I'm new to this site and fairly new to the internet. My name is Nick and I'm learning how to use this thing from my 13 year old son. How can I get the little picture of my excursion to show up when I post?

Next question, a friend of mine who is the GM of a local dealer was trying to sell my truck for me so I could upgrade to a Diesel becuase I regularly tow a 9 thousand pound boat and wanted the extra HP and torque. So, it has been sitting at the dealership for about 3 months being test driven alot.

I finally gave up because although there was alot of interest, no bank would give a loan for $28k for a 5 year old truck in this economy at least. So I'm driving to pick up my brand new 9k pound boat (Plus trailer) and I'm hearing a low hum that that gets louder as I go faster.

I pick the boat up, trailer it about 60 miles and park it near the launch. Next I go to put it into reverse and I hear a loud "DING!" like when the fight begins at a boxing match. Put into drive and it makes a thump sound. Back into reverse and DING, round 2 is beginning.

I'm an electrician by trade but a mechanic at heart. I been pulling engines and rebuilding them for as long as I can remember. In my mind there is nothing that I cannot do myself so long as I can find out how its done (which is how I found tis great site!).

So I put my wife into the drivers seat and I get under the truck. I locate the sound near the transfer case. I literally hang, putting my considrable weight onto, the drive shave for the rear wheels. No more DING. Get off of it and, you guessed it, DING round 3, but I cant see anything other then the drive shaft moves slightly when its being put into reverse, which I guess is normal?

I drive home and about 4 blocks from my home, I begin to hear a grinding sound. So I limp back into my garage, get under it and I see the front of the rear drive shaft CV joint is completely mangled, I mean like it's become one clump of metal.

My question (#3) is could this damage have occurred by some butthole at the dealership or a test driver trying to get the 40" wheels to spin by doing brake torques? Or is it more likely that it was damaged from pulling the very heavy boat. Remember, I heard the low hum before I picked up the boat, that's why I'm wondering if it was damaged at the dealership (which of course they'll deny)

I have a 3 1/2 inch thick drive shaft meant for pulling heavy things. Is there any better or stronger U-Joint assembly?

Next Question (#4) now that I've got the rear drive shaft off, can I drive it in 4 wheel drive (esentially front wheel drive) without doing any further damage to it just to get my kids to and from school (approx 1 mile each way)?

Next question (#5) how can I get this thing to sound as powerful as it looks? I've heard too many horror story's about how the V10 sounds like a rice burner and I truly miss the pop pop pop rumbling sound of a big V8? Any ideas?

And finally (#6) can anyone let me know how to increase the horse power on this thing? Not that it's not strong, but when passing another vehicle time seems to stand still? To call it slow is an understatement. More air flow? Turbo charger? New heads, cam? anything? Please give me brand names for each of your suggestions so I know what quality to but. I'm a do it once and do it right no matter what the cost type of guy.

Thank you for listening as I rattled on and thank you for allowing me into your group.
Best Regards, Nick

 

Welcome to FTE!

1) Click on link above - Premium Membership

2) It is normal for the D/S to rotate slightly, as the slack in the drivetrain is rotated back & forth. keyword: 'slightly'

3) Yes. or No. If it was all ready failing, any use would cause it to become noticeable. no way to tell.

4) Yes, as long as the front end of the rear shaft bolted to a flange.

5) Let me know if you find out

6) Get ready, you should get an earfull, any second now

 

Can you post the year, model engine and gear ratio and 4x4 or 4x2 and tire and tire rating; that might give us a start of what known problems are. If it is a V8 as opposed to a V10 than you are not going to be able to tow that boat with it period, if it is a V10 it should be able to handle the weight pending gears etc.

ok here are some generic answers to some of your questions:
I can not answer the first couple as I have not read about this, nor experience this myself:
#5 Exhaust, it wont sound like the rumble of the V8, it has been tried several times by several dif. setups, but never has that v8 flowmaster sound that people love.
#6. You can get a bit of HP out of a custom tune as well as a Towing tune. This will get you about 40HP and a stiffer shift. It also makes the engine more alive and responsive.

 

Welcome to FTE!

I'll try to help at least with some of your questions. The signature at the end of your posts wont show up until you have hit 25 posts on this site. You can manually embed each time if you have the picture hosted on another site by using the following format:


Now for the Ex... If you're towing a 9000 lb boat with a V10 and 40" tires - what gears are you running? If you have stock gears - either 3.73 or 4.30 - you are really putting a lot of stress on your drivetrain as those tall tires are lowering your effective gear ratio.

The noise when shifting gears may be the slip joint on the driveshaft. Common to need to drop it and lube it well and reassemble. It typically doesn't make a metallic sound but it could be there are other issues as well - esp given the other problems you have had.

For the CV joint failure - I doubt brake stands would cause the joint to fail - the transmission would be taking all of the stress at that point and the movement wouldn't be making it to the driveshaft. I tried it one time in an adolescent moment and I couldn't break the stock size tires loose with a brake stand so never tried to repeat it.

Do not drive in 4wd - the part time 4wd on these trucks is not intended for dry surfaces and you will cause additional damage very quickly.

