Dans 94, RCSB, 4.0, 4x4, 5spd

[Dantheman1540]

Truck is looking great! I somehow forgot you put new wheels on it. They look awesome with the red.
How fine of particulate is that coolant filter good for?

Thanks! I’m really ready to cut a bunch of weight off and redo most of my fab bits.

Not sure on specifics for that filter, it’s definitely nothing like the passive (oil filter style) filter I had on it for a bit. I’d say this will catch stuff the size of a coarse grain of sand or larger. When I looked into the radiator the tubes seems consider larger than that so it “should” keep it from getting clogged more. Which is good because it’s still getting hot so I ordered a new radiator. If this doesn’t fix it then it must have some engine issues I’m not finding.

If the shop that sold you the motor will let you, rob what you can from the Explorer, if you haven't done it already.
Does the Explorer possess possible upgrades?
Best of luck on the journey.

All that’s long gone unfortunately, and I never actually got to see the explorer so the shop could have fed me a line of crap and the motor could have 500k miles lol.

 

[DRanger024]

Thanks! I’m really ready to cut a bunch of weight off and redo most of my fab bits.

Not sure on specifics for that filter, it’s definitely nothing like the passive (oil filter style) filter I had on it for a bit. I’d say this will catch stuff the size of a coarse grain of sand or larger. When I looked into the radiator the tubes seems consider larger than that so it “should” keep it from getting clogged more. Which is good because it’s still getting hot so I ordered a new radiator. If this doesn’t fix it then it must have some engine issues I’m not finding.

I noticed mine starts to get warm running at highway speeds in 5th, like 75 mph plus. It will cool right back down if I back off and down shift to 4th. The block was full of crap when I got it from my buddy. I'd be curious to see if anything is floating around in it.

There are a lot of things I'd like to redo on my truck. Unfortunately, I don't have the tools I'd like to or the time!

 

[Dantheman1540]

Well it’s not the radiator so I’m guessing the motor is phucked. Tried to do leakdown test but threaded adapter didn’t have long enough threads and ace didn’t have anything that would work either. I’m going to move forward assuming the heads are crack and the bottom end ain’t living its best life.

Which unless something crazy happens like a free OHV falls into my lap, I’m going forward with a tdi swap.

 

[Dantheman1540]

I guess I need to retract that last statement about it must be the motor causing the overheating issue. I wheeled this truck for about 6 hours yesterday including an hour at 60mph to get to the forest and back and here’s what I found.

If I leave the AC off the truck never gets passed N unless I’m just senselessly womping on it where it will jump to O-R momentarily then right back down to N or below. If I turn the AC on it starts to warm up within just a few minutes. This doesn’t matter if I’m doing 3mph in 2lo crawling some tight trails, bumping down trails at 30-35mph, or cruising the forestry roads at 45-50mph. If I turn the AC on and let the temp climb all I have to do is turn it off for a few minutes and it’s back down to N or below. So this is clearly an AC issue.

Gonna check pressures here in a few minutes, maybe it’s over serviced and the condenser is getting hot and heat soaking the rad?

Anyway had a great trip yesterday, took a buddy who recently bought the most stock looking XJ I’ve ever seen on his first off-road trip. He did good and his Cherokee impressed me. It’s Florida so not like there’s a ton of hard obstacles but it bumped along everything in 2wd like I did. Just couldn’t maintain much speed without bottoming out constantly due to completely clapped out suspension.

 

[Dantheman1540]

AC pressures couldn’t be any better at 74* ambient, I might check them later today when it’s 95* but I doubt it will change. Condenser temp is only 75-85 right now as well so that rules that out.

Could it be that I sealed the gaps between the radiator and condenser with foam? I thought that would help the fan draw through the radiator and condenser together better.

 

[Dantheman1540]

So instead of working on fixing the cooling issues I decided to buy a distraction, and strap it to the roof.

Just being silly, but I did finally buy a small AL boat like I’ve been wanting all year. I wanted something to extend the range and cargo capacity of my paddle board and this fits the bill. I can take it down trails with no trailer, I can fit two people and a dog, I can easily paddle it with oars for a workout, and I can slap a small out board or trolling motor on it easily. I paid $300 to a ten year old boy who’s had it for a year and used it to fish the canal behind his house! Best I can tell since the HIN plate is difficult to read. It’s a 1970-80s sears 12’ riveted Jon boat. Should move out pretty good with a 5-9.9hp out board and I think I have a lead on a 5hp Honda from a coworker cheap.

