Some goodness from rock auto and Eastwood. New Lares steering box, Wagner brake rotors, etc

The fun part after all the work 😊

 

Getting closer to driving it! 20 minutes until I can spray the 2nd coat.

 

Finally ready to reassemble! Needs buffing.....

Tam touching up some paint flaking. Epoxy primer with touch up paint over it.i

Installing the door panels.

New Wagner coated rotors.

The new calipers were already rusty so we gave them a coat of rust Encapsulator. It's good to 350 degrees so we'll see how it works. I'm waiting for wheel seals and dust shields for the rear. $50 for a pair! $200 if I had bought them locally.

 

Looking Good!

 

Thank you! Getting close to driving it. We have a wedding in October I want to have it for. I'm even dreaming of things for the future. Snow plow, tuner, gears, tires......

 

Needs buffing, I haven't started on this side yet.

 

So we're not done yet, but it's getting A/C recharged, alignment, and hopefully a new tail pipe. It has the 3 1/2" Banks system. I'm struggling with clearance between the shock and gas tank with the lift. I can't find anyone that can bend 3 1/2" pipe. I may have to reduce it to a 3" tail pipe. It needs some sanding and a lot of buffing yet. The Rf inner fender and the fender flares installed. Interior needs cleaning and trim put back together. I ordered new door seals today. The heater box needs to go back together. The front heat doesn't work very well IIRC, but I couldn't find anything wrong.

I need some help with accessories. https://www.1aauto.com/ford-mirror-s...1093550&y=2005 are these one of the better choices for mirrors? Are there better mirrors? I'm also looking for lights for over the running boards and fog light options for the new 05-07 front end. There's probably a bunch of other stuff I haven't even thought about yet. Better cup holders and ??? I'll have to start digging through my book marks, the tech folder, and old threads.

So what do y'all think? What did I forget? Future plans include electric fans, 4:56 gears, a Truetrac, bigger tires and a V-plow. Thanks for all the encouragement!

 

There's an automatic folding option, if that interests you. Personally, I'm angling for some 2017s with the puddle lamp, but I have to put some love into my fiancé's Grand Cherokee to keep her calm. I just bought this bumper for her:



You could do some LED tubes under the running boards. I'm not particularly fond of the factory board lights. They seem to shine into my eyes more than the board. Putting the light on the ground would be a slick touch.

Do you already have the deeper front cup holders? If my memory serves me correct, I believe@Flyboy1100 took a heat gun to his to make them fit his Yeti. You could match @01__Excursion with his embedded cup holder LEDs, a personal favorite of mine. He also installed the factory fog/headlight switch, something to consider for your future fogs. His build thread is Excursion nirvana; a must-read.

I love my TrueTrac, and the 4.56 will be a great choice with some big rubber. I went 4.88 with BFG 37s (realistically a 35.5-36") and I think it's a hair too steep. I plan to compensate with some legitimate 37s I did an E-locker up front, and I'm happy with how it turned out as well. Maybe throw in a hidden 2" receiver up front?

 

Lance, you two are incredible.

Yes, there IS a better choice in mirrors, and I just stumbled across them yesterday on a YouTube video. The video was not about mirrors, it was about an aftermarket turbo installation into a 7.3L, and I noticed the mirrors in passing, and was quite surprised.

Apparently, the aftermarket has created 2017 up alumiduty style towing mirrors that bolt right up to the steel 99-16 super duty body style.

I think the 17 up towing mirrors represent a step up from the square blockish 08-16 towing mirrors, because the 17 up towing mirrors have the upper outside corners mitered, which makes it easier to notice pedestrians and cyclists crossing the street against their light.

The 17 up towing mirrors also have a full width lower convex mirror, which is taller and wider than even the 08-16 lower convex mirror.

Finally, the 17 up mirror is a bit more svelte looking, more akin to the original 99-03 mirrors that were designed with the Excursion body style.

