Being LED has nothing to do with the dark spot from 50-70 mph. Even with the original incandescent bulbs the dark area was there. I've had three Excursions including this one. The first one I did not retrofit. The second I did retrofit and switched back to incandescent. This one I put higher output led's from VLEDS and they are by far the most superior to all. It doesn't matter what bulbs are in there, the dark spot is there as a result of design flaw. Not trying to argue, it is what it is....

 

I haven't had this experience on any Superduty or OBS I have owned. It's the first time I have heard of it.

 

Yesterday I tackled the brake soft lines. It would probably have been a relatively simple task for someone who has done it before, but for me it was an all day affair. I did have two unscheduled thunderstorm breaks, as well as a "it's hot as hell out here" break.

I decided to go with braided brake lines. The Russell ones are probably about the same cost as OEM rubber, but I've got that wonderful older vehicle that has one rear caliper in front of the axle and one behind it. Thus you need two different lengths of rear brake hose. Only Crown seemed to have that option, as an add-on to their three piece kit. Pricy, but I shouldn't have to do these ever again...


Different length rear hoses on the left and the "regular" three-piece kit for 1999-2004 superduties on the right.


I started with the rear center line. Relatively easy and after backing up on ramps I had good access. I also swapped in a new breather hose while I was in there.


After that I went to the passenger rear. It was by far the easiest as access was good. I used a Mityvac to do my brake bleeds solo. Nifty little tool!


Passenger rear done. I did the lines in the order you are supposed to bleed the brake system PR-DR-PF-DF. I bled each caliper as I went. Don’t know if this is the proper procedure, but I had a firm brake peddle when done.


The driver rear began the “challenges”. Because the caliper is in front of the axle, there is a shield that needs to be removed to gain access. That was the relatively easy part. Before I started this line I knew my naïvely optimistic purchase of one quart of brake fluid was not going to be enough. Went to the Zone and bought two more quarts. I probably used a cup of fluid out of the last quart. Someone faster and who knew what they were doing could easily do this with two. Gravity drains fluid everywhere if any hose isn’t connected to the system. It drains slowly at the rear of the truck, but was like Niagara Falls at the driver front.

Access to the bleeder on this caliper is very marginal, due to how the hose routes. I had to hold the hose end fitting with a crescent wrench at as much of an angle away from the bleeder as possible when I tightened it down to get any clearance. After getting some access to the bleeder I found the bleeder to be mangled. Trip two to the auto parts store. Speaking of bleeders, following some random dude’s YouTube vid on bleeders, I wrapped each bleeder’s threads with 3-4 wraps of Teflon tape. This is supposed to help the bleeder threads seal the vacuum properly. I didn’t really see any signs of leakage so maybe it worked?


Drivers rear finished!


Passenger front. This is where the first real challenge arose...getting the damn clips off that pinch the hose fitting to the wheel well bracket. Nothing I did worked, until I eventually broke the clip into two pieces at the fold. This probably took 75 minutes of serious cussing to do. Also, this line was a bit twisted so there is a bit of a loop up near the wheel well. Good clearance at both wheel stops.


I thought the drivers front would be easier as I knew to fatigue the clip. Nope, still took 60 minutes of swearing. About 45 minutes into this clip I thought a dremel and cutoff wheel would have made quick work of this. Day late and a dollar short.

This brake line, closest to the reservoir, really pours out the brake fluid by gravity. Be quick about disconnecting the old line and hooking up the new one.

Complete...it only took all day. Good news is the firm peddle and possibly better braking. Now I just need to get all the brake fluid off of EVERYTHING.

 

How'd you like that MityVac? I used one (from HF) to bleed the brakes on mine following a caliper change on the rear. I found it to be ok at best and felt much better after I had my better half help me bleed the brakes with the pedal.

 

I do like the Mityvac. I originally bought if for checking vacuum in my SOTF front hubs. Once I sucked some ATF out the filler tube when I overfilled it. This is the first time I did anything on the brakes with them.

If you do get one, get extra lengths of hose. Once soaked with ATF, brake fluid, or other nastiness, it would be easier to just throw the used hose away.

 

Looks good! I just go all the hoses for the rear of my truck. I am also replacing the hardlines with Nicopp. I had the front left line burst recently so I am now it is time to preventative maintenance. That brake pedal going to the floor can be a crap your pants moment.

 

Rinse it with a garden hose.

