Question about an Explorer Rear

[Bob Hatcher]

Just a thought, but you might want to do go over the brakes on the Explorer axle BEFORE you remove the rear end from your vehicle. If you get elbow deep into it and find a problem you'll be up the creek without a paddle and no truck to drive because the rear end is out.


I know what you meant. Remove "the Explorer rear end from" your vehicle. The invitation was open so I had to go there.

LOL! - I was trying to think of the best way to say that - ya, it is in the back of my Toyota RAV 4 for those that didn't get it LOL!

 

[scotts90ranger]

Since it has traction bars on top it even came from a V8 Explorer...

If you have any welding skill at all shock mounts are pretty simple to make with some 1/8" to 1/4" plate scraps, or just cut off of the Ranger axle like a lot of people do...

What I did on my '90 when I put in the explorer axle was to get an extra passenger side soft line and put it on the drivers side then got a flaring kit and a couple spare flare nuts and used the Ranger center drop brake line after cutting and flaring the stock hard line, the hole to mount it is on the diff, or at least it was on mine.

A lot of people get anal about the master cylinder, I wouldn't even bother with it... I'm running the Ranger one and it's more even braking than the drum brakes were...

 

[Bob Hatcher]

Since it has traction bars on top it even came from a V8 Explorer...

If you have any welding skill at all shock mounts are pretty simple to make with some 1/8" to 1/4" plate scraps, or just cut off of the Ranger axle like a lot of people do...

What I did on my '90 when I put in the explorer axle was to get an extra passenger side soft line and put it on the drivers side then got a flaring kit and a couple spare flare nuts and used the Ranger center drop brake line after cutting and flaring the stock hard line, the hole to mount it is on the diff, or at least it was on mine.

A lot of people get anal about the master cylinder, I wouldn't even bother with it... I'm running the Ranger one and it's more even braking than the drum brakes were...

I did notice that there is no need for the traction bars under my Ranger - no where to even mount them

Since I have been building circle track race cars since the 90's, I have a long list of friends that are great welders as I am only proficient in tack welds so once I get everything tacked in place, I'll haul it to someone who can weld everything solid for me

As far as the master cylinder goes, I was thinking about it on my way home today and thought that I would take a chance and keep the stock disc/drum unit - I feel better about it now knowing that it worked for you

Thanks for the input

 

[JoshT]

Yeah, stock master can work fine. If you notice the rear calipers dragging consider taking a look at it as the culprit.

On paper one of the big differences between a disc/drum and a disc/disc master is that the disc/drum may have a residual valve built into the rear brake line port. This was done on drum brakes to keep some pressure in the lines so that the shoes would stay near the drum. If that didn;t happen you;d have to pump the brakes every time to get anything out of the drums.

Unlike a drum brake system, you do not want residual pressure on a disc brake caliper. The easy fix for this is obviously remove the valve, but some times that is easier said than done. Some setups ahve a valve separate from the mastercylinder, like in the proportioniong valve. Others have it actually built into one the master cylinder port. I've heard of people using a screw to pull the one out of thge master cylinder port. I do not know how these Ranger are setup.

I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you encounter an issue with them dragging, but its something to be aware of if you do.

 

[scotts90ranger]

I did notice that there is no need for the traction bars under my Ranger - no where to even mount them

Since I have been building circle track race cars since the 90's, I have a long list of friends that are great welders as I am only proficient in tack welds so once I get everything tacked in place, I'll haul it to someone who can weld everything solid for me

As far as the master cylinder goes, I was thinking about it on my way home today and thought that I would take a chance and keep the stock disc/drum unit - I feel better about it now knowing that it worked for you

Thanks for the input

If you're going spring over you'll probably need to remove the brackets for the traction bars. The explorer bars can really only help on a spring under setup, they would need to be mounted a few inches above the spring pack to be useful at all which I've stared at it before and have a set of explorer traction bars I was meaning to work into my '90 well before I ended up with 3 V8 Explorers (it happens ), I ended up building a shackle mount bar for my '90 coming off the passenger side.

Depending on how fruity you want to get with the power and such you might want to weld the axle tubes to the pumpkin but that's only really an issue with abuse and low range... it took a LOT of axle wrap while doing a tractor pull event with my '90 to spin a tube in the pumpkin...

Depending on the welder you have, getting proficient is just a matter of patience and practice, youtube is your friend, the weld.com videos are fantastic... I haven't taken any classes since high school 25 years ago and I'm way better than I was then...

 

[Bob Hatcher]

Yeah, stock master can work fine. If you notice the rear calipers dragging consider taking a look at it as the culprit.

On paper one of the big differences between a disc/drum and a disc/disc master is that the disc/drum may have a residual valve built into the rear brake line port. This was done on drum brakes to keep some pressure in the lines so that the shoes would stay near the drum. If that didn't happen you;d have to pump the brakes every time to get anything out of the drums.

Unlike a drum brake system, you do not want residual pressure on a disc brake caliper. The easy fix for this is obviously remove the valve, but some times that is easier said than done. Some setups have a valve separate from the master cylinder, like in the proportioning valve. Others have it actually built into one the master cylinder port. I've heard of people using a screw to pull the one out of the master cylinder port. I do not know how these Ranger are setup.

I wouldn't worry about it too much unless you encounter an issue with them dragging, but its something to be aware of if you do.

I still have a few aftermarket residual valves from my stock car building days - blue 2 pounds for disc & red 10 pounds for drum - might be able to put one of them to use if needed

 

[Bob Hatcher]

If you're going spring over you'll probably need to remove the brackets for the traction bars. The explorer bars can really only help on a spring under setup, they would need to be mounted a few inches above the spring pack to be useful at all which I've stared at it before and have a set of explorer traction bars I was meaning to work into my '90 well before I ended up with 3 V8 Explorers (it happens ), I ended up building a shackle mount bar for my '90 coming off the passenger side.

Depending on how fruity you want to get with the power and such you might want to weld the axle tubes to the pumpkin but that's only really an issue with abuse and low range... it took a LOT of axle wrap while doing a tractor pull event with my '90 to spin a tube in the pumpkin...

Depending on the welder you have, getting proficient is just a matter of patience and practice, youtube is your friend, the weld.com videos are fantastic... I haven't taken any classes since high school 25 years ago and I'm way better than I was then...

I compared them yesterday, noticing that the Ranger had no such bars, so I made a note to remove the bars but now I might as well take off the brackets also - thanks

 

[JoshT]

I still have a few aftermarket residual valves from my stock car building days - blue 2 pounds for disc & red 10 pounds for drum - might be able to put one of them to use if needed

You might need to remove, but you shouldn't need to add.

You only need the valve on disc brakes if the master is lower than the calipers. In that case it's going to stop all of the fluid from flowing back into the master. Normally gravity takes care of that. In a Ranger, if your master cylinder is the highest part of the brake system, or gravity quits working, you've got bigger problems than a check valve will fix.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

I used the traction bars in my green Ranger as spring under. They definitely made an improvement. I might try to incorporate them in more builds…

 

[SenorNoob]

gravity quits working

Sounds like my luck... LOL

 

[scotts90ranger]

For spring under they would work fine, the axle wrap on my V8 Explorer is minimal but for spring over they would just line up with the springs which wouldn't do anything, to do anything they would need a bracket welded to the axle housing probably 4-6" over the top of the leaf springs or better yet on the bottom of the axle then the links running parallel to the front half of the spring...