Excursion paint, swap, build

[Tiha]

Sealed up driver's door with kill mat. We left it open because we had to remove the keyless entry pad for painting. New speaker in. I put the last new speaker in the rear as well.

he bought a bunch of high dollar stereo stuff.

There was a 4th row seat that someone had added to this truck. My son was worried about the holes they drilled in the floor. I thought they were protected enough and the kill mat would seal them up just fine. But he has asked about it no less than 20 times so I welded them up.

we will still seal them from the outside as well.

 

[Tiha]

Started the back doors.

First some kill mat inside, then glued some thinselate in there. Trying to cut down the echo chamber.

Then seal the door up. Put the panels on.

The rear doors are fiberglass so they are going to sound horrible no matter what. Best we can do is to try and keep the noise contained inside the door. The door panels have a pretty thick layer of insulation on them already.

Now starting on the floor. YaY!, Once I get the floor done that should get the rest of the panels out of my other garage bay. Plus all the boxes of gym foam, kill mat can be put away. Will get to do a big clean up because the interior is almost done. The rest of the parts will come from his truck.

 

[Tiha]

Just another floor pic, But my son and his wife have not told anyone yet, but they are expecting another kid. That makes 3. For some reason it sounds like there is a pretty good chance it is twins. We are supposed to find out the 29th.
He has always wanted it, but I finally agreed, if it is twins, then this truck will get 2 more doors.

 

[ridered3]

Just another floor pic, But my son and his wife have not told anyone yet, but they are expecting another kid. That makes 3. For some reason it sounds like there is a pretty good chance it is twins. We are supposed to find out the 29th.
He has always wanted it, but I finally agreed, if it is twins, then this truck will get 2 more doors.

Well that’s quite the possible change in scope for this truck!!

 

[Tiha]

Making progress, Kind of had a little hiccup. Will update more later, but headliner probably has to come back out, that is why there is not trim up there.

Finished the kil mat and gym foam in the rear, got most of the panels back on. 2nd and 3rd row seats back in. His 2nd row is in better shape, but I put these in to find all the holes, and get them out of my garage. He and his brother can swap them out of his ex later.

This allowed me to move a bunch of parts into the space behind the 3rd row. I can just about breath in my garage again. It is awesome.

He thinks he is taking a new job. If he does he loses the company pickup. He wants to keep driving his Ex for work. That means this will sit until he is ready to give up his ex, or finds something else to drive for work.

He really needs to find something else for work, this is not a work truck.

I really need to sand and buff the outside. I just don't want to.
But if I get that done, then I can start putting lights back in, badges back on. Get more stuff out of the garage.

Kind of getting close to the end of what I can do until he is ready to give up his donor. But now that we are close he is talking about 05 axles.

he wanted to swap frames, I am like No. It is easier on me to put 05 axles under this rather than swap and modify frames.

In edit, at the end of the day Saturday, when I was of course exhausted. I shut all the door and climbed inside the cab and just sat.
This thing is really quiet inside. Barely hear the radio. Can't hear anything else like city noise. I think he will love it.

 

[Gots_a_sol]

05 axles is a weekend swap assuming you have all your parts ready to go/donor frame brackets stripped off.

 

[Tiha]

05 axles is a weekend swap assuming you have all your parts ready to go/donor frame brackets stripped off.

He is coming down next weekend, we need to talk some stuff over. I think he and I are on different pages. I think he is afraid to just say what he really wants. I can't help him if I don't know what that is.

Was just talking to his brother about it this morning. he needs to buy another truck, that really is the hold up. I need his to keep going.

If he wants axles, he needs to figure out what gear ratio he wants and help find them. I keep sending him links to adds, but he is afraid to swap gear ratios.

3:53 to 3:73 is only 100 rpms. 3:73 to 4:10 is like 300 rpm. He doesn't know but we are assuming he is at 3:73 right now.

He also seems to think we need to swap frames. There are so many swap threads out there, I have no idea why he thinks that.

 

[Jbevs]

This is by far one of my favorite threads going on right now. You do good work.

 

[ridered3]

Log into Facebook

Log into Facebook to start sharing and connecting with your friends, family, and people you know.

www.facebook.com

 

[Tiha]

Yeah these are on market place locally, not that cheap though. that is a bargin.

In the back of my mind he will have a $50k truck. Not sure I could ever give him $50k any other way until I die.

If I do this it will have the cladding like this first picture.

 

[ridered3]

Those are cool too.

Semi locally, there is a 6-door, dually Excursion running around, but I can never get a picture of it.

 

[Hooligan]

It was getting late and dark so I picked an easy project, started scraping all the windows with a razor blade to clean the dirt and over spray off.

Something so simple takes so long but really changes the appearance.

For glass, I’ll use 000 steel wool. Clean glass looks so nice.

 

[Tiha]

For glass, I’ll use 000 steel wool. Clean glass looks so nice.

that works.

It is stupid. LOL I will be working on something else, see a spot on a window and have to stop and clean it.

Started wet sanding some yesterday. Wet sanding sucks.

My son is coming this weekend. I hope to get him to help me wet sand and buff it.

 

[Tiha]

Well officially it will be a 6 door when done.

But that work won't really start until spring because if we stretch it now there is not enough room to walk around the end of it in my garage.

So we are going to try and swap some other parts over and try to keep working on drivetrain through the winter.

It will get a coil swap as well.

One of the hold ups was my son wanting to keep driving his excursion. He needed a work truck. He has been shopping a while. With the kids a 4 door was a must have.

