"Deal Killer - Powered by Focus" (dealkiller-ii)
07/11/2018 at 21:32 • Filed to: None
2
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"Deal Killer - Powered by Focus" (dealkiller-ii)
07/11/2018 at 21:32 • Filed to: None | 2
| 7 |
I was looking over my wife’s ‘02 Explorer this weekend, changing the oil and doing a quick once over while I was under the truck. Noticed the front sway bar links are broken. Both links have missing bushings. I thought the truck handled poorly, now I know why. I’ve spent the past few hours playing the front end dance-a-thon of raising one wheel up, then down to get the new links in.
Now, it rides much better. Far less roll and pitch when taking a corner or hitting a bump. The best part, is my wife didn’t even say “Thanks”. I’m gonna have me a beer, or two.
MM54
> Deal Killer - Powered by Focus
07/11/2018 at 21:46 |
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I had to borrow my dad’s Ranger for a couple months several years ago. It drove like a true boat and I figured that’s just how it was. Before returning it I was detailing it and while hosing off the suspension noticed one of the endlinks was broken, and had been for a long time by the rust on the break. Fixed it and it drove like a whole different truck.
He couldn’t tell the difference of course, since I’d had it for 2 months.
horizonsofkhaos
> Deal Killer - Powered by Focus
07/11/2018 at 22:03 |
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I’m about to redo the whole front end on my Exploder S
port
. I just noticed my upper ball joints are shot as well as all control arm bushings. Figure if I’m changing out the upper arms with new ball joints, the rest are probably soon fail.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> Deal Killer - Powered by Focus
07/11/2018 at 22:17 |
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Driving a Rollover King era Explorer with no sway bar links is almost Borsuq picture levels of scary, IMHO.
gogmorgo - rowing gears in a Grand Cherokee
> Deal Killer - Powered by Focus
07/11/2018 at 22:48 |
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One morning after wrenching all night on my J eep, illicitly in the tractor shop at university, I was in the drivethru at McDicks at around 4:30am. I hadn’t eaten supper yet, so was starved. They wouldn’t serve me a burger because it was “breakfast time” . I got mad, slammed it in 4-lo, and hammered my MJ across their rock garden and into a neighbouring parking lot to get out of the drivethru. Not my proudest moment, but I was tired and hungry and those two things don’t always go together so well. But I managed to break both of the sway bar end links in doing so. I knew this because driving to school the next, or well I guess again that morning for my first class around 10, I noticed at highway speeds that by wiggling the steering wheel back and forth, I could rock the truck back and forth to the point I thought I was going to pick up tires... without deviating from a reasonably straight line.
If you can get underneath it’s best to do sway bar links at ride height. Or at least with both wheels at the same height. That way you get the one link on, and the other end is going to be reasibably close to where you want it.
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Deal Killer - Powered by Focus
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
07/11/2018 at 23:10 |
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2002's are third gen Explorers with 4-wheel independent suspension, so less likely to turn turtle
. She had a 2nd gen, and that thing drove like shit compared to this one.
Tripper
> Deal Killer - Powered by Focus
07/12/2018 at 08:37 |
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Might want to check the shocks too. My 01 Ranger had new endlinks when I bought it but I changed out the shocks a few weeks ago and here are my old ones
I replaced them with B ilsteins and its a night and day difference.
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Deal Killer - Powered by Focus
> Tripper
07/12/2018 at 10:45 |
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‘02 Explorers have struts all around, which I found pretty interesting. They’re not too hard to change out, but may be above my pay grade. For some reason, there is one newer rear strut. Why the prior owner
changed just one, not both, is just odd.