Buttoning up the last few things to take the Explorer for its first drive. The interior is back together so I’ve been able to sit inside again. There’s been/will be some changes inside. I’ll grab pictures and cover that in a different post.
New air filter. Went straight off the front of the turbo for now. It’s amazing with all this space and I don’t really have anywhere good for the air filter. Thinking it may just stay where it is and build some good heat/water shielding.
Throttle “pedal” is in. This is the stock VW pedal/position sensor. Rather than trying to mount the pedal inside, I mounted it on the bracket for the ABS computer. Cut the pedal off the sensor and used a universal throttle cable that connects to the stock Explorer pedal. Works perfect!
Somehow I damaged the threads on the radius arm bolts. So new bolts from McMaster.
Bolted everything in underneath but ran into the front yoke on the transfer case contacting the transmission crossmember. So, crossmember came back out, cut, and welded to clear the front yoke. Bolted all back together with the new radius arm bolts and no clearance issues.
The rear driveshaft is long enough to drive around the neighborhood for a test drive. Definitely will need to be lengthened for anything outside of that. Looks like it will need three inches added. Need to measure again to verify. The front driveshaft needs to be shortened. It’s too long to even bolt back in place. Removed for now just to take the Explorer on a drive.
Should be taking it for its first drive later today or tomorrow! Super excited for that!
The remaining list of things to do is pretty short:
-Figure out non functioning glow plug light
-Driveshafts
-Exhaust
-Reinstall hood
-EGT gauge
-Boost gauge
-New shift boot