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explorer brakes
- Thread starter joey7478
- Start date
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2001
- Messages
- 7,897
- Age
- 63
- Vehicle Year
- 1987... sorta
- Transmission
- Manual
If you have a (90-94) Explorer axle in your Ranger he
'95-up disc brake setup is a bolt on...
They will not however bolt onto a Ranger axle... unless you are luck enough to have one of the much later FX4-Level @ rangers or one of the 2010-2012 rangers with disc brakes.
Personally I think the Explorer brakes (Caveat: I've never SEEN a ranger disc setup, so I am
presuming it uses a caliper based parking brake) are a superior setup, it uses a simpler caliper
and the parking brake is an "Internal drum" inside the "hat" of the rotor...
If I was in a junkyard looking for a rear axle and I found an FX4 truck next to a 2011 truck and I could have either axle I'd take the FX4-Level 2 axle... because I have an explorer disc setup in a milk crate, what I don't have is a 31-spline Torsen diff...
AD
'95-up disc brake setup is a bolt on...
They will not however bolt onto a Ranger axle... unless you are luck enough to have one of the much later FX4-Level @ rangers or one of the 2010-2012 rangers with disc brakes.
Personally I think the Explorer brakes (Caveat: I've never SEEN a ranger disc setup, so I am
presuming it uses a caliper based parking brake) are a superior setup, it uses a simpler caliper
and the parking brake is an "Internal drum" inside the "hat" of the rotor...
If I was in a junkyard looking for a rear axle and I found an FX4 truck next to a 2011 truck and I could have either axle I'd take the FX4-Level 2 axle... because I have an explorer disc setup in a milk crate, what I don't have is a 31-spline Torsen diff...
AD
Last edited:
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2001
- Messages
- 9,583
- City
- Dayton
- State - Country
- OR - USA
- Vehicle Year
- 1990, 1997
- Drive
- 4WD
- Engine
- 2.3 (4 Cylinder)
- Transmission
- Manual
- Total Lift
- 6
- Tire Size
- 35"
I did that exact thing, I cheated a little when I bought the parts at the junkyard... I bought a complete axle for ~$100, took the disc brake components (brand new pads) off of that and put them on my Ranger (running an explorer 8.8) then sold the new axle converted back to drums for $160, so including buying new parking brake shoes I got paid $40 to convert to discs...
There are a couple notes on converting, stock the brake line goes from the drivers side tire up to the frame rail with a soft line, if you are building an offroader that won't allow for much articulation, so grab 2 passenger side soft lines while at the junkyard (or get another from the parts store) and a couple flare nuts and convert to the stock Ranger or drum explorer center drop brake line, pretty simple. The other note is the axle shafts seem to be a hair longer on the disc brake axles, for the first couple thousand miles after I swapped using my stock drum brake axle shafts I had a screeching noise from the rotors scruffing on the outside of the parking brake shoes. It's more annoying than an issue so it's nothing to worry about...
There are a couple notes on converting, stock the brake line goes from the drivers side tire up to the frame rail with a soft line, if you are building an offroader that won't allow for much articulation, so grab 2 passenger side soft lines while at the junkyard (or get another from the parts store) and a couple flare nuts and convert to the stock Ranger or drum explorer center drop brake line, pretty simple. The other note is the axle shafts seem to be a hair longer on the disc brake axles, for the first couple thousand miles after I swapped using my stock drum brake axle shafts I had a screeching noise from the rotors scruffing on the outside of the parking brake shoes. It's more annoying than an issue so it's nothing to worry about...
the one on the left is a 2010 Ranger axle, on the right is a 7.5 year unknown.
note the bolt pattern is way different. I don't know what the Explorer axles look like.
note the bolt pattern is way different. I don't know what the Explorer axles look like.
Last edited:
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