Hey Everyone,

I just bought a (new to me) 2002 Excursion Diesel on January 26th. I drove it all the way home from Winter Haven Florida to Cochrane Alberta. I took the scenic route so I could see a bunch of friends along the way. Was about a 4500 mile trip and I have to say this SUV is unreal! It was so comfortable to drive and the sheer grunt of the unit is amazing.

From my searching, this seems to be the best Excursion forum out there so I look forward to learning a lot from all of you!

Details on the SUV - it's a 2002 4X4 with the 7.3L powerstroke. It now has 204,XXX miles on the clock. It is a Limited version with the bi-colored leather seats, and the second row are captains seats. Black exterior color with 20" wheels, running boards, brush guard and a Ford 2" load levelling kit (not really sure what that is). Overall condition is awesome with a couple of scratches and dings here and there - to be expected on an 8 year old vehicle. Leather is overall in amazing condition. I also picked up a set of factory wheels with BFG TAs on them for when we get big dumps of snow. 20's just have an all season highway tire on them.

So one grudge I have with the truck is the factory DVD player. It seems that on the 2002, you can only hear the DVD through headphones - is that correct? Also, the retaining clip on the monitor is broken so as you hit bumps in the road, it slowly works its way down. I guess short of buying a new monitor, there is not much I can do but install some sort of strap to hold it up.

My plan is to install headrest monitors in the backs of the front seats and an indash nav/dvd in place of the factory stereo. Then, either use portable monitors for the 3rd row or install a big drop down monitor. My quesiton is, what is the largest side of monitor that you can install in the back of the front row seats?

Thanks so much!

Rob

 

welcome from Spokane, WA.

 

Welcome. I can't help with the dvd questions. Your title caught my attention. It sounds like an introduction in a hockey game.

EH

 

Thanks guys - hahah. Well, we do like our hockey up here.

I did a bunch of research and it sounds as though the stock system is doomed to fail at some point. So I am just going to put in all aftermarket and be done with it. I found an awesome thread by tdappleman and am going to use that as a guide. Many thanks to him for posting that, it will be a huge help.

Cheers,

 

Welcome from Calgary,AB..rig looks good!!

 

[QUOTE=cdnalpina;8499587

So one grudge I have with the truck is the factory DVD player. It seems that on the 2002, you can only hear the DVD through headphones - is that correct?

Rob[/QUOTE]

No I can hear from all my speakers,play with your radio buttons.
Check your owners manual.
As for screen retaining tab ,it doesn't bother me anymore.

 

Thanks for the kind words - and welcome to the board! While you plan out a system - the DVD audio should work through the speakers. Use the single play option on the head unit and make sure the headunit is set to either DVD or AUX - can't remember right now. On a previous truck (99 Expy) - the system sometimes got confused... (for a lack of a better description) and the rear seat audio controls had to be used to select the input source (media button). If you need an owner's manual you can download it in PDF from Ford - https://www.fleet.ford.com/maintenan...ls/default.asp

 

Hey South - good to meet a local owner! I will post some more pics of the rig up when I have sufficient posts to do so.

ZBIGBIG19TH and tdappleman - thanks for the suggestions. Let me assure you I spent no end of time trying to get the stupid thing to work. It was my hope to attach my ipod to the AUX inputs and have tunes for my 4500 mile trip home but I never got them to work.

I have the owners manual and I spent 2 hours in a Wal-Mart parking lot, with a freshly purchased DVD, on the phone with a buddy in Medicine Hat who used to own an '05 Excursion and no luck. The headunit would never display DVD or AUX, nor could I make the rear controls make it work. The DVD player is really finicky, sometimes it would read the new disc and sometimes it wouldn't. Also, when the truck was shut off and then turned back, on the DVD never restarted. It had to be manually turned on.

One thing that my friend found was a post by someone saying that the '02 system could only be heard through the headphone jacks so they opted for an '03 headunit for the sound to come through the speakers. Not sure if there is any truth to that statement, but it seems consistent with what I experience. That said, ZBIGBIG19TH has an '02 so I don't know. It simply says to me that my system is buggered and needs replacing.

Any other suggestions are welcome for sure - would be nice to make it work properly in the interim, until I get my new system installed.

I also did some measuring last night and sadly my hopes of 9" screens in the backs of the front row seats will not work - too small. Or they would have to be mounted fairly low which I think will look stupid and functionally would likely be too low for the viewer (unless they were very short).

Cheers,

 

Maybe you have some kind of older radio, pull it out and check part ####.
Calm down ,get to know your Ex and you'll find out about DVD later.