hbabler
Member
Well its about time I started documenting my gradual build. To set the record straight at this point I only have one excursion though for a brief time period I had two.
I bought this 2001 White V10 Excursion limited from my parents church as I was able to view the service records and I know that it had been well maintained.
I had always wanted an excursion as I have three daughters and when we travel my mother in law normally goes with us. The plan was a light "overland" build and when the V10 died I was going to replace it with a 12 valve. Needless to say I ended up not doing much work on the truck over the year that I had it other than locating a Ranchhand full replacement and swapping the front end to a 2005 style as I prefer the look of it.
I was browsing the forum classifieds one day and I came across an ad for a 2000 7.3 XLT Excursion that was located not to far away from me. It was being sold by member rubberduck as he wanted to focus on his awesome ambulance build named Mavis https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/super-slow-ambo-build.205719/.
After speaking with him I knew that it was just the truck for me, I had towed my parents travel trailer back from the coast and I was not impressed with the performance of the V10 and while I have the skill to do a 12 valve swap I really don't have the time currently.
So the family and I made a trip down to central Texas and came back with my new toy/daily driver. It is currently nameless as my daughters haven't decided on a name they have a lot of ideas some of them related to a trip we took last month but more on that later.
This truck was well maintained with a couple of small quirks, it has right around 260k on the clock, 35" STT/Maxx a 4" lift kit and Rancho RS9000XL's all the way around, the AC had a small leak but it ran great on the way home with no issues.
The week after I purchased it I was driving to the station very early in the morning and I hit a pothole, almost immediately it felt like I had a flat tire on the left front, as I was slowing down to pull of the side of the road I felt the front of the truck drop and noticed something rolling away from me in the darkness. Unfortunately that something was my left front tire and it happily rolled away into a large field with an overgrown drainage ditch. Luckily was able to pull of the road with no issues and that is when I noticed that all of the lugs for the front left tire had sheared off.
The tire was no where to be found and I was supposed to be at work in an hour.... I was able to get the work issue handled and I started looking for the tire, after an hour I was still not able to find it so I decided to come back later and look for it after I walked home an got the other excursion. I walked back to the house and was able to drive the white excursion to Oreilly's and purchase 8 new lugs, new brake pads, lug nuts, and a left front rotor. Its amazing how hard it is to find a 35" tire in the dark.
I was able to put the truck back together on the side of the road and then I merrily drove to work. I am not really sure why the lugs broke off, I think that they may have worked their way loose while I was driving it home. I am very blessed that the wheel did not come off while driving at 75 MPH on the way home with my girls in the truck.
About two weeks later when my white one still hadn't sold I decided to swap the front ends so that I could keep the newer front end and the bumper.
Around this time we decided that we would rent a trailer as a proof of concept and take a trip around Texas and New Mexico as a family vacation.
Before the Trip I replaced the well worn Coopers with Yokohama X-AT's on a brand new set of fifteen52 wheels. They are 35/75/17 I wanted the 17" wheels in case I ever get around to swapping the 2008 axles that I have stashed away from a rolled F250. I also swapped the glow plugs out, replaced the evaporator, a leaky AC hose, the compressor valve cover gaskets, under valve cover harnesses and a receiver dryer.
The trip went great, we saw Big Bend (we did a little light off roading in Big Bend), Monahan's sand dunes, Fort Davis, The Davis Observatory, Prada Marfa, Target Marathon, Carlsbad, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
We put 2,070 miles on the truck. Sadly we needed to put about 2,150 to make it home. While coming back into town the hot side of the turbo let go and for a brief moment I was concerned the truck might burn up on the side of the road due to the flames coming from the underside of the engine compartment. (A couple of the names the girls have for the truck are based on that little experience, none of them very flattering...)
I was able to call my dad who brought his pickup and I had the excursion towed to a shop that we trust. Normally I do all my own work but I just wanted to get it back on the road. I had them install a new KC300X turbo, and pedestal, which will take care of a nagging oil leak I had in the valley. I will have the truck back tonight and the plan is to drive it with no additional mods for a bit as my bank account recovers.
Long term, I would like to get a pioneer rack, and add a swing out tire mount to the back of it. I have an ARB Elements to go in the back that I need to wire up and add a house battery for. I am pretty happy with the height of it now and I do not feel that it needs any taller tires. I will document any further changes as we go in this thread. We may not really truly "overland" but we will use this truck to pull a trailer all over the US and then once our basecamp is setup we will use it to explore. The goal is to put a bunch of miles on it over the next ten years and really enjoy the time that we have with the kiddos as they get older.