 

Not sure how you were trying to release the front brake lines from the brackets in the wheel well, but on the inner side of the brackets is a clip that holds the line in the bracket. I use a flat head screwdriver to release them, and it usually only takes a few seconds to locate the screwdriver in the right spot and apply pressure to remove the clip. Sorry to see you had so much trouble with them...I was in that boat before I figured out how they work. Good work, Eric.

 

I didn't pull the wheel well liners. They are in marginal shape and didn't want to expedite their death. That's the only way to get to the back side of the bracket unless I'm seeing this wrong.

 

My last project, replacing my soft brake lines, was done just because I wanted to do it. I just felt like 20yo rubber lines might let me down when I didn't need it. The decision to replace them had nothing to do with the nagging pull to the left I've been fighting for a few months now. I thought it was up front with my sticky slide pins that I've serviced three times in the last three months trying to get them to operate smoothly. No luck.

But a few days ago on my way home from work I had a flash of inspiration. I kept an IR thermometer in my truck to check trailer tires and brakes. Can't believe it took me that long to think of checking the Excursion! Well, after a pretty good downhill I jumped on the brakes pretty hard and then pulled off into a church parking lot. Left Front 235, Right Front 225, Right Rear 450, Left Rear 190. Anything stick out to you guys? Yep, me too.

After consulting with @SkySkiJason and @Sous , I checked my rear slide pins that I had never serviced...worked way better than my fronts. That left a seized piston. I knew from my Crown brake line experience that my older 2000 Ex has the same rear caliper on both sides. I had no idea if they were both "driver side" or "passenger side". After much research and matching of pictures I deducted that it is the passenger (behind the axle caliper) that is repeated on the drivers side. Replace calipers in pairs I've heard, and SSJ suggested AutoZone Duralast Gold bracketed calipers with a lifetime warranty, so today I went out to the Zone and picked up a Duralast 18-B4752 caliper (passenger rear, phenolic piston). Unfortunately any one AutoZone only has one of each caliper for each corner of a normal truck, so I was sent to another store to get a duplicate caliper. They do have ambidextrous calipers where you can move the bleeder to the top or bottom, but not a bracketed version.


I was going to zip tie my old caliper up on the springs to take tension off my new crown line, but it laid nicely on my floor jack.


Here's a pic of the old pads from the right rear. Pretty cooked and a pretty good taper from the dragging.


All installed and ready to bleed. I went with Duralast Gold pads. Rotors miked good on both sides so I kept my old ones.


I was bleeding the caliper for quite a bit when I noticed a drip, drip, drip from under the caliper. Any residual should have been gone by then. Damn, a bad piston seal. Good thing the caliper is the same on both sides. I installed the other one and went to yet another AZ store to find a third caliper. Notice the difference in color. Silver for the old new one laying on the floor jack, and gray for the new new one. The Silver leaking one was a "made in China" refurbished caliper. The non-leaking gray one was "made in Mexico".


Go Mexico!


The drivers side (third) caliper was also a gray made in Mexico version. Here is the drivers side, ready to install the new caliper after the third AZ run. Lessons learned by this point, after my soft line install and now three caliper installs: break the banjo bolt loose and then lightly tighten it up until it isn't leaking fluid. It is difficult to break it loose when the caliper is no longer installed. Get the new caliper installed and ready to go before "quickly" moving the brake line over. This ready to go included putting teflon tape on the bleeder as it pisses all over if you do it later.

This didn't actually help that much as noted in a bit. I never could get air out of the lines with my Mityvac. Steady stream of small-ish bubbles. I remembered that from the left rear brake line when doing the Crowns. I had ended up replacing a mangled bleeder with a Dorman 13906 and had no issues after that. The Dorman bleeders came in a two-pack so I put the 2nd one on (with teflon) and bam!...no more bubbles. Doing the normal two-person bleed (open bleeder when someone steps on the brakes) would have worked like a charm as a bleeder leaking air past the threads wouldn't have affected anything. As I was also having trouble with air bubbles under vacuum on the other side, I took the other Dorman bleeder off my now core caliper and solved both sides.

Sorry, no final picture of the driver's side. I was too cooked and tired and forgot.

