 5.0 Limited with 135k on it. Transfer case is shot and has some pretty good body damage on passenger rear.

Had a local body shop fix the damage. He gave me a really good deal since they were slow and I paid cash. Also swapped in a BW4406 but this is the only picture I snapped during the process.

Been driving it for a while and decided I should add the coil over conversion kit that I had laying in my shop since I removed it to SaS my 99 Explorer Sport.

I didn't like how much up travel I lost on my sport with the brackets provided in the kit so I decided to do my own version with new upper bracket mounts that are taller.

Factory mounts removed and cleaned up.

Drivers side mount.

I'll try to snap some more pictures tonight of the final setup.

 

[griz700rocket]

Snapped a couple of pictures last night. Still need to redo the rear leaf pack, adjust the front ride height to match the rear and then see about an alignment. Planning on making my own add a leaf by combing two 4 door explorer leaf packs. I'm thinking I'll use the leaf directly below the main as the add in and remove the overload leaf to try to keep the total height of the pack similar to what it was.

 

[griz700rocket]

I had forgotten how much smoother the coilovers are than the torsion bars. Still choppy on rough gravel though so I'm thinking about either swapping body mounts or drilling some holes in the stock ones to soften them up. The rubber feels very hard to me. I'm not sure if they are that way stock or the 17 years of weather has hardened them up.

 

[1996xlt]

Just curious, what do your CV angles look like with the coil-overs?

 

[griz700rocket]

I set the suspension travel so that the coilovers run out of down travel before the CV's bind. I understand that using the shock to limit travel isn't ideal but that's what limits travel with the stock setup. Also it's not like there is a 600LB solid axle under there that the shock is holding up.

Another note is that I had to trim the corner off of the brake line brackets as they rubbed the springs under compression.

 

[griz700rocket]

Decided to start with pulling a few of the body mount bushings on my parts explorer and see what they look like. I found out that the "B" position bushing is made from a much stiffer either rubber or some sort of plastic. As a test I took both B bushings out and then I took it for a drive like this. I was amazed how much smoother and quieter it rode over choppy bumps and gravel roads.

I won't have time to work on it tonight but tomorrow I'm going to see if I can make one of the softer rubber mounts from my parts explorer work in place of the hard ones.

 

[griz700rocket]

Almost forgot I took a couple pics of the leaf pack that I put together for this. Top two leaves (bottom in picture) are from the 4 door leaf pack that was on the 99 sport that I SaSed so they have been pretty abused but the bushings were better than the ones on this explorer. You can see how the two middle springs are the same spring and no overload leaf so the ubolts could be the same length.

Here is a picture of the new pack behind the stock main leaves. By adding the second middle leaf it only increased the arch about 1/2in.

 

[AgPete139]

Looks good! I like it.

 

[AgPete139]

What about just replacing all the bushings. together? James Duff sells the polyurethane bushings, and although stiff, they improved the ride of my second Ranger substantially. You plan to put the B pillar mounts back in, correct? The body would, over time, sag in the middle, causing creaks and door alignment issues.

New rubber would be your best bet for comfort though.

 

[griz700rocket]

I like poly for suspension but not for body. Over time the body might sag but when I put the A bushings back in I didn't even have to jack up the body. The rear mounts were actually supporting the body well enough I just slipped them in. I'll eventually replace them with something but I need to figure out what rubber ones I can make work. I'm still impressed with how much difference it made taking out those hard bushings.

 

[griz700rocket]

Considering swapping out the front axles/bearings for the ones from my 99 Ranger that I am going to SaS. Add to that the AVM 470 lockout hubs and then I could gain some mileage without my front drive train turning all the time. Anyone attempted this? Any parts I would need that I couldn't steal from the ranger? I read a few threads on it but no confirmed swaps.

 

[griz700rocket]

Finally got around to installing the shift boot for my BW4406 swap. The boot I used is for a 2011-15 F-250.

You can see here that I didn't measure twice and cut once hence the slight gap at the right side.

Here it is finished in 2wd high. Notice I stuffed some of the carpet I cut out to fill in the gap and help with road noise.

Here is 4wd low.

And here is the seat all the way forward. I doubt you could get it in low range like this but I'm 6'2'' and not 4'10'' so I don't see this being a problem for me.

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I don't see any pics, tho when I go into "edit" I can see you have links to google.

Any one else having problems seeing the pics or is it my computer?

 

[fastpakr]

They're showing up for me.

 

[griz700rocket]

Updated links. Pictures should work for everyone now.