Lowerball joint and hub on the drivers side. Hooked up a radio and finished running speaker wire. Still gotta hunt down the radio antenna cable.

 

Did the rear brakes and one side of the ebrake pads. Found out the previous owner discarded one side of the ebrakes and the part that the cables pull. Oh the fun. Also finally got the spare tire cable down after working it back and forth. Used the jack handle from my E-350 cause the jack and friends are all missing. You really have to ask yourself why would you take these things out of your vehicle? WHY.

I found the clunking in the front brakes. Had a caliper bracket bolt loose. Gotta talk to my son about tightening things better. Checked the rest of them for good measure.

I'm still tracking down the blinking 4wd light. It started after I replaced the drivers side hub. This will be a fun hunt and peck.

 

I've had a surge at random speeds but especially noticable on the highway. Had a code for the TPS so replaced it and so far so good.
The doors were hard to get to latch and all the bushings were gone from the door strikers. Replaced the hatch ones with the bushing kit from NAPA. Bought a new striker for the drivers door (need to adjust just a little cause the door rattles a bit) and used 1/2" pex pipe on the other 3 for the time being. (NAPA only had one and haven't checked the other parts stores for them). This fixed the hard to latch problem.
I installed a new thermostat (it was missing).
Installed the correct rear brake light lens on the drivers side.
Put two new front tires on cause I picked up a screw in the tire. I hope to get the back ones after the first of the year.

 

Replaced front and rear sway bar end links. The origins had totally lost their usefulness. I also discovered (for next weekend's project) the rear sway bar bushing also "missing". Nobody else has had this problem??

This is what was left of the front end link(s) - rears were similar.
The new MOOG links look much better.

 

Replaced the blend door actuator and had to clear the computer to get it to work. Disconnected the battery and touched the battery cables together for a few seconds.

 

I got my 2 rear tires replaced (hoping for some snow). Was real bouncy on the way home and thought it was the increase in tire pressure. Noticed a liquid trail on the road behind the vehicle. Guess where they had it up they let the shocks extend and they were already toast but the drivers rear is pouring fluid now. These are the limited air ride so I guess gotta order me rear shocks.

 

Put on the 2 rear shocks. OMG that sucked. I thought the top bolts would be bad but the drivers bottom the bolt sleeve froze on the bolt and wouldn't let it come out. Had to get a new cut-off wheel for my grinder. Installed a frame hitch. Ran new wire for a new amp I got the young'un for his bday in a couple of days. Got the amp installed.

 

I finally fixed the back liftgate on my 2000 Explorer. The ball studs on the gate had rusted so badly they sheared off some time ago and I just threw the struts away.

Using Autozone's ML3000 kit, I drilled out the remaining rust stump of a rivet and installed the replacement ball studs. You have to cut and grind down the length of the stud and the thickness of the nut, but it really wasn't so bad. Finished it off with new Gabriel Maxlift struts, and boy is it nice to have them working again. I almost crushed a guy helping me put a pressure washer in the back this summer, those liftgates are heavy!

 

Finally got time to replace upper control arms, 1st side (driver) was a bear to free the ball joint, then took some fussing to get the control arm out.. Luckily, pass side took 45 mins total from wheel off to test drive.

Got to use my pickle fork set from Northern tools. My old 13/16 wrench was only thing that could get a good grip, no room for my deep socket and ratchet. Got good at using stacked pickles to persuade the ball joints they needed to GO.

 

Finally retired the old recalled Firestone Wilderness AT summer tires after 18 years and roughly 25k miles. Truck now has 45k miles on it but with snow tires taking half the miles since we got the truck with 17k miles in 08.

I just didn't trust the old tires anymore, feel much safer now.





Yes it needs a detailing badly, spring time in AK is rough...

 

I 'tried' to replace valve cover gaskets. Hopefully tomorrow I'll finish. Who knows.

 

I detailed this last weekend. One owner 02 EB V8 4x4 with 94k miles. Very clean, smooth truck drives like new. Came out looking like new!

 

Russ, great job that looks awesome.

 

Replaced the flasher on my '98. Not as easy as it should be since it's hard to get both hands on it and you don't want to damage the wiring while trying to yank the connector off. There was a bit of confusion as the replacement part had 5 pins while the original had 6. Or should I say 5.5 pins as one of the pins was about half the width as the other 5.

 

Started having a misfire lastnight/early this morning. Brought it to a parts store after the CEL was flashing and stayed on. P0308, cylinder 8 misfire. Pulled the coilpack off and put that on number 6, and put 6 on 8. Took it to the store and no misfire. 2003 Merc Mountaineer 4.6 V8. Was really hoping the miss would come back and go to cylinder 6, so I can replace that coil pack. Well now I'm just leaving those in place and waiting for another misfire. If it's 6, it'll be the coil pack, if its 8 again, I'm replacing the injector. And if neither of that happens, well then I'm back to square one.

Though last weekend, my fiance and I drove from Prior Lake to Sioux Falls, 169 to 60, to I90 to I229 and got 20.7mpg. On the way back got 17.4mpg. Usually it's the other way around going, where we get the best mileage coming back home. But I'll take that. Drove 60-65 where permitted, other wise it's 35-55 in small towns, was road construction too, but that didn't seem to hurt mileage.