His new job is going to be farm work so whatever he gets is gonna get beat. Muddy gravel roads and such. So didn't want to spend for anything fancy. Use it up, throw it away.
He wanted to stay with the early superdutys because we have a bunch of parts laying around for those.
Engine, drivetrain, ect.

We spent all day last friday driving around the state looking at trucks for sale. $4-$6k for stuff that was 300k miles and needed a ton of work. I tried to stay out of it, just helped him inspect and test drive. But his decision.
At one point I offered to give him some money so he could get a better truck than what we saw in that price range.

By mid day Saturday he decided on this thing. Yep another excursion. He talked the guy down to $1,700. Lower miles, also a 5.4L. But way better shape than anything else we looked at.

Now this truck did need some work. The fuel tank was falling out of it. The reciever hitch was rusted through. It had no brakes. 4x4 didn't work.

But it had brand new tires. Transmission has been rebuilt. The front bumper and tires were worth more than half the price he paid.

So we went home and grabbed the trailer.

Me and the two boys spent the entire day working on it Sunday and most of the day Monday. Took parts off his other truck which is now officially retired. It had new brakes all around. So we swapped calipers, rotors. brakes hoses. Had a master cylinder from the body donor.
Fuel tank and skid plate came from the body donor. The rear bumper came from body donor. We wired some after market relays to fix the 4x4 actuator. I am not sure which truck he stole the locking hubs off of. And probably a dozen other things.
Plus the normal, change every fluid.
Bleeding brakes was a struggle.
The last owner used it to haul the Amish around to different jobs, so it was filthy inside. Because of course they don't have vacuums.
We could have spend another day cleaning. But it was cleaning up nice inside.

By middle of the afternoon he had to get going. It made it home. he said around 14 mpg. so he is happy. It still needs a windshield. Beyond that he thinks it is good to go.

Now I have two white excursions sitting in my yard. The 6.0 on the left that is getting stripped for the 6 door, and my other son's V10 on the right that is eventually getting a new engine.

 

[Tiha]

After he left it was still such a nice day out I decided to work on the new truck some. Sanding and buffing. YUCK!
But now I can start hanging parts on it like body moldings, emblems and such since I have the donor here.

It was really tough to capture the before and after the wet sand and buff. The white is hard to capture a refection on.

Before.

After

And a wash to get the rest of the buffing compound off.

At this point I am exhausted. Time to go back to work and rest a couple days. LOL

 

[KacksterK5]

Cool builds, you've got a healthy obsession with big heavy shit

 

[Tiha]

Cool builds, you've got a healthy obsession with big heavy shit

Bigger is better! LOL

I get it, I drove a suburban for years. With 2 kids a dog and anything else like camping gear, even these are not big enough.

A van would probably make more sense, and he looked at a few, but he is like me. I enjoy driving these, I am just not comfortable in a van. Not for very long anyway.

 

[KacksterK5]

No doubt. Keep up the good work.

 

[ridered3]

Y'all got all the Excursions!

 

[Jbevs]

I thought he might have been the one that picked this up. I was second in line and missed out

 

[Tiha]

I thought he might have been the one that picked this up. I was second in line and missed out

I saw some really nice low mile super cabs. One down in misery that was hit in the front. We have all the parts to fix it, but nope, no super cabs.

Understand it, getting child carriers in and out of a supercab is tough.

Log into Facebook

 

[WiscoF100]

This thread didn’t come up when I was searching for some some deadening ideas but pretty sure I remember you stuffing the A pillars and such?

 

[Thatg9659]

This thread didn’t come up when I was searching for some some deadening ideas but pretty sure I remember you stuffing the A pillars and such?

That was project twin I believe with the Audi wagon turned into a speaker box, he used Rockwool insulation stuffed that everywhere he could.

 

[WiscoF100]

Ok I’ll look that stuff up. Thanks

 

[bdkw1]

On my stupid duty, I just used the pink shit to stuff the A pillar and windshield frame cavities. Also did the B and C pillars. Makes noticeable difference in noise transmission. With all the damping material I put in there, it sounds like an alumiduty when you close the doors.

 

[Tiha]

This thread didn’t come up when I was searching for some some deadening ideas but pretty sure I remember you stuffing the A pillars and such?

Yes, Every void, A pillars, B pillars, C pillars, The channels overhead that run the length of the truck.

Basically any echo chamber you cannot get kill mat in.

I used the 3m thinsilate stuff. Anything with texture to stop sound from bouncing.

Then if you can cover as many holes in that echo chamber as you can.

It is supposed to be something water proof so it doesn't hold moisture and rot out the void, but really none of us are going to keep something that long for it to be a concern.

 

[Tiha]

The stripping has started. Actually got rained out yesterday. Weather it turning, going to slow things down a bit.

 

[Tiha]

Was working on stripping until I got rained out Saturday. Supposed to rain for a couple more days.

Transmission and transfercase out.

His second or now actually 3rd row seat is better than the one the donor had in it, so I pulled it out. Need to swap it. There is gonna be a ton of stuff like that, compare and take the best pieces.

I already see a ton of nickel and dime stuff. That stuff that makes projects seem to take 10 times longer.

Power steering line to hydroboost leak. Needs a new hose.

He wants to put gaskets and seals in the engine. Full set of injectors, looks like the turbo is leaking somewhere. Want to get it pulled and on the stand in the garage.

Trying to get all the big parts off, the weather is turning. Don't mind spending a few minutes to pull something in the cold and snow but not pulling the engine out in the snow.