For the sound - I'm in a similar situation as I want to change over my ypipe and the rest of the exhaust soon and can't decide on what to do. There is a recent post on Gibson exhaust which seems to sound good - some sound clips on their web site.

For increasing the power - 5 Star tunes seems to be the way to go. Handheld tuner which has custom tunes by a member here and several members have used him and have been very pleased. If you are running the stock gears on 40" tires then I'd probably start with a gear swap and then start looking at power adders. Just that change may be enough.

I'm in a similar situation - V10, 3.73 gears, basically stock sized tires (285 vs. 265s) and I'm towing a heavy Sea Ray (270 Sundancer with twins). It's not a hot rod but does really well - even when pulling out of the water - haven't even needed 4wd yet and we have some slimy ramps around here. Bottom line is you have an 8500lb truck and then are attaching another 9k behind it occasionally. Get it to be a good compromise between driver and tow vehicle and realize it's never going to be a hot rod. If you insist...there are some custom turbo mods being done on this site. Do a search on youtube for turbo excursions - fun stuff.

Good luck - hope this helps!

 

Removing the rear driveshaft alleviates the part-time problem because there is no longer any bind at the t-case. The rear t-case output will simply spin freely while the front powers only one wheel through the front diff. No bind.

Bind / damage happen when a part-time system is driven on a hard surface because even though there is differential action at each axle (ie side to side), there is none front to rear.

 

Wooops! Thanks TD, premium membership has other benefits. I need to first.

 

I would second the 5Star tuner, I would give him a call, Mike is very informative and does not give you the high pressure sales bull. 5 Star Tuning | Custom Dynomemeter Chassis Tuning Products and Services. Without knowing your gear ratio, I would make sure that area is up to task first. Good luck and welcome to FTE...unbeleivable amount of knowledge here!

 

welcome, as far as the exhaust goes go to youtube and look up ford excursion exhaust and you will find different clips, with different setups, and as for your gearing look at the driver side door jam there is a sticker with your info, find the axle code on the sticker, post what it says and we will help you out from there. it's gonna be a letter and number or 2 numbers

 

Welcome!!

1) It is in your User CP....

2) There should be slight movement as Howler said.

3) Probably an old fashioned neutral drop!!

4) I don't know....

5) Headers and a couple of good mufflers....

6) You must have something wrong. Mine is extremely quick for a 8k lb vehicle. When passing @ 55-60 mph, when it downshifts, it throws you back in the seat...... When I tow my camper, which is 8k lbs, it does just fine. It's not a barn burner when towing, but what is?

 

I second the previous tips. 40 inch tires are robbing your power. To get it back you need to go to a lower axle ratio. On top of that, you should look at the 5Star tuner.

If the truck was damaged while at the lot I would point the finger at one of the dealership employees, male, under 25 years old. Lots of videos on the net of those guys hot-rodding around in customer vehicles.

 

This site is awsome! Thank you to all who answered my questions - ALL of you! OK, Here's the deal with my truck, I apologize but I thought that info would automatically show up and thanks to the poster who told me how to get a premiere membership as well as the other who told me that my specs wont automatically show up until my 25th post.

I have a 2005 Ex 4x4, V-10 stock (no upgrades) with a 10" suspension lift, 40" Toyo tires and a stock 3:73 rear end. A miticulously maintained 46k miles on it.



I had a new 3 3/4" drive shaft put into it with both front and rear CV joint to match at a local machine shop named Master CV and I installed it yesterday. Test drove it about 40 miles at varying speeds and all is good! No more ding when I shift it into reverse.

What type of rear end should I have in this truck to better pull my boat? And BTW, great pic of the boat being trailered. That's exactly what I'm hauling around.

I needed the extra ground clearence to get over some very old logs on my hunting property.

Great reviews on the 5 star tune up. I think I'll start with that.
Again, Thanks for all of your time. It is appreciated!
Best Regards, Nick

 

BTW, I don't own a machine shop so I had the drive shaft made for me and I did the install myself, just to clarify.

 

Here is a link that gives you gear ratio's for tire size in three different stages- eco, all around, and towing/offroad
Lift Kits, Tires & Wheels by 4 Wheel Parts

 

Out of curiosity, are you hunting in an old Giant Sequoia forest?

Welcome, from a fellow newbie. Definitely need new gears with that setup. I'll plug the Cherry Bomb single in dual out muffler, watched a few videos of it, ordered it yesterday, told the wife it would improve gas mileage.

On another note, I snapped a driveshaft once just one day after some @-hole took my 150 for a test drive(old inline 300 and manual tranny), the guy thought he would spin the tires, instead the truck jumped a foot off the ground at the rear, started ticking not five minutes after leaving his house(decided not to sell my baby to that idiot).

Good hunting on those gears, and if you get the chance do a write-up and add pictures.

 

Wow, been awhile doing a lot of boating but had to pull it out because of it incomming hurricane. Great site Big Rig Mike, so thanks for that. And good one drunken sailor. Beyond the practical reasons for lifting this truck, my four boys are huge Monster Jam fans and they just love Daddy's monster truck. I feel like a rock star or something with everyone looking at me.
And BTW, I showed my wife the picture of the giant boat being pulled by the excursion and in the immortal words of Tony Stark I stated "I want it, I need it, Buy it". But the wife said no go at this juncture.