I bought my Explorer used in October 1996. After high centering it and gouging the plastic ground effects on my first camping trip, I decided that my future off road forays would require a ‘slightly’ modified vehicle. Since about November of that year this truck has gone through many changes. Mostly trial and error, or rather trail and error, and a lot of wasted money trying to save money. The first major modification was the 5.5" Superlift and 32" BFG ATs. I figured the stock 3.73 gear ratio could handle it, and even though I wanted 33" muds, "practicality" won over. I could run with stock rims too. Oh how nieve I was. After rubbing my sway-bar in the front once, it was off to the tire store for AR 15X8 Steel Blades, standard offset. This would be one of many instances of spending a dollar to save a dime. 

  Figuring I was now on the road to "serious" mods, I decided to research the pros and cons of "posi". Again, practicality won over and I decided to go for "bang for the buck". I chose a Lock-Right for the front and I figured getting rid of the stock limited slip in the rear wouldn't be as noticeable an upgrade as eliminating the open front-end. This actually proved to be a decent decision. If you can get used to the steering difference when in 4 wheel drive, my truck is a much more capable climber against an equally equipped but only locked in the rear vehicle. No doubt there are trade-offs, but it's been over 2 years now and it's been good so far. 

Things were going OK, my trips to the desert were fairly successful. However, I couldn't shake the sluggishness of the stock gears, and decided to upgrade...After getting talked out of 4.56 gears by Pro-Gear in San Diego (I still hadn't found Rick's site, I was doing this on my own), I chose to go to 4.10. I still regret that, and to tell you the truth my camping bro's are ready to kill me after listening to me bitc...er complain about it for the last 2 years. Anyway, while the shop was swapping out the gears they noticed a hole about the size of a quarter in the top of my front diff. Apparently, my driver side bump stop wasn't keeping the superlift bracket from making contact. SuperLift has since changed their design, and they’re currently in the process of changing it again.  As of August ‘99 they told me to keep in touch and they would send v3.0 when it's available. 

Limited gas tank volume and a desire to mount the 32” spare tire somewhere else than on the roof rack took me to Extreme Fabrications in Escondido California.  I gave him my requests and complete creative autonomy and the end result was a clean looking spare tire/dual jerry can/tailight protector/bumper thingamajig. He also custom fabbed a front-diff skid plate, and an L-Shaped piece of steel on the top of my front diff so that the bump stop would hit against something flat, and not slide down to allow that damn bracket to do its damage again. I’ve been very happy with all the fab work and if you happen to be local (that’s local, NOT loco) I would highly recommend him. I've been beating on all that stuff for close to 2 years now, and had zero trouble. 

Apparently I had been watching too many episodes of Home Improvement because I had the urge for bigger tires and found myself grunting a lot.  (remember spending a dollar to save a dime?)  Anyway some got a great deal on a set of hardly used BFG 32” ATs and I was back at the tire store for some "serious" skins. 33" BFG MTs.... biiiig lugs....wiiiide tread. 

Well all was right in my little Explorer world until I learned that things tend to work a little differently off road than in your driveway.  Remember how I said my wheels were standard offset? Well, with my bigger tires/tread, I'm rubbing my sway-bar all over again. YET AGAIN! (so much for being practical) it's back to the tire store. This time it's Progressive Aluminum Blades, 15X8.5 and a 3.825" offset (yep, same as our friend Jack Lobdell - I miss you bud). Now, I'm finally where I want to be (and where I wanted to be in the first place). Things were finally starting to stabilize. Of course now that Home Improvement is syndicated and reruns are on every night.... 

It was high time to "beef" up the front. I'd suffered from winch envy long enough. Down to the store for a Smittybuilt winch bumper (with Warn winch plate) I went. My buddies Phil Sperandio and Matt Barlow helped me weld on some light tabs, and my night drives were back on. Warn XD9000i sale (with free accessory kit), and my envy days were over. 
The last 2 tweaks I made were in the area of articulation and waterproofing. Off came the rear swaybar, and thanks to Jack (again) I was able to order the JKS Swaybar disconnects for a CJ-7 with confidence. Total install time? 15 min.  My waterproofing tweak was to take 25 feet of fuel line and some vacuum tab Y-connectors for the rear and front breather hoses. The rear runs from the diff along the frame rail, joins the front breather with a Y, and then a single line comes up into the engine compartment as high as I could mount it. Got a lot left to do in that area I know, but it was a start. Like I said, all these mods have been ongoing, but thanks to all the good advice on this site especially from Jack, Rick, Paul (and Darien), I've been able to fix a lot of my early mistakes. The Los Coyotes trip saw it all come together, but that is a different story...