The whole idea is to be able to take it with me to some of the cool isolated spring fed lakes, ponds, and creeks I find out exploring. Florida is no stranger to body’s of water and this is gonna be perfect to shoot across lakes to small islands, and maybe rip a lip or two along the way.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Found a sweet primitive launch site into a beautiful creek nearby and had to check it out with the little Jon boat. Boat did great, truck did great, both did great together! I may have forgotten the boat was up there at one point and hit some whoops hard! Nothing broke or fell off tho.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Nearly 200miles of driving today in this truck. It started as a trip an hour away to sell some Vtread tires to some guy who literally begged me to bring them to him. I got there and saw lots of off-road toys in the yard and he fancy’s himself a “builder-fabricator”. Not sure about that one but he gave me directions to his local testing grounds which didn’t disappoint! It was a little more flooded than I like but was still beautiful and had some cool trails.

Then I took a looonnnggg stretch of power line trails east closer to the west side Ocala National forest which I haven’t explored much. I did a lot of hopping from one pond/lake to the next, wetting my worm in each hole. Then I found a ludicrously tight trail, honestly it wasn’t marked whatsoever but I think it was a 4wheeler or hiking trail. I had to bounce over a dozen or two fallen trees, endure brutal scrub oak pinstriping, and chance directions multiple times because I was blocked in, but I finally found my way out.

All in all a great day! I picked up 6 bags of trash, and only broke the selector knob off the passenger side hub. Cheap plastic crap, I’d kill (or pay a lot of monies) for those all metal Warm hubs that are long since discontinued. Oh and almost forgot, I did forget to bring an M18 battery and didn’t know that until all tires were at 15psi so probably 150 of those miles were at low tire pressure which wasn’t as bad as expected at 60mph.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Survived the hurricanes and decided to wash this thing after months of neglect. I also swapped out the broken hub, switched to a slightly thicccuher bolt in the ISS to reduce some play, then adjusted the steering box to remove even more! Seriously impressed it’s nice and tight now. Then upon the post wash inspection I found my driver rear shock must have bottomed out last time out and actually cracked off the frame.
I’m not really upset about it, I always hated it how I did those, and have wanted to redo everything giving the shocks a perfectly vertical mounting, along with cutting off and relocating the shock mounts on the axle, bringing them up below the bottom of the axle to reduce dragging in the mud. Since I don’t really want to drop $1k+ on a tube bender I might try using the same shock mounts I used in the front.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Tire into this thing today. Chopped out all the ugly shock mounts and the bumps too mounts which were okay but could definitely be better. Got the passenger side down today and I’m really happy with it.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Made enough progress that I could put the bed on, still have a lot to do like fab mounts for the resis, clean up the bed holes, reinforce/cutout rust around the closest to the cab bed mounts, and I’m gonna swap to some 2” bumps I have in the shelf. Oh I also have some nice stronger shackles a buddy welded up to swap in replacing the beltech 6400s. Super stoked I really flogged this thing around the neighborhood tonight and it did awesome!

It even does better burnouts.

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[Dantheman1540]

Did a tad more work on this today, clearances the shock tower hole better. Then cut and bent some 1/4” round to weld around the edges to clean it up some and add strength. Decided instead of mounting the resis up at the top inside the bed I played around with the clamps and have them clocked just right to fit under the bed and not hit anything when the heims rotate. Also swapped my 4” bumps out for some 2” I picked up from a friend which gives me 2” more uptravel before it hits the bumps.

Ran out of time to clean up the holes on both sides but went for a rip on the road from my shop to home and damn it’s feels good. Had it pinned in 2ndgear 2H like usual and it ate it up. I can however tell the backs way over sprung right now because it’s missing 750# or so of spare tire, tools, bumper, and rack. Right at the end of my test track a big bump bucked the rear out to the side and it got a little exciting. I was surprised however after inspecting once I got home the bumps appear to have only compressed 1/4-1/2” and the shocks still had 2”+ of uptravel. So I need to hurry up and build a bumper, add some weight back in, or pull out a leaf from the packs.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Finished up the other side and got the bed adjusted and mounted better. Gonna slap the spare in the back tomorrow morning and drive it to work for the first time in a few weeks.

 

[Dantheman1540]

Took this out on the first big trip since I redid the rear suspension. Actually went to a shooting day in the middle of the forest with some friends but took my time getting there and on the way back. Did around 55miles of mixed forest roads and tighter trails, along with some sandy hill climbs.

It feels great especially at higher speeds without the bed rack and all the weight I had in the bed. I was pushing 60mph down some rough forestry roads, it ate it up with 20psi in the tires, and didn’t feel scary on the turns or if I did a quick maneuver to avoid something. Very impressed with the stability despite having no sway bars and linear valved shocks.

The other thing that surprised me was that the truck never got close to getting warm despite a lot of extended periods of 3krpm and more. It was cold today like 50-60* so that obviously helped, and it also point toward I don’t have cracked heads or blown head gasket which is good.

Oh and lastly I met a dude with a cool newer A arm ranger with some fox 2.0 coilovers a nice UCA, sweet topper and some nicely built bumpers.

 

[Uncle Gump]

Without going back through your thread...

Are those Kenda Klever RT's?

What size?