Like I said, the first time I have ever seen 17 up style filters on a 99-16 was yesterday... so I'd be calling 1AA Auto and asking about them. Once one manufacturer in China makes something that sells well, not long thereafter there are usually 3 or 4 choices to be had on eBay, with varying degrees of quality.

 

Thank you, that's awesome. I'll see if I can find them.

 

It's really cool she wants to mod her Grand Cherokee! My daughter just bought one, I asked when we're installing the 4" lift. LOL Thanks for all the ideas, I definitely need the deeper cup holder. The links are great, sometimes it's really hard to find what I'm looking for. Brooke has 4:56s with 33" BFGs and they work great where we live. It's 20 miles to a 65-70 MPH road. I think 35s with the 4:56s will work great on the EX because we'll use it to travel some on the interstate. If I can I want to mount lights that shine on my running boards and the ground. Maybe make brackets from where the running boards mount.

 

So I found some of the newer style mirrors https://www.topgearautosport.com/174...hoCnE8QAvD_BwE , https://www.protuninglab.com/twm-051...RoCig0QAvD_BwE ,
I'm not sure if any of them make good products or not. I do like the look of them though. Are there any reputable mirror manufacturers I should look at?

 

@Lance Helmert THANK YOU for posting the links to not just 1, not just 2, but 3 different retail sources of the 17+ Alumiduty style towing mirrors that have bases that bolt up to the 99-16 steel bodies.

But wow, sniff, smell that? I opened up all three of those links and now my computer smells just like Harbor Freight.

So you're looking for more options, because you caught the same whiff?

Well, there is always the OEM, which in the case of the Excursion era, were (at one time) made in Australia, by Schefenacker, In other words... troll your local Craigslist for take off 1999-2007 Super Duty towing mirrors, which are a dime a dozen (but not in the seller's mind) from the oh so many upgrades to the the knock off 2008-2016 mirrors.

A word about Ford's old towing mirror history... cause it took quite a few tries before Ford / Schefenacker came close to finally getting it right. Sorta.

The first 1999-2000 version of trailer towing mirrors had dual arm, but the mirror only swung one way. Backwards. So as long as someone in the opposing lane of traffic side swiped you, the mirror would break away and fold backwards. Just fold it back out again (driver's side... passenger side not so much, because these are all manual fold). But if someone passed you and hit your mirror, of if you're parked in front of your house and the garbage truck comes by and hits your mirror, and sneaks off without saying anything or leaving a note (do I sound like I have some personal experience with this?) than that mirror won't break away. It will break apart, inside, and you might not noticed it until you look in the mirror and think you are in the longest earthquake ever. So don't get those.

Besides, and something to look out for, some of those early trailer towing mirrors were not even power adjustable for the glass on the lowly XL chassis cab models. Plus the dinky convex that is too short vertically to be of any use. I mention this because when looking on eBay or OfferUp or Craigslist or wherever... there can be a lot of variance in the factory take off trailer tow mirrors of the original rounded design with the design contour on the forward facing back cover. Assume nothing. Ask, look for, and test every feature claimed.

The 2001-2002 trailer towing mirrors swing both ways. You think that sounds hot? Well wait until you hear this... they are also heated! Sure, you gotta run the circuit and the timer for the heat, but the element is there if you see the symbol on the mirror. One can get replacement glass for these that have the arrow inside, and add that circuit too. The issue with these, however, is that to accommodate all these extra circuits going on, Ford had to change the connector shell from a four pin round harness connector to an 8 pin rectangular harness connector.

Ford used to sell a short dog bone translation harness. I believe 1A Auto still does. In fact, the aftermarket offers several translation harnesses, because Ford changed the mirror connector harness shell 3 or four times. By the time we get to 2008, the harness connector is 12 or 16 pins (I'm getting fuzzy here). With a 2000, you likely have the round four pin harness.. which Ford coupled with a secondary harness for the Excursion heated mirror. I converted my round harness connector to the first version of rectangular... hang on a sec while I try and find that link... 3 hours later... Converting model year 2000 mirror harness to model year 2002-2007 connector.