One last note...the torque specs of the rear caliper bolts is different than the front. The driver rear on the older Ex's and F250/F350 has the caliper in front of the axle, so it also has rock-guard that goes on in front of it to protect the soft line, bleeder, etc. Thus the caliper mounting bolts are really studs, with a different size thread for the shield on top of the caliper bolt head. A deep-well socket is needed. As I was trying to tighten the left rear to the too-high 166 ft-lbs front brake spec, my 6-point 18mm deep well socket split. Damn! My fourth trip to an AutoZone took place today for a new socket, and to drop off the two cores. Did I mention the other trip to the hardware store for more teflon tape?
Brake caliper mounting bolt torque: 150 ft-lbs
Brake stone shield (driver side only): 46 ft-lbs
Slide pin bolts: 27 ft-lbs

Anyway, mission accomplished. New calipers installed. I still have a slight pull to the left, but that could be because the surface of the right rear (dragging) rotor was a little more scarred than left. Maybe my pads on the right haven't fully seated yet? Or, maybe I still have issues with my slide pins up front? Rotor temps are very uniform left to right now though. No more 450 for me!

 

Make sure you flush your lines and replace the fluid.

 

After doing my soft lines (complete flush), and now the rear calipers where I was pulling excess brake fluid through due to leaking bleeders and a leaky piston seal, I think I've added around five quarts to the master cylinder reservoir in the last week. I don't know what the system capacity is, but I think its bled.

 

The caliper that gets the system debris is the right rear. I did want to add , check the steel line over the rear axle. Mine had rusted internally and was 'one' of the culprits that contributed to caliper failure. Brake fluid is hygroscopic.

 

Today I tackled replacing my drivers side seat cushion. My back is in too bad shape to be sitting sideways anymore. I'm also documenting this a tad more than my usual as I didn't see this maintenance item in either the Ex or 7.3 tech folder.

My seat covers were fine so I was just replacing the cushion. I bought it from The Seat Shop. They also have a good video series about installing that I watched (https://www.theseatshop.com/2000-200...r-vinyl/34909/). The videos helped a lot. I'm documenting just because as the videos were quite thorough.

My Ex is a 2000 model, no heated seats. There are more electrical connections and seat heaters to deal with if you have one of those fancy trucks.


Remove 3 of the four hold-down bolts with a T-55 Torx wrench (T55 Plus).


The other hold-down is an 18mm nut on a stud.


Unplug the power cord from the loom under the seat and remove the seat.


My loose arm rest also got some love. I snugged up the T-50 bolt (Probably T50 Plus).


The lumbar adjustment **** just pulls off. No clips or screws. My seat covers had been done before so this came off relatively easy. Apparently this can be a real bear to get off otherwise. Remove the two philips screws holding the lumbar adjuster to the frame.


Recline lever held on by one philips screw.


Need to move the recline lever up to get one of the trim screws out. There is another one just to the lower left of the lumbar adjuster.


Pry off the front of the trim piece. There are two plastic studs there. There may have been a better way to get this off...more later.


Pry off the "Christmas Tree" hold down at the back of the trim.


Wiggle the trim piece off past the recline lever. It is probably best to disconnect all the under-seat wire loom connectors at this time. One of them is a bit of a bear as it has hold-tabs on both sides of it. Not quite enough hands for that.


Remove the four 10mm bolts holding the seat pan to the adjustment mechanism.


I disconnected all the electrical connectors underneath at this time. Would have been easier before removing the seat pan from the adjustment mechanism.


Seat adjust mechanism all lonely, rusty and dirty. I just used a shop vac to clean up the 20 years of muck. There was no sign of grease on it. I don't know if there should be, but I know over-lubing guns just attracts dirt, so I just left it dry.


This is the PITA connector, finally apart. Once this one is disconnected, you can remove the trim piece, snaking the wiring through the seat pan.


Now remove the 2x 13mm bolts holding the top of the seat to the bottom on the door side of the seat.


There is a pin bracket holding the other side of the seat back to the bottom. Just slide the bottom to the side enough to disengage the pin.


This is the lumbar adjuster. Loosen it fully until you can see the wire stopper in the hole and pop it apart.


Lumbar wire disconnected. Now you can snake this out of the seat belt hole in the cover and completely remove the top of the seat from the bottom.


There are four clips that hold the seat cover to the seat pan. Disconnect them front-back, then side-side. I slid a trim tool under the edge to get it started. Since the cushion was 20 years old, this wasn't that bad to do. Compress the foam some to loosen up the cover enough to pop these off.


