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.

 

[gascapkevin]

Welp guess it's about time for an update.

Managed to score a second gen axle from my explorer plug (same guy I bought my front doors off of) and swapped it in with the help of @troysladeck. Then it sat in the garage for awhile.

@Sean.Linden got some axle shock mounts cut out for me, and @John Reynaga and the homie Luke stopped by on their way home from SEMA and helped me get them welded onto the new axle. John also wired up my fancy chase light.


Then on Christmas Eve, Troy was in town so we took the ol girl out for its first time in the dirt with the new axle. My front end alignment is terrible. Any tips on driveway TTB alignments are appreciated. I know I want a hair of toe in but that's about all I know


The dawgs weren't impressed


That brings us up to this week, I have a box of parts from rock auto to replace the front balljoints and brakes before KOH. So naturally I started on the most important task and replaced the steering wheel first

Old grime


Lou wondering what the heck is going on


PRP wheel I got off the BLGT classifieds!


Didn't like the no center cap look so I made one.


Also if anyone wants to do a steering wheel swap on their first gen expo and is curious what NRG hub to use. I used SRK-174H and it worked great.
Now this weekend I'll start on the front end refresh...probably

 

[troysladeck]

Beatrice is coming out of retirement! I’ll put what I do for my D35 TTB alignment, but am also curious if there is a better way to do it by someone more experienced on here?

For a driveway alignment, I drive forward with the steering wheel dead level for about ten feet. Turn off car and lock the column so it doesn’t spin. Pick a side, jack up the beam so the tire is slightly off the ground, and align the tire to be exactly parallel with the rear wheel. Put the jack down and repeat on the other side. I’ve tried a few different ways and this works the best for me, granted my tires are smaller than yours, but my expo can do 75 mph perfectly straight, and tire wear seems pretty even.

 

[TTBDORA]

I usually use my string line, get it fairly close.. then dial toe in, using some toe plates.

 

[BATTEN]

+45 style points on that steering wheel cap