The water pump on my old '94 one time and one time only decided to puke out the weep hole all over the driveway. It was weird.

 

My thermostat housing cracked recently and the coolant looked like it was dripping from the passenger side of the block, just forward of the wheel.

 

What is weird was it was only a little low on the radiator and empty on the overflow. I topped it off.
Whatever it is I will figure it out unless it solved itself but fairly soon here I may be parking the explorer so I can drive my 88 instead.
Trav

 

Replaced oil and filter. Rotated the tires. Also. The fumoto valve makes draining so easy.

 

added some lucas oil treatment in the Aviator then went on the freeway and hit 110 MPH just to see if I could hit that speed.

 

Clicked over 326,000 miles this evening on mine. Only the past ~6000 were my doing though...

 

Eliminated another annoying rattle the other day. Ever since I bought the Explorer, it had a rattle in the rear passenger door. When I first tore the door down to find the cause, I thought it was the guts of the window motor rattling and didn't think I'd be able to easily (or cheaply) replace that. So as a stopgap, I stuffed a folded up piece of a shop rag in there and that seemed to silence the rattle.

A few months later the piece of rag wiggled loose and the rattle returned. So I just took the door apart again and stuffed a bigger piece of a rag in there. Again, it stopped the rattle.

But a couple weeks ago the rattle started returning with a vengeance. Any time the vehicle moved I could hear the darn thing rattling. So Friday I took the door apart again, did a little closer investigating, and actually saw the three nut/bolt combo below where the motor actually mounts to the door. Just for grins I figured I'd try to tighten the nuts down and sure enough, two of them needed to be torqued down a good bit. Once they were good and snug, the rattle ceased once again. I think this time I've got it taken care of. Permanently.

Now if I could just figure out how to silence the rattle coming from the plastic trim piece(s) on the tailgate. That's not as bad though.

 

Installed replacement seat recliner adjuster handle.. Took longer to open the bag and then slide it on. . More of these types of repairs please!


$17.78 from my local dealer and I could compare the color (exact match) vs. online (fleabay) for $20-25

 

I added a second Mountaineer to the stable. Traded my focus for a 2004 that needs a bit of work in the cooling department. Going to be towing it home Saturday. Plan to make it my daily driver.

 

Our 2010 slung a banded tire sensor loose on I-40. Made for a heck of an imbalanced wheel. 80 bucks for a new sensor and 4 hours missing from vacation. Banded tire sensors suck!

 

Got new tires, changed the egr valve, spark plugs, wires, thermostat housing and did a coolant flush on the 04. I can say that I wouldn't ever recommend anyone to install Bosch platinum +4 plugs in one of these engines. It tore them up. Oh I also installed some strongarm hood struts and now the hood doesn't fall on my head. Next weekend is the upper control arms, lower ball joints, timken hubs, brake rotors and pads, and if there is time a blend door actuator.

 

Got most of my parts installed yesterday. Just waiting on the Brakes now, but those are quick so I threw it back together to drive. Boy does it drive better now! All parts were the originals with 129K miles on them and were overdue for changing. The only lesson I learned is that you can get this done without any special adapters for the standard ball joint press. I was able to take the front wheel bearing race from a Ford Focus (you all do have one of those lying around right? lol.) and cut it in half to make a small spacer to give room to press the joint back in. All in all, not a hard job and the whole front end took me 5 hours in the garage plus an hour for testing and cleanup.

 

I just put a new battery in after the factory motorcraft unit died in my Grandpa's '08 Sport Trac. The first 4 years of it's life it lived in Scottsdale, AZ so i think the heat played a role...running like a champ now. Time to talk him into exhaust on that 4.6 3V!

 

A couple days ago I stopped by the body shop that I've taken my Mustang to and checked to see what it would cost to have the dent taken out of my tailgate. They gave me a quote for approximately $800 including paint. Just getting the dent out alone was about $500.

Guess I'll be leaving that dent there for now...

 

Got my brakes installed. I think my head gasket may be leaking. Loosing a little coolant every day that I can't see leaking. Have a pending code for #4 cyl misfire in first 1000rpm.....not looking good. It runs great and isn't mixing any fluids but does seem to be adding pressure to the Degas reservoir and it stinks like exhaust in there. I may bypass the heater core and throw some liquid fix in until I can get another engine. I hate liquid fix but have heard success with blue devil in cases like this. Just plan to replace the radiator and the engine if it goes south as that junk can clog up everything. However if it works and I get a summer out of this engine it will have been worth it.