yourpc48

Dig the post on the other forum. Wish I would have thought of that when I did my drop. Anyone have a spare set of old springs? I think I want to replace mine. They have settled a bit after driving for a year.

I too did not know that only the center light on the trunk was a brake light. Since I wired the car myself and put turn signals on, I made it a marker light. So when I turn on my lights I have 3 tail lights and the brakes are the ones on the sides. Nice thing about my way is that at night people coming up on my car on our dark road can see me really well. Its a satin black but has 3 bright lights on the back all the time. Good to know about the brake lights if I worked on a stock one though.

The Explorer will go to the wrecking yard after I get the parts I want off of it. I arranged for the decked car trailer today so since my iPhone is calling for SUNSHINE Sat and Sun. The Explorer is on it now! I will be getting my parts off the thing this weekend. I will be pulling some extra parts off and eBaying some stuff for a few extra bucks to put towards the 47 (I hope) I also have a slant 6 distributor paid for and it should be on its way tomorrow thanks to craigslist. I have to balance my time between these projects and making money to pay for them......... I will be so glad to have the car more out of town drivable with the new rear end, distributor, master cylinder and front shocks W/mounts. The list seems short but time consuming.

Both are Very nice looking cars. I think I would be proud to own either one of them.

Cool. I think its fun to see where other people are. Kinda like stalking only in a legal way.

Woo Hoo. Good deal. I would love to see some more of the forum members be listed on the map. I saw a post but someone in Eugene but dont see them on the map. Would love to maybe stop and check out some other members cars once I have mine to where I can get a little further out of town. I love seeing what others have done.

Thats alota cars

Its been a while since I have seen mention of THE MAP. There is a map that you can ad your location, pic and info on. I have noticed a lot of new people and am just wondering if you know about, and have added yourself to it. Here is a link to the map..... http://www.mapservices.org/myguestmap/map/adam_knox

Sounds fun. Pictures might be in order.

Sorry I couldnt help more. I just havent done mine. It still doesnt hold well. When my soon to be changed to Ford Explorer rear end swap is done then I will probably use the ebrake thats a part of the rear end. Im not sure yet but well see. I may try it just so I know how to in the future.

Now I suppose you want to know how? Id tell you but I have not attempted mine yet. A search gives many threads with the word ebrake in the thread so it can be a daunting task. Check the first link I put in. You may find something there. If not use the second. You will have to sift through the results to find what youre looking for. Good luck. http://www430.pair.com/p15d24/mopar_forum/search.php?searchid=1257985 http://www430.pair.com/p15d24/mopar_forum/search.php?searchid=1257983

$100 is reasonable. The least I could find a rear with disk at the yards here on the Oregon coast was $150 at a U-pull. $350 if I got it in my local yard. $400 is what it shows online at B&R although they would pull it and price match the $350. $100 is very reasonable compared to $350.

Your welcome. Glad they printed correctly this time. I Startd a new thread about swapping the rear end of an Explorer into my P15. I ended up with an entire 2000 Explorer parts car so you know I will be saving the calipers and rotors off the front as well for spare parts.

Hey. Your in Merlin? Your not too far from me. Im in Coos Bay. Another member is in the Roseburg area.

OK. The template I used for my P15 to make the brackets to put the Ford Explorer disk brakes on are now up on my website in PDF format. http://car.icompute.info/disk_bake_bracket.htm I have opened and printed the files and then checked them against the bracket. They came out correct. If you want to check scale compare the ruler in the image to a ruler or tape measure. I tried uploading the files here but they excede the file size limitations for upload. I think that I might make some mods to the bracket but it works for sure on my car as it is now. If I made a modification I would probably add a little material around a couple of the bolt holes I think. You wouldnt be able to add much without hitting something.

Good that you are out and about. Great to get a little fresh air.

Looking good. Way better than I was able to do on my budget and workspace. Great Job! Keep us up to date.

