I figured I'd go ahead and make an official build thread for my 2000 Limited. It'll be easier for me to keep track of it.

DISCLAIMER- I'm a disabled Vet living on disability pay, so my build thread will move substantially SLOWER than the average build thread, since it'll take me longer to come up with money for stuff...

A little background on what I just drug home... I came across a Craigslist ad for a 2000 Limited, 4x4 with the V10 for only $1500. She fell victim to the dreaded cruise control switch fire. The previous owner happened to be outside with a water hose nearby when the fire broke out, so the damage really isn't that bad. He stuck the hose into the engine compartment through the driver side wheel well while he worked at getting the hood open.

I'm not sure how he managed to screw up the hood as bad as he did, but you really can't expect someone to be all that rational in a panic like that. The hood looks like someone was body-slammed across it. At any rate, he knocked the grille out with his bolt cutters to get to the hood catch, which he cut to get the hood open. Then, he used the bolt cutters to cut the battery cable to kill all the shorting and arcing. His fast thinking saved this Ex from completely burning to the ground.

Naturally, the wiring harness under the hood is cooked. Pretty much everything on the driver side that was made out of plastic or rubber burned up as well. BUT- the fire didn't get hot enough to hurt the engine at all, nor warp any sheet metal (it burned some paint off of the hood and fender, but didn't burn off the primer). Even the aluminum portion of the master cylinder didn't melt away. Unfortunately, it did get the top corner of the radiator's upper tank- just enough to require a new radiator.

All and all, the damage isn't really too bad- mostly under-hood wiring and bolt-on stuff.

I'll start with some pictures how she sat when I went to buy it...

Picture 1- This pretty much shows the extent of the body damage- baked paint off of the fender and hood, hood destroyed getting it open. The cladding on that fender melted in the middle of the wheel opening. I'm debating on removing all the cladding anyway. Grille and grille support are also trashed.


Picture 2- No real damage other than a dent in the front fender.


Picture 3- Only one year newer than my Super Duty, but has 100,000 less miles.


Picture 4- First row of seats- driver seat bottom worn.


Picture 5- Second row of seats are pretty much perfect.


Picture 6- Third row of seats- not only are they actually there, but they are near perfect- save for the weird stain...


Picture 7- The seller said that since I didn't try to low-ball him on price, he was going to go ahead and throw in the wheels and tires- which weren't part of the original sale.

 

As you can see, it is missing the passenger side running board, but has the driver side running board. I'll be removing it and selling/trading it. I'm up in the air over the cladding, but I'm leaning towards losing it as well.

Also notice that it didn't come with tail lights. I should have them in a few days though.

And now for some engine compartment pics- before I started removing the burned up stuff...

Driver side- this is where most of the damage is. It really isn't as bad as it looks- the smoke damage makes it look pretty bad.


Passenger side- really the only thing wrong over here is the battery and the cut battery cable. A rubber portion of the AC line blew, but I don't think it had anything to do with the fire.

 

Man that engine compartment looks bad. How do you know that the fire didn't get hot enough to hurt the engine?

 

Here's a shot with all of the burned/melted stuff removed from the engine compartment. I went ahead and removed the brake booster, as I don't trust it. The fire started right beside it, and there is no way of knowing if it is damaged internally.


I also removed the throttle body and the elbow on top of the intake manifold. It made it MUCH easier to remove the wiring harnesses. I just cut the wiring to the injectors and COPs to keep everything in place to help keep water out.

I'm up in the air on the steering shaft. Do you think the heat may have compromised it?

The radiator- just enough damage to open a wallet...


Here's a close shot of the firewall plugs. The harness unplugged with no effort- notice there is no damage to the plugs. I cut the plug ends off of the harness to reinstall to keep water out (PCM plug shown already back in place).


I spent an afternoon pulling as much of the dash apart as I could and tracing the harness under the dash. Nothing up under there shows any damage whatsoever. I even removed the factory stereo from the Excursion and put it in my 99 Super Duty. It works just fine. I'm not holding my breath on the PCM though...

 

And here's where things begin to get tricky- THE WIRING.

I have a separate, earlier thread discussing the harnesses here:
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...rness-v10.html

From that thread, I was informed that it was likely the harness was a 1-year-only harness. I haven't found out what the differences may be though.

It gets even trickier when looking at salvage yard listings and Ebay listings. Seems different yards use different names for different parts of the harness.

First, there is (what I call) an engine harness. Some folks tend to call it an injector harness. This is the harness that plugs into the injectors and COPs, as well as a variety of engine sensors. It begins at two plugs located in front of the driver side cylinder head. If you were pulling an engine, you'd unplug these two plugs, unplug the two O2 sensors, and then pull the motor with the harness still attached to the engine.

Here's mine, laid out on some wood- in about the shape you'd find it on the engine (some wires were cut so I could keep the plugs attached to the engine to keep water out). I also laid out the two plugs where the harness begins (the male and female ends are melted together, which is why it's cut)-


One of my questions in my other thread was what the interchange was for this harness- the engine harness. When I compare it to my truck's harness, everything is exactly the same, except for missing two injector and COP connections (the truck is a V8). I didn't get a definitive answer to this question, but I was at a local salvage yard today looking at an already-removed V10 engine from a 2000 Super Duty pickup.

So I can say without a doubt- the ENGINE HARNESS (or, injector harness, if you will) IS EXACTLY THE SAME BETWEEN A 2000 EXCURSION V10 AND A 2000 SUPER DUTY PICKUP V10. And, since my 1999 V8 engine harness is exactly the same minus two cylinders, I can say I'm fairly certain that a 1999 V10 pickup also shares the same harness. I'm betting if there is a difference, it'll be the pin-outs at the two plugs.

So this particular harness is wrapped up, save for paying for it. The salvage yard is holding it for me for when I can come pick it up.

 

Good work so far. That cleaned up better than I thought it would and I'm glad to see you making headway!

 

Wow. There is no way I would touch that, for free. $1500 + all the parts you will need to replace is going to be more than just buying a nice running Ex. I would try to find a $500 rot box and start swapping over what I could.

Now is as good as it will ever get for replacing manifold studs. Plenty of room to work. Also a good time to do plugs on that side, in case one breaks off or strips. Much easier access than with everything piled back in there.

Good luck with it. That's a big project.

 

The second major harness is a bit more complicated. It begins at the firewall plugs (on my 2000 Ex, there are three 40-pin plugs and one 104-pin PCM plug). It immediately goes to the under-hood relay/fuse box located right above the firewall plugs. from there, it branches three directions:

1. Towards the driver side, where it picks up the ABS system and driver side front lights.
2. Down under the vehicle, where it picks up the transmission, trailer harness, etc.
3) Across the underside of the cowl and over to the passenger side, where it picks up the heater, cruise control box, passenger side front lights, etc.

THIS HARNESS IS EXCURSION-SPECIFIC. You cannot use a pickup harness here, as the fuse/relay box contains fuses/relays for Excursion circuits not found on pickups.

This is the harness that suffered the most fire damage on my Ex. Below is a picture of mine- again, laid out on a board in the general shape it would be on the vehicle...


Here's what makes this harness a pain in the you-know-what:

1) This harness MUST match the dash harness, unless you're good at sorting these things out.
2) I believe 2002 went to the digital dash, so interchanging with 2002-up is out of the question. I have no idea about 2001 harnesses.
3) Ford parts catalogs show FOUR different harness possibilities, depending on the following options:
a) Without Cali emissions, without ESOF, WITH DRL
b) Without Cali emissions, without DRL, WITH ESOF
c) Without DRL, WITH Cali emissions, WITH ESOF
d) WITH Cali emissions, WITH DRL, WITH ESOF

(you read that right- an Excursion-specific harness for a manual transfer case exists)
I don't have California emissions, and I do have ESOF, so harness "b" is my target.

BUT WAIT- the plot thickens!

If you hop on over to car-part.com and search on 2000 Excursion, under "Wiring Harness/Misc. Electric" you get results such as "HEADLAMP WIRING HARNESS," "NOT ENGINE HARNESS" AND completely separate listings if you search for "ENGINE FUSE BOX."

So, how do I go about this?
First, there IS NO stand-alone headlamp harness- all of the wiring for the front lights is within the harness in my picture. Is this whole harness the "headlamp harness?"
Second, the underhood fuse/relay box DOES NOT unplug from this harness- it is intended to be PART OF this harness. If you yank all of the wiring out of the underhood fuse/relay box, all you're left with is a chunk of plastic- and these yards are asking between $50-100 for an "underhood fuse box."

And if all of this isn't complicated enough, I either have to match this harness option-for-option with my Ex, or add in wires if I have an option the harness doesn't support!

I'd like to know what the official Ford name is for this harness, and what all the possible part numbers are for this harness for 2000 (and 2001 for that matter).

This is going to be the biggest headache part of the whole build. Everything else will seem like a walk in the park by comparison!

 

Because there is no actual fire damage to the engine, and the valve cover is solid. It may have shorted some sensors due to the electrical nature of the fire, but a little rubbing with soapy water shows nothing actually burned.

 

When I first saw the ad and communicated with the seller, I went into it with the mindset that the engine was toast. I had planned to find a rusted and/or wrecked diesel and swap everything over. But when I actually saw it, plans changed. The engine was well-serviced up until the fire. Also, they yard I deal with is VERY good to me- I used to work there and send a ton of business their way. They pretty much have everything I need except for the last harness I talked about- and I'll be getting it all for around $250 or so, not counting the grille and support (which I'm considering upgrading anyway). Besides, at worst, there is WAY MORE than $1500 in parts here...

Starting this build thread has ALREADY paid off! That is some great advice- I hadn't even thought about that with my mind all wrapped around the damage. Thanks!

 

Glad to see you saving another X from the graveyard! Great work!

 

My yard guy directed me to the photo below. He forgot he had it because there isn't much left of it now (this is an old photo- all the good stuff is gone). He said in spite of the hard hit it took to the front driver side, the harness was good at the time it was inventoried. I'm supposed to go look at it within the next day or so.

The good: It only has 82,320 miles on it AND it's a 2000.
The bad: It's an XLT, so I don't know if it will need modified or not.

Cross your fingers for me...

 

Subscribing and good luck,,,,

 

In for the revival.

 

You'll get it. Good Luck!