2002 Ford Excursion New Rig

[wagoneerguy]

So I've been lurking around here for some years as I used to have a 68' Jeep Wagoneer which I loved but my family outgrew (Wife and I plus 5 kiddos). After squeezing the life out of an old 96' Suburban with 310,000 miles on it we finally decided to get something new (at least to us) and picked up this 2002 Excursion. It's got a v10, 6" lift with 35" tires. Some extra lights front and back but it is otherwise stock. Took one of my daughters with me and flew out to the Denver area to pick it up and drive it home to California and it ran great. Now that I have it home starting to work up the list of things to do with it.

Some stuff I've already done:

• General Grabber AT tires
• Had the front and rear drive-lines rebuilt.

There are a few things I know I am going to do

• finding a jumpseat to be able to have 9 seat belts.
• Roof rack, even kicking around building my own but that may be beyond my ability.
• Replace the rear springs as it's sagging in the back.
• Vinyl floor, kids + carpet don't go well together.

I've browsed around here long enough to know that it'll probably never be "done" and I want to go take some trips with it before just slinging more equipment at it, but it's cool following and getting ideas on what others have done here. Open to suggestions and feedback from others who have run Excursions. Can't wait to post up some pictures of it out in the wild now!

 

[zachammer85]

Looks like a good start. If you do the vinyl floor yourself, make sure it's nice and warm outside so it's more compliant when you put it in. Did one in my suburban when cooler out and it fought me at every end even with adhesive.


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[wagoneerguy]

Thanks that makes a lot of sense, amazing what a bit of warmth will do when working with plastic.

Just had the front drive-line gone through with new u-joints and had them extended it a bit. The previous owner lifted it but didn't extend the drive shafts so there wasn't much room for travel and there was alot of slop in it.

 

[Summitdogracing]

If you are going to remove all of the carpeting anyway, you may wish to consider putting down some Dynamat and then Dynapad to cut the noise down. The Dynapad will also give the vinyl floor a bit cushion.

Scotty

 

[wagoneerguy]

So I had some time over Christmas break and decided to build a roof rack for the Excursion. I want to put a disclaimer that I am no welder, and this is the first welding project besides real small stuff I have ever done so I think the results reflect that. The goal of this project was to get some practice welding and use up some junk I had laying around they yard. That said I learned a bunch and can't wait to make the next one which will be better (I hope).

So my tools are a Lincoln 225 buzzbox stick welder, 4 1/2" angle grinder, Harbor Freight Drill Press and a bench grinder. My material was a bunch of 3/4" old rusty pipe I had laying around. After spending a ton of time getting the pipe prepped to weld on, fixing the holes that I burned through the pipe by running the welder too hot and sorting out how to make the feet I finally got it done. Here are some simple pictures if anyone is interested I can get some closer shots, I'm just glad it works and is sturdy.