Thank you for the suggestion on the rear end. I really do appreciate it. I might have tried something like that if I knew what parts to change out etc. but for me the Explorer swap is probably a better choice. Im swapping for several reasons. 1 Its a free part. It was even dropped off in my front yard. Doesnt get much better than that. 2 it gets rid of that funny drive shaft. True if I wanted I could just change the drive shaft but why would I do just that unless I wanted it original (which it would not be) 3 changing the rear end to something modern gives me better brakes regardless if its drum or disk. 4 wheel disk is cool though. 4 The newer rear gives me the ability to walk into the parts store and say "I need blah blah blah for a 2000 Ford Explorer" and chances are really really good that I will walk out of the store with the part in my hand. 5 The Ford 8.8 is a pretty beefy rear end. Now I know of a 58 Ford wagon I could have gotten a 9 inch out of but there again I would be working with something 54 years old. So you might say why dont you just change the body onto a new chasis? Well, in my opinion that is even more work than the little mods Im doing to the car. I can appreciate the ease in swapping to something that will bolt right in but not if I still have to wait for parts if I wear them out or break them. I drive the car almost every day. Heck I put over 100 miles on it today with a parade and car show in the town 20 miles south of me this morning and riding in the sand dunes with friends 30 miles north of us this evening. I want the best of both worlds. Old car with easy to find parts for those things that wear out the quickest. I did the conversion to front disk first. Now comes the rear end. Then the steering or maybe the distributor (someone answered my craigslist ad today in the wanted section). Once all these things are done I should have a very (Every day) drivable car.

It was a little damp today for the parade and show but there were a couple of MOPARS there. Me and my car in the parade.

Well heres how it all starts for that rear end swap! Thats right! Can everyone say DONOR?????? The car is at my house but we need to get the rig up on a car trailer first so we can take it to the scrap yard when we are done. There will be other parts scavenged as well.

Watched the video and if I was in a car in that traffic I would have opened my door. Dont get me wrong. I ride once in a great while. That kind of riding is way outa line. Thats the kind of riding that makes my wife go nuts. Shes always saying "They say that we dont see them when really they just ignore the cars". Then I have to remind her that not all riders weave in and out of traffic and flip you off when they do something they are not supposed to. They probably try to drive their car like that too. Just sayin.....

That would depend on the build of your engine and gear ratios and spread of the gears in the trans OH and tire size. Im not familiar with the trans in question. Do you know what model your engine combo came out of? If you do then look at that rigs gear ratio and get it close to that if the rig weighs less than your car then put in the same or a slightly lower ratio. If its the same or heavier then put in a gear ratio the same or higher. A general all around cruiser could easily be a 3.27 with V8 and auto if you are doing a lot of highway driving. Most of the 70s and 80s cars had 2.73s or 3.08s . My 36 ford PU had 3.08s and an olds rear end if I remember correctly but it only weighed 2500 lbs. Our cars weigh in at about 4000 with people in them. Lots of in town driving? well 3.27 or even 3.55 might be better. I dont know if it goes any further below 3.27. If you go too high a gear ratio and you have a little umph to your engine then you might load up too much with lots of in town driving you also will not have near the power you have with the original 4.11s. Happy medium might be a 3.55. Ultimately its your decision but if you are used to the torquey (I think I just made up a word) umph of the 4.11ish ratio you probably have now, then I wouldnt go below a 3.55 If you dont mind the loss of a little more umph for a little more milage than the 3.55 would give you then go up to the 3.27. You will find you get much better highway milage but suffer just a little around town. If you want to increase your milage just a little and not notice a power difference then go with the 3.73 SO really you should figure out how much you drive in or out of town. I need to travel a lot on the highway to different towns close by. I am going to a parade and show tomorrow in a town 20 miles from me and I dont think much about it at all. 20 to 30 miles is the normal for many of my computer service calls when I do out of town services. WOW you got me thinking a little bit about lotsa stuff. Now my head hurts.

Yep. And I may do that once it is set up. I had thought about that as well. Wanted to try to avoid that but if it happens.... Oh well. I should be getting the rear end this weekend or early next week. Ill have to save up a little and then get it all installed with lots of pictures of the "step by steps." It seems to me that 25 years ago when I sold my D24 (it was really nice) I sold it because it was too slow and wouldnt hold a hill on the E-brake. All things as I had gotten out of my teens I learned can be fixed with little effort.

Yes on the stock flatty unless it dies (trying to avoid that) I might be adding an intake with a little more CFM if you know what I mean. also am going to change to electronic ignition. Maybe dual exhaust at some point but not right away. No change in the transmission expected unless it dies. Right now I am thinking 3.27 with short tires or 3.73 with tall tires. Thanks

Thanks again for the feedback. I will go with the 3.73 and taller tires. If I do that it should drop the RPMs down by a total of a little over 350 at 55. Thats pretty decent. Going from 2800 to 2450 would be comfortable I think. A rear end with a 3.55 ratio was what I was going for but I cant pass up FREE. Greg. I couldnt get your calculators to work on this computer for some reason so I found another site with the same. Nice thing is both calculators were there towards the bottom of the page. There were some other cool calcs there as well. http://www.rocky-road.com/calculator.html