92 Expo "Beatrice the Beater"

[gascapkevin]

New Year new project right??

Got the pass off on a little project Explorer from one of the homies in Oceanside. My Fiancée decided her name was to be Beatrice which seemed pretty fitting.



She was a little rough around the edges and needed some love. But @John Reynaga and his roommate (Beatrice's previous owner) helped me out and started getting her dialed in. We got the rear end fabbed up in two weekends of me running out to Oceanside and then I towed it home.
It previously had a sketch bedcage and some shocks into the trunk area but I knew I wanted to keep shocks under the bed so we put a tube from frame rail to frame rail, glued her in, added some shock tabs and boom just like that we had a new rear shock setup. (It wasn't actually that simple lol) we did lots of cycling and measuring and consulting with another friend Sean.

They had some King 2.5x12 Smoothie Bypasses laying around the garage in rough shape


Pulled them apart to rebuild and threw some Steel It on them


Current rear end situation. Don't mind the JB welded diff cover lol, look at the custom Deaver pack instead


Front end has drop brackets for the beams and engine cage with some 2.5 Sway-A-Way Coilovers.


Crusty

 

[John Reynaga]

Thanks for giving me a spot in my driveway back! Super excited to see this thing get abused some more!

 

[gascapkevin]

Beatrice had some..."character" when I got her in the form of some interesting stickers.


But a razor blade and some soapy water got her cleaned right up


The front windows did not work, but there was a guy about an hour away that was parting out a white Explorer with working windows so I went and grabbed both front doors.
I got the driver side installed yesterday


And here is the current interior situation

It's actually already been converted to manual seats up front which I'm pretty stoked on. One less electrical thing to worry about. And it used to have a roll cage in it but that was cut out last year. I will be cleaning that up better, and cutting the tubes out at the frame so we don't have random tetanus tubes sticking into the cabin haha.

I'm having my bachelor party at KOH, so I'm trying to get this thing ready enough to be able to haul some of my friends around that don't have rigs.

My to do list before then:
-Mount the rear resi's
-Get new tires installed
-Cut out tetanus tubes
-Install new passenger side door
-Clean out interior
-Torque and paint pen all the bolts on the rear

 

[Class5Cole]

Good call on the tetanus tubes. Nothing like bleeding, checking the source, deciding if it had enough rust to be a problem

 

[gascapkevin]

Been quiet but have been slowly plugging away getting this thing ready for KOH this coming weekend.

Rear resi's are mounted


New ebay intake installed with some custom trimming to fit next to engine cage


Cleaned up the rear of the cabin. How it started:


How it ended


And this past weekend @troysladeck helped me replace the cooling system. New water pump, fan, fan clutch, thermostat, thermostat housing, belt tensioner, and serpentine belt.

Of course we had the shop supervisor overseeing us


Also got my new to me tires installed, s/o to @John Reynaga for the free rubbers.

All that's left is to replace all the steering components below the pitman arm, a driveway alignment, an oil change, chase light install, and ol Beatrice should be ready to shuttle the homies around Johnson Valley. We head out Thursday afternoon!

 

[gascapkevin]

Finally got all the parts for the steering delivered and installed on Wednesday. Started aligning it Wednesday night. That bled into most of Thursday morning as well. Aligning beams is definitely not my forte yet. Have a lot to learn but I got it what seemed half decent by mid Thursday morning. Then took it for a quick rip before we loaded it up on the trailer and headed out

Confirmed: Beatrice boogies


I made a trip report of the weekend if anyone is interested. But here's a little sneak peak of how the weekend went for Beatrice


Now I have to decide if I should try to rebuild this axle or just get a different axle from a second gen explorer so I have disc brakes in the rear. Leaning towards a rebuild as it already has a limited slip and the drums seem to slow it down fine in the dirt.

 

[Chancegoodman]

Any thought of going to a 9” rear end to not have to deal with a c clip axel?

 

[gascapkevin]

Any thought of going to a 9” rear end to not have to deal with a c clip axel?

If anything I was thinking of the 8.8 out of a second gen explorer with disk brakes but probably not a 9”

 

[Baconcreekmetal]

2nd gen discs bolt onto the 1st gen axle. They work great.

 

[gascapkevin]

2nd gen discs bolt onto the 1st gen axle. They work great.

Oh reallyyy, I will have to look into that

 

[Baconcreekmetal]

I used the 2nd gen master too, in case it was valved different for the discs. Works great. You will need to run the 2nd gen wheel studs as they are longer.