Thus far, in the annuls of Super Duty Excursion OEM outside rear view towing mirror history, we have only covered the contour back style of mirrors. That contour back ended in 2003. A whole new era in trailer tow mirrors was around the corner, with flat backs, removable and interchangeable covers, smooth back and paintable, textured black, or let-everyone-know-you're-coming chrome. Plus, the new mirrors introduced the LED mirror mounted running light and bi color, bi directional reflex reflector, along with turn signals moved off the glass, to instead be integrated with the lamp assembly as part of the housing. These mirrors, at the time, seemed like they had it all. Running light, turn signal light, heat, power adjusting glass, removable and replaceable back caps (that were flat, not contoured). And they swung both ways.

What's not to like? They still had that same old stupid donkey doohickey of a convex mirror on the bottom that is about as useful as the blade of a pocket knife for seeing behind you. So that is why, now a decade and a half later, folks don't get too excited about those mirrors as I was when I first saw them in 2003 or 2004. Well, probably no one gets that excited about mirrors anyway, truth be told, but work with me.

There is still more history to tell, because these 2005-2007 trailer tow mirrors came about as a result of Schefenacker sending a crew over from Australia back in 2001, to outfit some trucks at a couple of dealerships in truck country (Texas) with their most advanced, feature laden prototypes, and invited Americans to come to the dealership to take a look, so that they could say to Ford, their customer, "SEE, customers WANT all this stuff we can charge you extra for making". But Ford didn't adopt all of it soon enough.

Which is why every one wants the 2008 and up trailer towing mirrors, because by then, Ford finally agreed to add the power folding, power unfolding, power extending, and power retracting features for trailer towing mirrors that Schefenacker had prototyped years earlier. Schefenacker no longer exists, by the way. It was around 2006 or so when their CEO bailed. Schefenacker was formerly a subsidiary of a German based company having the same name, but through a series of corporate gobbldegook and name changes (becoming Visiocorp Holding Co from 2007 to 2009), and then being subsumed by an automotive supplier conglomerate in India, Samvardhana Motherson Reflectec, but called SMR holding company down under, the future generations of outside rear view mirrors were slated to have more technology inside the mirror (cameras, radar, lidar, search lights, puddle lights, emergency lights, extendable wings, extendable rotors for hover flight, positioning jets for space flight, etc) than in the entire automobile to which they are attached.

But back to options for the Excursion. You already found how the knock off industry Brady Bunched the 17+up style mirrors with the 99-16 style door mounting base. So we are up to speed on all the Ford light truck choices.

So lets move on to aftermarket.

The motorhome and transit bus industry learned decades ago to throw Ford mirrors away in favor of something from the Vacuum Power and Equipment Company, maker of the Velvet Vacuum brakes of the 1940's, who introduced the "West Coast" mirror to the North American truck market in the 1950's. This mirror has evolved over the decades to become... the Velvac 2020. Not so named after this year, but actually named the 2020 at least 24 years ago, maybe longer. More often seen on Class C motorhomes and airporter busses based on the Ford E Series cutaway chassis, Velvac also has made a Super Duty fitment for the 2020 series mirror ever since the Super Duty was introduced.

Now, in 2020, the 2020 includes options such as lights, camera, and glass big enough to see all the action. I've refined a search for you in the link below, and threw in all the options, like heat, signals, etc... just to reduce the hundreds of options (and pages) down to a few selections so you can see photos of the full manifestation of the 2020 mirror, and then you can mouse around and away from the options I pre-selected, which will reveal more options that were previously hidden because of my focused selections on your behalf. Drum roll please....

Velvac 2020 for 1999-2016 F-250-550, which also fits Excursions



.

 

@Y2KW57 thanks for the history! I own a semi and like Velvac products, thanks for the link. I gotta say, there was a bit of sticker shock! LOL. Need to find some of those in a wrecking yard.

I could get a set of Moto Mirrors for it I guess.

 

https://www.am-autoparts.com/product...54.html?m=2162 so these interest me! Out of stock though.