1993 Ford Explorer Rear Brakes

After getting the article on the front brakes done I decided I'd get the one on the rear brake shoes done and ou of the way. I'm hoping that this will be my last article on the 1993 Explorer for a while so that I can go back to focusing on the Jensen Healey and the Studebaker Champion.

How to replace the rear brake shoes on a 1993 Ford Explorer

Ford Explorer Brakes Article

I've been sitting on this article for a while. It seems, sometimes that I either take too many pictures or too few. In this particular case I took too few pictures of what I wanted to show, and too many irrelevant pictures.

Here it is: How to replace the front brakes on a 1993 Ford Explorer

Knight Rider remake

So I'm really not sure about this Night Rider remake. Mind you, I was a huge fan of the original series (as cheesy as it was). So, I watched it on it's initial release night and then rewatched it tonight on the Sci-Fi channel. After a second watch (this time with the wife providing her commentary as well) I've determined what it is that bothers me about the new series.

Kit's Voice

Yes, I understand that Val Kilmer is voicing the car, but it's flat and unemotional dialogue. Willaim Daniels (the original voice) just seemed to epitomize the K.I.T.T. car and really gave it personality.

The car transformations

So, in the original series when K.I.T.T. "transformed" it was all believable. It didn't look like a reject from the latest Transformers movie. These were the days before CGI. Watching a Mustang transform into the full blown K.I.T.T. mode and then into a Ford F150 is just too ridiculously out of the realm of the realistic. And what on earth are those three tubes on the hood of the car? Some wacky modernized version of the vestigal hood of the Mach 1?

Michael Knight

So, they totally changed the origin story. I can deal with that. But I've not seen acting leave that great a lack of impression like that since Sci-Fi channel redid Dune. Talk about flat and boring acting. Oh, and my wife says that his female counterpart had some serious "cutlets" (fake boob prosthetics) in her bra. So, his acting was as realistic as her breasts.

Now, I'll keep watching on the off chance that it improves. After the modern release of Battlestar Galactica (which is amazing, and I love it just as much as the original) you would think that these producers would realize that it's the *story* and the *acting* that make for great shows, not lots of CGI and women in their underwear (not that I'd ever really complain about hot women in their underwear on TV).

Here's to hoping it improves. I wonder what's coming next? A remake of Airwolf?

Even more on the Mach 1 project

I sat up really late last night writing and I managed to get almost caught up to present on the 1969 Mustang Mach 1 project. It's really funny, you keep track of things during a project, but you really don't see a lot of forward progess until the car's about done. just having the go through the volume of documentation on this particular project has made me realize exactly how much work has been done to date. Last night I wrote up the following articles:

• Priming and Chassis coating the body


• Hood Fenders and Doors


• Interior Restoration


• Adding modern technology (Car PC)


• The car back from Paint and body

There's still a bit more to write-up as the reinstallation of parts has begun. That will all come soon.

More articles about the 1969 Mustang Mach 1

The next few articles about the 1969 Mustang Mach 1 have been published. The first two articles cover repairing rusted areas in the rear and front of the vehicle. The last one covers the stripping of the paint off the body.

Rear end body work and rust repair, Front end body work and rust repair, and Stripping the paint off the body.

Leon Russell

So, I try to avoid non-car related posts as mucch as possible. It's just not right for a car blog to deviate too far. That being said, I was hitting reruns this evening and I ended up watching "House." It wasn't the episode that struck me so much as it was the fact that the soundtrack for the episode completed with an old Leon Russell song.

As far as I'm concerned, Leon Russel is a true American genius. I could spend hours talking about his time with Joe Cocker, the independent work and his asylum choir. But the reality is that he has had an incredible impact on modern music. I pined for my first love, "sitting on the highway in a broken van." VMM had to listen to this. But, I grew in those years, walking on the tight rope, talking with my cricket and the like. All these year I drove when I needed to think. Leon was with me when I drove. And I dated a detla lady and a queen of the rollerderby.

When I knew all was right was when I determined that my now wife is my hummingbird. Now, every time I have to talk in public I think of, "A song for you" and I picture my wonderful wife (aka SWMBO).

Hopefully you read this and dust off the Leon Russell vinyl. If you've never heard of him before, then buy Carney and not be affected. If you can listen to Carney and not feel anything I will buy your copy because you're not capable of understanding or understanding it.

For those being period specific, Carney was released in 1972. Leon's been releasing since 1996. His latest release is 2008.

1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1

My good friend Jared has joined the TheyMightBeRacing fold. We've started writing up his current project, a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. You can find the first three articles about his car's restortation.

