Hello! I am new here to the forums and also new to Ford trucks. I just recently bought an 01 Excursion with 4x4 and the v10. It currently has some larger/wider tires and a lift on it. I would like to bring it back to a stock height and stock tire. My main goal is getting as good of mileage as one can with an Excursion haha, but then my secondary goal is a good ride. I don't do much of any towing, so I mainly want a good road trip/daily driver vehicle. I've done some research/reading here on the forums and elsewhere, and I understand there are some different leaf springs I can install to make it ride better? I would love some advice on that and any other suspension tips you can give me. Also, currently my steering is pretty lose feeling, even for a big truck like this I think, how can I tighten that up? I've included pictures of the truck, rear and front suspension, and the steering setup under the front end.

Current Tire - LT305/70/R16

I measured up from from the center of the hub to the edge of the fender trim pieces.

Front Left - 25" Front Right - 25"

Rear Left - 27" Rear Right - 27"

I hope I provided all the information needed, let me know if you need something else. Thank you ahead of time for the help!!

 

best milage.
1. stock size tire
2. Slow down
3. lowering it back to stock height will also help a small amount.

Ride Quality.
your stock leafs are still intact, your increased ride height was acheived by using blocks.
in the rear it is the aluminum 2" piece under the factory block. in the front it is the 4 short stubby lead looking pieces.
1. I can see that your front bumb stop is missing, these need to be replaced with either the factory rubber bump or the Dorman rubber bump. NO Polyurethane.
2. your driver side front shock is blown.
3. it looks to me like the front shocks are the wront length.

simple soulution is to remove the front and rear blocks, replace bump stops, install KYB monomax shocks.

Steering,
at 20 years old every part of the steering is suspect.
odds are your steering gear is shot, replace as needed with Red Head steering box is more than 1" play in wheel ( engine off, turn wheel side to side until wheels just move )
replace drag link and tie rod are most certainly shot judging by the grease around the boots.
other key items are Ball Joint, wheel bearings, drag link bushings.

Take it for an alignment and inspection. A good shop will not align it if any of these are worn out as you can not accurately set it with worn out components.

insist on the following alignment specs

Caster +5* ( positive 5 degrees )
camber 0*
Toe. +.03*. ( Toe in )

the will need either wedge shims or Ball Joint alignment bushings to acheive this caster.

 

Thank you for the quick response!

Yeah, I knew that a lot of the joints down there would need replacing. Planned on doing most of that right after I figured what I needed for the lift to be removed. As far as the leaf springs go, do you think it would make a significant enough difference to just replace them? The truck has 264k miles on it. Also, does the front leaf spring look normal? It seems to be inverted the opposite of the rear ones, with the center being higher than the ends (second to last picture). Thank you again for the response and feedback!

 

Welcome to the EX forum!

From the pics it looks like you are indeed a Luckyduck! Those look like the factory springs both front and rear it’s just extra do-dads added for some additional ride height. Lowering it back to stock height should just be a matter of pulling added block from the rear, the block with the bump stop arm is a factory unit and should stay. And up front the little sections added under the two leaf factory springs can be removed, you will need all new Ubolts as they shouldn’t be reused and the ones you have now are most likely extra long to fir with the add-ones. You are also missing the rubber bump stops from the front end, and maybe the rear and traction bars too, they should be replaced. You may also need new shocks depending on what you have now and if they are listed for a stock height EX, something to look into.
305/70R16s are probably a little too big for a stock height suspension, the 265/75R16s look a little small sometimes, 285/75R16s look and work well and seem to be a very popular size around here.
Do you know what gear ratio the EX has? Back when mine was all stock with 3.73 gears it used to get a regular 14-ish MPG on my 50/50 city/town mix of commuter miles with a best ever tank at 15.5 MPG touring the coastline of ME with 6 adults onboard in very hot weather…….in MAINE! Currently with my 4” lift, 35” tires, 4.88 gears (effective 4.39 ratio), headers and running an 89 octane Performance tune it can still get 14.5 all highway with the cruise control set at 65 MPH. I’m always watching my MPGs, I’m a hyper miler in real life wheeling my ‘94 Geo Metro XFi 3 cylinder 1 liter five speed that pulls down regular 60+ MPG tanks.


It looks the Pirate types faster then me! Actually, everyone types faster than my two fingers………..

 

Yes that looks normal for the front leafs. I would suggest ditching the blocks, replacing the shocks all the way around and assess the steering components. Then see how you like it before going through the work of changing leaf springs.

 

Why not use polyurethane bump stops?

 

because their spring rate is way to high. That is to say they are rock hard.

the stock excursion suspension is designed to contact the bump for the last 1” of travel. The rubber ones have a spring rate that is 1.5 times the main leaf spring, at this rate you can just barely feel the transition. If you use poly it will feel about the same as hitting the steel frame.

poly ones have about 1/4 the travel. When you run out of travel you start bending axle housings.

 

That's normal-ish, depending on the amount of sag. The stock front springs on the Excursion were prone to sagging over time, so you may find you don't have much travel once you remove the spacers and replace the bump stop. If that ends up being the case, there are replacement options from the trucks that will level it up a bit and fix the problem. (I remembered you have a V10. The sagging spring issue may be more pronounced for those of us with 7.3s. The V10 guys on here will know.)

Mark

 

Ok thanks. I almost bought the Energy Suspension Rear bump stops for my Procomp 22415 springs with PMF top plate with tang. I'll look into the Doorman

 

you can use poly in the rear as long as they are this design not solid.

 

I'm not sure what gear ratio it has. I thought about changing it out for a better highway mileage gear though... not sure on all the pros and cons of that though. Since I don't do any real heavy towing, i imagine it wouldn't be a bad idea to save gas money in the end?

 

You can check your vin sticker that's on the latch side of the driver door pillar. It will give you an axle code like "C2" (middle bottom of sticker under "AXLE"). This is a listing of Ford truck axle codes to axle type and gear ratio.

https://lighttruckpartskalamazoo.com...Axle_Codes.pdf

Jasonodsky

 

C3 Dana Limited Slip 3.54
C3 Ford - Limited Slip 4.30 (F-250 / Excursion)

The code was C3, the list has two options though.

 

Yes, but only one lists the Excursion for that code, you have the much sought after (by folks who tow and want the better all around performance) 4.30 gear ratio rather than the more common standard 3.73 ratio.

 

Well that's cool. When you say better performance, does that translate to better mileage? Sorry I'm still learning a lot when it comes to gearing and such.