Hello all! I am a long time FTE guy, but I've gone astray for a few years. I used to post around the Dentside and Off-road forums a lot. I've owned 2 dentside 4x4's, and I still own a '78 Supercab 4x4 that is currently "resting."(more on that later, I hope!)

I've been doing "The Jeep Thing" through college and beyond because it was cheaper/easier than getting my neglected '78 running and off-road ready while I was a poor college student. I have a 91 Jeep XJ weekend/trail/beater rig that I just retired as my daily driver because I got this:



She is a 2000 V10 4x4 and started with 143K on the clock. I would have preferred a diesel, but I could not pass it up for the price, nor could I afford a 7.3 Excursion fresh out of college.

I'm not one to leave things stock, so I have a long list for this vehicle. This will be changed/delayed as life happens I am sure:

Short term (1-5 years):
-Lift with 35's
-Fix the Flaking roof-paint (Bedliner?)
-Intake and muffler
-various doodads and thingamabobs that break/need improvement.
-05 lights
-Tow mirrors


Long term(5-200 years):
-24 Valve Cummins Swap
-05 Dana 60/Coil Swap
-Gears and Lockers
-38-40's
-Deavers/airbags
-Prerunner/winch bumper
-Roof Rack
-A handfull of round off road lights (Light bars or for Justin Bieber Fans )
-............

 

The Story:

My wife and I graduated from college up at BYU and moved back to California to be around our parents (free rent!) and job search. After a few months, I found a job way out in Fayetteville, AR.

Instead of dropping $2,700+ renting a U-haul, I started looking around for box trucks for sale. The boss(my wife ) didn't like that idea, and I saw this clean Excursion's price continue to drop on Craigslist. It turned out that the seller had his area code off by one digit and wasn't getting any calls, so I got it for a song and a dance once I got a hold of him. I've always wanted an Excursion since my folks bought one new in 2000, so this was a dream come true!

 

Glad to hear that you was able to make your dreams come true. First mod...remove your luggage rack bars. They will rub the roof and cause cancer.

 

The hell is a "dent side"?

 

I'm guessing a step side pickup....with the narrow box, and no wheel well inside..

 

Nomenclature commonly used by fanbois to describe a body feature of a particular generation of trucks...bricknose ('87-'96) dentside ('73-79), bullnose ('80-'86) kind of like when people that were in the service talk about their DD214.

 

Nice looking rig, good luck with it and the buildup!
Don't worry about the air intake, the factory cold air unit is as good as anything aftermarket, just throw a clean filter in it. . The aftermarket ones make a lot more noise but don't deliver any extra performance based on reports from several V-10 owners on this forum.
Maybe move the new gears up on your list, deeper gears are the 6.8's best friend! . Going from the stock 3.73 gears to my 4.88s was the single biggest performance increase I've done to my EX. My wagon works as our tow rig and those gears not only made driving more fun but increased the fuel mileage by 20% while towing.

 

hwybee22 - I've read about that issue. Oddly enough, the roof started flaking from the edge by the rear hatch and in the rain channels. The areas under the roof-rack are pretty clean. It's a California truck, so luckily the rust is minimal.

WE3ZS - My Ex came with 4.30 gears, so I'm pretty happy with the power it currently has, even with the 35's I just put on. I don't tow anything heavier than my jeep right now. If I end up on 38-40's in a few years, I'll definitely need to regear. I've heard there's not much you can do to improve power other than a Y-pipe and maybe 5-star tunes, but I like the re-usable aspect of k&n's and I'd like to get a bit louder muffler.

 

One performance upgrade you can do is the SCT/5 Star tuner...they make tunes for just about any combination of pipes/gears you can come up with. I'm not saying you should violate CA law and put a tuner on your truck while it's still in CA mind you

...even though the SCT tuner lets you restore your tune back to stock and it's not detectable by smog testers

...but since you are moving out of state once you cross the border you could do as you please.

 

wot? I see no tuner in my truck.... It must have been that way when I got it..... I'll get it reset, I promise...... etc etc etc

 

Driving it around with the worn out stock-sized Bridgestone Revos, wet-noodle rear springs and slamming into the bumpstops over ever speedbump finally started wearing on me after about 8 months. The tires were getting especially bad and I didn't want to spend money on new 265's, so I started collecting components to lift it a few inches.

I found some low-mile 2000 7.3 F250 Springs on Craigslist for $100. I've been reading about B/V mods quite a bit. The fronts even came with some el-cheapo mini packs (I plan to just use these temporarily).

The truck had been sold so I wasn't able to check the door GVWR. The fronts were early Berlin-Eye leafs, so I know for sure that they are not V Codes. I've built a few sets of junkyard leafs for jeeps, so I figured I could make something happen between this set and the set coming off of the excursion so I could fit 35's.

 

Funny that you said yours is flaking also. While we was in our hotel room, I noticed that my clear coat is also flaking in the same area.

 

I had to wait a few months to do anything as I closed on my first house. Once the papers were signed, I started collecting everything else that I needed to finish the lift.

Thanks brown Santa!



I've been waiting for these tires to come out for the last few years after I heard about them working at Discount Tire. They are Falken Wildpeak M/T's. Falken did some serious R&D on these. They did a lot of testing on them with Ultra-4 trucks (King of the Hammers), and people really liked their Wildpeak AT. I'll likely do a seperate review thread as there isn't much information floating around about these tires yet. These are 315x75r16, 10 ply tread with 3-ply sidewall. They were $40 cheaper per tire than KM2's and Cooper STT pro's. which have similar specs. I've put about 300 miles on them now, and I have been very impressed.



And here are a few before pictures next to the wife's 2000 Jeep XJ. As you can see, the jeep has already marked its territory on our new driveway (PS hose gave out).

 

Here is my rear spring setup. I don't know what code my F250 springs are, but I followed instructions for the modified B code springs and had great results. From main leaf to overload, here is ther order: F250 Main (#1), F250 #2 through 4, excursion #5 and #6 and then the F250 overload. I used the thicker Excursion spacer between the leafs.



5 minutes into the job, I found out what a 12 Ton jackstand can do to your finger if you're not paying attention.



Here is the end result for the rear: I netted 4"; 2" from the Mystery Modded Springs and 2" from swapping the 2" factory block with a 4" from Ready Lift.

 

I've never actually seen anyone who liked the Wildpeak AT tires. The siping is not very deep and it's not long until you have a "slick" tire with a couple jagged grooves running around the tire.

The new AT3 looks promising though.