My y2k Ford Explorer has been my lifes enterprise since the couple years I've had it.
I got it from my older sister, who wasn't careful to keep it in ship shape. Before that, it had 3 previous owners. It was worn-out, beat up, and un-loved in my first days using it. But it's a tough thing. It had been sitting idle for over a year without being started when my dad first started it, and it spun up and started driving right away with hardly any hassle.
Its tires were a size too small, and the back glass on the rear door was falling off its hinges. The radio was broken, and the windsheild glass was cracked (which it still is). The suspension was all worn out with ball joint boots broke open, transmission and differential fluids never changed, leaking rear main seal (about to fix now), and other things worn and broken that I still need to work on.
But now I've fixed it up to the point where it's going to be my lifetime vehicle.
Well, not entirely me. It's God who planned to bring this thing into the world, and I've only been the mere vessel who received the plans and assembled it. But I enjoyed working on it, so I suppose me and God have built it together. Amen.
The first thing I did was fix those hinges with washers and new nuts, then I replaced the fogged-up headlamps in the front with LED halo ones, changing the factory air intake to a universal cone-filter one in the process. Then I went on to replace the busted factory radio with two better ones; an unlocked euro-import CB and a multi-band radio scanner stacked on each other right in its place.
It's hard to go on with what I've done and doing with it now, because it gets crazy, and will still get crazier. But I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. All work you see was done by my hands, the only things I've taken it to a shop for were for the tires, suspension alignment, and brake fluid.
Since I consider myself a jack-of-all-tradesman, I need a beacon to reflect that I will perform any trade at a moments notice.
So, I have installed amber/white lights to flash when I do so.
The lights in the windsheild, sides, and rear glas were what I've had installed for a few months.
The following pics of installing this liight in the bumper was done a couple weeks ago. (because one can't see the lights in the tailgate glass when it's up).
Wiring it up through the left tail light into the cab with the rest of the lights, this is the finished product:
These are all controlled by a single switch I've installed in the drivers door, using a coily wire I cut out from another device to connect it to the wiring behind the inner trim:
(In this picture, the inner cab is dasassembled because of what I'm working on with it right now.)
Yes, the megaphone self-tapped into the panel above the hood is what it seems. The CB I have installed in there also has a PA funcion, which I wasn't going to leave un-utilizable.
Besides the radios, I also installed a gamecube, and since air bags kill people, I removed the one in the passenger-side dashboard and replaced it with a TV for it, which can also receive live broadcasts too.
I got it from my older sister, who wasn't careful to keep it in ship shape. Before that, it had 3 previous owners. It was worn-out, beat up, and un-loved in my first days using it. But it's a tough thing. It had been sitting idle for over a year without being started when my dad first started it, and it spun up and started driving right away with hardly any hassle.
Its tires were a size too small, and the back glass on the rear door was falling off its hinges. The radio was broken, and the windsheild glass was cracked (which it still is). The suspension was all worn out with ball joint boots broke open, transmission and differential fluids never changed, leaking rear main seal (about to fix now), and other things worn and broken that I still need to work on.
But now I've fixed it up to the point where it's going to be my lifetime vehicle.
Well, not entirely me. It's God who planned to bring this thing into the world, and I've only been the mere vessel who received the plans and assembled it. But I enjoyed working on it, so I suppose me and God have built it together. Amen.
The first thing I did was fix those hinges with washers and new nuts, then I replaced the fogged-up headlamps in the front with LED halo ones, changing the factory air intake to a universal cone-filter one in the process. Then I went on to replace the busted factory radio with two better ones; an unlocked euro-import CB and a multi-band radio scanner stacked on each other right in its place.
It's hard to go on with what I've done and doing with it now, because it gets crazy, and will still get crazier. But I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. All work you see was done by my hands, the only things I've taken it to a shop for were for the tires, suspension alignment, and brake fluid.
Since I consider myself a jack-of-all-tradesman, I need a beacon to reflect that I will perform any trade at a moments notice.
So, I have installed amber/white lights to flash when I do so.
The lights in the windsheild, sides, and rear glas were what I've had installed for a few months.
The following pics of installing this liight in the bumper was done a couple weeks ago. (because one can't see the lights in the tailgate glass when it's up).
Wiring it up through the left tail light into the cab with the rest of the lights, this is the finished product:
These are all controlled by a single switch I've installed in the drivers door, using a coily wire I cut out from another device to connect it to the wiring behind the inner trim:
(In this picture, the inner cab is dasassembled because of what I'm working on with it right now.)
Yes, the megaphone self-tapped into the panel above the hood is what it seems. The CB I have installed in there also has a PA funcion, which I wasn't going to leave un-utilizable.
Besides the radios, I also installed a gamecube, and since air bags kill people, I removed the one in the passenger-side dashboard and replaced it with a TV for it, which can also receive live broadcasts too.
^
(no, I'm not drinking!)