Initial page about the Mustang Mach 1

Removing the interior and fixing the floorboards

Fixing the shock towers and painting the interior


Stay tuned for more articles about Lilith, Jared's 1969 Mustang Mach 1.

The most ridiculous thing ever - Cadillac Escalade Hybrid

From General

So what marketing twit thought this was a good idea? Let's take a great big turd of a vehicle, which is sold only for the purpose of some other twit appearing to have money. Mind you that most of them are leased, not purchased.

So, to add insult to injury, Cadillac has decided that they need to be "environmentally friendly" and make a hybrid version. Now, this has a 50% increase in city mg (a whopping 20 mpg).

How pathetic. Even worse, I know I'll see a pile of them on the road here in Phoenix the minute they're launched.

The Cadillac Escalade Hybrid.

All the performance of soggy cheese, all the fuel economy of a three legged mule and all for the low low rice of $78,000.

eesh

Frame-Off Restoration Articles & Site Tweaks

I wrote up two new articles last night and have posted them. They're part of the series on how to do a frame-off restoration of your project car. The two articles in question are: Frame Off Restoration - Step 3 - Dealing with the Exhaust System and Frame Off Restoration - Step 4 - Restoring the Fuel System.

The first article deals with removing, restoring and preparing the Exhaust system as art of the frame-off restoration. The second article covers the basics of restoring the fuel system.

I also did some coding tweaks to the site, some that are noticeable and some less so. The first was modifying all the links to Amazon to be green and have a double underline. I hope this corrects any confusion on what's a link on the site, and what's a link to a product on Amazon.com. The other change was to the image galleries on the site. I've modified the page programming so that the pages uniquely identify the images and photo albums. This should make searching for pictures of specific vehicle types much more staightforward.

Non-Car Weekend

So, This weekend was a non-car weekend. It's technically related to car stuff, but only tangentially. Back before I had the reconstructive surgery on my leg (last December) I decided to do one last big house project before I was put out of commission. That project was knocking down walls and completely re-doing the laundry room off the garage. We got the walls, plumbing, ceilings, and almost everything done before I had my surgery. The last bit was to put in a laundry sink (so that I may degrease before entering the main part of the house, and to tile the floor.

So, not really liking the granite, corian or formica options for a counter, I opted to dust off my woodworking skills and build a nice butcher block style counter with a laundry sink inset. So, Saturday was spent doing all of the cuts and assembling the counter top. This morning was spent adding wood filler (my skills are a little rusty) and doing final sanding. As of this point I've got it stained and just finished the second coat of polyurethane.

I've not done any woodworking in a while, it was a nice change of pace. Yes, it's very much the same sort of work as body work, but working with wood as a media is nice.

Environmental article

I wrote up a little essay on the impact of restoring a car vs. buying a new one. I get a lot of grief from my environmentalist friends about my old cars. So, I've opted to simply state how I see things. The environmental impacts of auto restoration.

I also ran across a nice Studebaker blog. I was goofing around with the MSN search engine and the fellow who writes it had linked to my site. http://www.studebakerguide.com/. It's a blog about a father & son restoration of a 1950 Studebaker Champion.

Upcoming local car shows (Phoenix, Arizona)

• Saturday October 4, 2008




• Impala Bob's 7th annual car show to benefit Sunshine Acres Children's Home and Poston Jr. High Student Council. Location: Living Word Bible Church, 3520 E. Brown Road, Mesa, Arizona, 85213. http://www.impalas.com/


• "Get on the road to safety" event with car show hosted by the Queen Creek fire department. Location: Queen Creek Marketplace, SW Corner of Rittenhouse and Ellsworth Loop Rd., Queen Creek, Arizona




• Sunday November 9, 2008




• 20th Annual All British and European Car Day. Hosted by the Arizona MG Club. Location: Gordon Biersch Brewery and Restaurant, Westgate City Center, 6915 N. 95th Avenue, Glendale, Arizona. http://www.azmgclub.org/

Arnot-Bristol

The Arnot-Bristol is a elegant and ugly car at the same time. It's based on the MG TD, a body based on bertone styling, and minimal production. To learn more read the following: Motoring Memories: Arnolt-Bristol, 1953-1960

Frame Off restoration article

So I added the latest article on how to do a frame-off restoration. This article covers what to do with the external electrics. These compromise the head lights, tail lights, turn signal lights, sidemarker lights, and other assemblies that make up the surface electrics. You may read the article here: Frame off restoration - Step 2 - Surface Electrics

Fuel System Restoration Article

I just published out an article on how to restore your fuel system for an In-Situ restoration. It covers the general steps necessary to go over the vehicle and repair, restore or replace the necessary components to ensure that the fuel delivery for the vehicle performs correctly. The article is here: Fuel System Restoration

I'm also still in the processof writing up instructions for working on the brakes of the 1993 explorer. I'm hoping to get that done by the end of the week. I had also intended to write up replacing the shocks on the same vehicle, but it was so easy to do that I had the shocks changed out before I remembered to take pictures.

The end of brake work for a while....

This evening I changed out the last drum brake on the 1993 Explorer. My neighbor stopped by and watched / suervised. it's always the case that the second time is easier than the first time. I managed to keep in my head all the stupid tricks in regards to the drum brake installation. While the wheel was off I ut in a new shock absorber as well. Again, it was a lessons learned and remembered from the previous installation the other day.

I finished the project up by adding new shocks to the front of the vehicle. This generation Explorer has the shocks next to the springs (rather than inside them) so replacing the front shocks is a no brainer process. Remove the top nut, remove the lower bolt, wiggle out of position. Then installation is the reverse.

So, tomorrow the explorer will go home and it's back to working on the Jensen Healey (that is after I complete the "honey do" list and rebuild the weed whacker.

More Explorer Work

After work, a trip to the parts store and getting the small one fed I managed to get out and do some more on the 1993 Explorer. As I mentioned before, the rear brake shoes needed replacing, and since I was pulling off the tires I'd go ahead and add some new shock absorbers.

Well, Monsoon season here is an interesting thing. When we left for Autozone it was raining hard. By the time I got outside it was dry again. And as I was pulling the last of the springs into place on the passenger rear drum it started coming down again.

It's been a while since I did drum brakes. I forgot how cantankerous they can be. I always move slowly when I'm working on them. There's so many moving bits in one spot. So, in approximately two hours I got the shock and the brake shoes replaced on the passenger side. With the rain coming down I had to stop.

Looks like I'll be finishing the rest up tomorrow.

Writing Frenzy

So the past couple nights have been a website & writing frenzy.

For starters, I've rewritten/updated the Jensen Healey Parts Catalog. Now, when you enter your engine#, chassis#, transmission & carb set-up it will display a customized parts list by assembly for the car. I also added in the images of the assemblies. So far I think it's pretty slick. If anyone notes any errors/omissions please let me know. I'm still loading the 5-speed data into the database.

In terms of articles, I added a fourth and final page to the In Situ - Vehicle Maintenance article. Then I wrote up the first article documenting the frame off restoration process: Externals and Accessories. I'm presently working on the second In-Situ restoration article as well as writing up articles that document the process to repair the font disk brakes, rear drum brakes, and shock absorbers on a 1993 Ford Explorer.

More working on brakes

So, took the Explorer in today, they ended up swapping the master cylinder as well. Now the brakes work well on the Explorer. Tomorrow I go pick up some fresh drum shoes to finish the job off.

My neighbor across the street often comes across to see what new project I'm working on. Yesterday he stopped over and watched us on the front brakes for a bit. I guess it inspired him, and this evening he knocked on my door asking if I'd be willing to help him if he ran into trouble changing his front disk pads. I could tell by the look on his face that he'd started out thinking this was a great idea, and then got home and wondered what he'd gotten himself into.

So I had him pull his Impala into the driveway, and I walked him through the process. The front disk pads on the Impala (it's a 2001) are insanely easy to replace and we had him off and running (and stopping) in 30 minutes.

On the web site side of the house I published a greatly improved version of the Jensen Healey Parts Catalog Database. You can find it here. I also made some parts for sale pages for various extra parts I've got laying about.

Cheers!
Jody

Ford is still on my bad dog list.....

So may father-in-law's 1993 Ford Explorer is back in the stables being attended to. The brakes were, well, toast.... So, I dug into it this morning. He was saying it was the Master Cylinder, but I wanted to make my own independent assessment. Pulled off the front driver's tire. I saw grooves the size of a small country in the rotor. So, we know the rotor's going. Looked at the caliper, the rubber covering the piston's completely shot, and we can add calipers to the list. He had brake pads in the car, so at least I had those on hand.

Dove into the car, removing the caliper, hanging it aside and then tackling the spindles. Now, mind you, this is a 4wd vehicle with automatic engagement and first generation ABS from Ford. As I start removing bits (after a trip to Autozone for parts, and then a stop at Checker for the right wheel hub socket) I find that the wheel hub nut is shot. It appears that the last time it was apart it was reassembled wrong.

So then it's a trip to pick-a-part, the local bring your tools and remove the bit junkyard. With extra bits now in the toolbox I headed home with my buddy Chip in tow (I dragged him out as it's looking like a bigger deal than originally thought and he's a Ford guy.)

Rotors go on easily, followed by calipers/pads.. also pretty easy.... Bled the system out a lot. Took it out for a test drive and the rear brakes keep locking up. It was a pretty hairy and scary drive. Back in the driveay we take the rear wheels off, then the drums (after I finally remembered to release the emergency brake.. d'uh).... turns out the shoes (or what's left of them) are totally cranked out as far as they'll go and were more or less rubbing on the drums all the time. Now, mind you these are supposed to be auto-adjusting brakes.

With the brakes slackened significantly and then reset (you drive backwards and forwards for a bit) we took it on the next drive. Brake pressure is variable at best and we think it's air in the lines. Back to the driveway, bleed everything off again. We've got good brake pressure in the system, so it's time to go around the corner again.

I drive for the first bit and the brakes are ok except at slow speeds, then it wonks over and there's no pressure. My buddy Chi doesn't believe me and wants to drive. 1/2 of a block later and we nearly miss a stop sign. Something's seriously wrong. So, I track back through the system in my head and determine it can only be either the master cylinder or the ABS system.

We pulled out the Haynes manual on the car (I have a huge collection of them. They aren't the greatest references, but there's still good information in them). I was thinking, "well, we'll just put in a new master cylinder and be done with it..."

And then I read the manual, and I swear it's the first time I've ever read something like this in a Haynes manual... "If it's a 1996 or earlier to do not attempt to repair this at home, take it to a qualified mechanic.." So it turns out that this first generation ABS system is so "special" that it requires a special factory method for taking care of this. Now this totally sucks. I've never not been able to fix my own cars, why the heck do I need to take it to the dealer?!?!?!

But, thinking that I'd never seen a warning like that before in a Haynes manual (normally they give you a half-asses work-around) I figured that discretion is the better half of valor and we'll take it to a proper Ford mechanic friend tomorrow.

Thus ends the second chapter of the saga of the 1993 Ford Explorer.

The show

So my poor little Jensen Healey and I made it to the show. In the last mile there Both she and I started getting really hot. Phoenix gets warm quickly. Even at 7 am she was running hot. Now, mind you, she was running water only at this point as that's all I had on hand last night when I topped off the radiator. We arrived into the parking spot amidst a cloud of steam. Luckily I was there quite early so there were not many people on hand to see her steaming.

A couple folks who were there asked if everything was ok. All I had to say was "An English car overheating, that never happens!" A few laughs and chuckles later and all was ok. I'm afraid the old girl was rapidly upstaged. Minutes after I arrived a beautifully restored MGA pulled into the spot next to me. And then, 20 minutes later a factory 5 ac cobra kit parked on the other side. Talk about pair of beautiful cars creating a bologne sandwich with some "mystery meat" in the middle....

On the whole the old JH was well received, esecially once I explained that she was pre-restoration. Suprisingly enough I didn't hear any "what is it?" comments. The english car contingent was well versed, and the rest of the folks were too distracted by the AC Cobra beside me. Man, I wish the green JH was done.. it will look so pretty.

I hung out, got to talk to some nice folks and eat donuts. Since this was a "sports car" event there was a mixture of different English cars, a showing from the local Mazda group, some Corvettes, one '57 Chevy, and a smattering of really rare cars. I spent a while talking to the man who owned the '57 Chevy Bel Air. He was a really nice fellow and his car was beautiful. My favorite sightings at the show were an immaculate Sunbeam Tiger, a DeTomaso Pantera, a TR8, the '57 Chevy, a pair of gorgeous 50's Corvettes, and a Ferrari 400. All the cars there were noteworthy, I just specifically remember those specific vehicles. While there was a Sprite there, I didn't see any 3000's while I was there. I wish one had shown up.

On the way home I had to stop for gas & water to keep the old girl running. The closest place was the Danny's Family Carwash over near Highland and 24th street. While I planned on just dumping some water in the radiator to ensure I got home they wouldn't let me. A fellow from the shop came clear across the parking lot with a collant mixture to drop into the radiator. So kudos to them for keeping old cars on the road. If you're in the area, fill up there or get your car washed/detailed!

The ride home was "exciting" not because of spirited driving, but because I wasn't bright enough to put gas in the tank when I was at the gas station. With my fuel sender being questionable, all I know is that somewhere near 1/4 of a tank is really empty. I was vascillating back and forth around the 1/4 measure the whole ride home. The old girl got me off the highway and to a gas station before running out of gas. In the middle of the ride home I had a minor failure. As I was scooting down the 51 at ~70 miles per hour the driver's side rear view mirror went slack and turned from the wind. Before I could do anything I was was watching it disintegrate on the highway behind me as I sped ahead (using the central rear view mirror). The important thing to remember is that the parts falling off of this car are of the finest British manufacture. :)

All in all, a good day.