The cushion/cover just pulls out of the seat pan after that.


Pull the seat cover from around the edges of the cushion, basically turning it inside out. Here is one of the nine hog rings that held the cover to the cushion. I just clipped these with a wire cutter to remove. If you are re-using the cushion and just replacing the cover, you will have to fish out the broken bits of hog rings.


New vs. old.


It seemed like a good time to clean up the seat cover some. I didn't have any proper seat/leather cleaner so will have to go back over my seats again when I get some.


Hog ring pliers and hog rings. I've never used one before so I mangled a few rings just for the fun of it.


The hog ring pliers bend the hog-ring into a triangle shape.


There is a wire molded into the seat cushion that the rings clip around. Place your inside out seat cover over the cushion lined up with the wires you will attach it to. Here is one of my hog-rings installed.


There was also a corresponding hole in my seat cover that I slipped the hog ring through before clipping it to the wire. Just get everything lined up and push the open ring down around the wire and squeeze the pliers shut. My seat took a total of 9 rings. I think the newer seats that can accommodate the seat heaters take a few more.

As I've got 139 rings left, if someone wants to borrow my hog ring pliers and remaining rings I'd be happy to help an FTE brother out. Just mail them back when done. They are cheapo Amazon ones but worked fine.


Once all the hog rings are installed, work the cover over and around the cushion, turning the cover right-side out as you go. I started by getting the front covered and then did the back.


Tag inside my seat cover. Apparently my seats were recovered sometime after November of 2013.


Still a few wrinkles, but it hasn't been stretched onto the seat pan yet. Make sure to work out any folds or wrinkles if you have them at this time.


Place the freshly recovered cushion into the seat pan, molded in indentations in the foam lined up with the springs. Then pull the four black plastic tabs over the corresponding lips in the seat pan. This was considerably more difficult than taking them off. Probably because the new cushion was not compressed by fat asses for the last 20 years. I used an L-shaped trim tool to get the most difficult one clipped on. Again, push down on the seat to compress the foam to give at least a little slack.


All clipped up.


Not too bad!


Tip from The Seat Shop videos: cover the attachment bracket with a towel before reassembly. The bracket could tear up your seat cover while you are trying to hook the pin into the hole on the other side.


Not shown: snake the lumbar adjustment wire through the seat belt hole in the cover before fitting the pin into the bracket. Make sure the wire isn't between the brackets when connecting them.


Attach the two 13mm bolts through the seat cover, connecting the back and bottom portions of the seat. If you are installing new covers, you will just shoot these bolts straight through the cover...just make sure you know where the corresponding hole is under the cover! I had to fish around some to get my existing holes in the cover lined up with the bolt holes.


Next fish the seat belt chime wire back through the hole in the side of the cover and under the seat. May need to cut this hole if its a new cover.


I needed a wide tip punch to get the lumbar wire back into the adjuster mechanism. Just pushing them together didn't work.


Re-attach the lumbar mechanism wheel to the seat pan with the two philips screws. Again, may need to cut a hole for this.


The little plastic bracket that holds the front of the side trim is connected with these funky little plastic connectors. I had to pull the middle "peg" out of them to reuse. Maybe that's how I should have disassembled it in the first place? A small punch through the center hole would probably do it.


I pulled the connector tab through the bracket holes with needle nose pliers.


Re-insert the "pegs" and press together.


I used a small socket and channel locks to snap the more recessed one together.


Screw the front trim bracket back to the seat pan.


Plug all the wiring back together and clip the connectors back to the seat pan clips.


Screw the two trim piece screws to the seat pan frame. Be careful to not over tighten like I did. Cracked the plastic some at the arrow. Not very hard plastic here. Also re-install the recline lever handle.


Pretty dirty in there. Great time to vacuum it out.





Done and ready for a test drive.


That's the look of contentment and a happy butt!

Seriously, I should have done this years ago. When I first sat down I felt like I was going to fall into the passenger side of the truck. I was so used to leaning toward the door from that worn out side of the cushion. Very comfortable and worth the effort. Was even more comfortable when I remembered that I had fully loosened up the lumbar support to take it apart. Only took me two hours, while taking a ton of pictures. I don't think I swore once, which may be a personal record for me and my Ex projects. I was expecting a much longer project as mine seem to trend that way.

 

The torx bolts for the seats are T55plus, not standard torx, standard will work but the fit is sloppy