I bought this 2001 White V10 Excursion limited from my parents church as I was able to view the service records and I know that it had been well maintained.
I had always wanted an excursion as I have three daughters and when we travel my mother in law normally goes with us. The plan was a light "overland" build and when the V10 died I was going to replace it with a 12 valve. Needless to say I ended up not doing much work on the truck over the year that I had it other than locating a Ranchhand full replacement and swapping the front end to a 2005 style as I prefer the look of it.
I was browsing the forum classifieds one day and I came across an ad for a 2000 7.3 XLT Excursion that was located not to far away from me. It was being sold by member rubberduck as he wanted to focus on his awesome ambulance build named Mavis https://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/super-slow-ambo-build.205719/.
After speaking with him I knew that it was just the truck for me, I had towed my parents travel trailer back from the coast and I was not impressed with the performance of the V10 and while I have the skill to do a 12 valve swap I really don't have the time currently.
So the family and I made a trip down to central Texas and came back with my new toy/daily driver. It is currently nameless as my daughters haven't decided on a name they have a lot of ideas some of them related to a trip we took last month but more on that later.
This truck was well maintained with a couple of small quirks, it has right around 260k on the clock, 35" STT/Maxx a 4" lift kit and Rancho RS9000XL's all the way around, the AC had a small leak but it ran great on the way home with no issues.
The week after I purchased it I was driving to the station very early in the morning and I hit a pothole, almost immediately it felt like I had a flat tire on the left front, as I was slowing down to pull of the side of the road I felt the front of the truck drop and noticed something rolling away from me in the darkness. Unfortunately that something was my left front tire and it happily rolled away into a large field with an overgrown drainage ditch. Luckily was able to pull of the road with no issues and that is when I noticed that all of the lugs for the front left tire had sheared off.
The tire was no where to be found and I was supposed to be at work in an hour.... I was able to get the work issue handled and I started looking for the tire, after an hour I was still not able to find it so I decided to come back later and look for it after I walked home an got the other excursion. I walked back to the house and was able to drive the white excursion to Oreilly's and purchase 8 new lugs, new brake pads, lug nuts, and a left front rotor. Its amazing how hard it is to find a 35" tire in the dark.
I was able to put the truck back together on the side of the road and then I merrily drove to work. I am not really sure why the lugs broke off, I think that they may have worked their way loose while I was driving it home. I am very blessed that the wheel did not come off while driving at 75 MPH on the way home with my girls in the truck.
About two weeks later when my white one still hadn't sold I decided to swap the front ends so that I could keep the newer front end and the bumper.
Around this time we decided that we would rent a trailer as a proof of concept and take a trip around Texas and New Mexico as a family vacation.
Before the Trip I replaced the well worn Coopers with Yokohama X-AT's on a brand new set of fifteen52 wheels. They are 35/75/17 I wanted the 17" wheels in case I ever get around to swapping the 2008 axles that I have stashed away from a rolled F250. I also swapped the glow plugs out, replaced the evaporator, a leaky AC hose, the compressor valve cover gaskets, under valve cover harnesses and a receiver dryer.
The trip went great, we saw Big Bend (we did a little light off roading in Big Bend), Monahan's sand dunes, Fort Davis, The Davis Observatory, Prada Marfa, Target Marathon, Carlsbad, Albuquerque and Santa Fe.
We put 2,070 miles on the truck. Sadly we needed to put about 2,150 to make it home. While coming back into town the hot side of the turbo let go and for a brief moment I was concerned the truck might burn up on the side of the road due to the flames coming from the underside of the engine compartment. (A couple of the names the girls have for the truck are based on that little experience, none of them very flattering...)
I was able to call my dad who brought his pickup and I had the excursion towed to a shop that we trust. Normally I do all my own work but I just wanted to get it back on the road. I had them install a new KC300X turbo, and pedestal, which will take care of a nagging oil leak I had in the valley. I will have the truck back tonight and the plan is to drive it with no additional mods for a bit as my bank account recovers.
Long term, I would like to get a pioneer rack, and add a swing out tire mount to the back of it. I have an ARB Elements to go in the back that I need to wire up and add a house battery for. I am pretty happy with the height of it now and I do not feel that it needs any taller tires. I will document any further changes as we go in this thread. We may not really truly "overland" but we will use this truck to pull a trailer all over the US and then once our basecamp is setup we will use it to explore. The goal is to put a bunch of miles on it over the next ten years and really enjoy the time that we have with the kiddos as they get older.
Last edited:
