Come to a Black Hills $ Wheeler meeting and I can fill you in :smokin: I had a 93' for about 15 years that was my mild wheeler, 32" tires, 4.10 gears with LS diffs in the front and the rear did good on the mild trails in the hills and was always surprised the Jeep folks with what it could do. It's still running around town dark green with lots of rust on the rockers. PM me if you want.

 

I'd go straight to lifting it. Which is what I did. My 93 handled great with a kit I'm selling.

It's a 4" lift kit that includes radius arm and beam drop brackets that I added gussets to, coils and Bilstein shocks That don't leak
I'll sell it to you for 200$ plus $25 for shipping.

Disregard the beams those aren't for sale

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Mike, I messaged you. Interested!

 

I agree on the lifting it first. I have a 94 (It even has the dreaded A4LD) and love it for the family to go wheeling. Mine has some work done to it though. 4:88 gears, Lock-Rights front and rear, 4" suspension with a 3" body lift and Im running 35x12.5x15 BFG KM2 (getting ready to replace them). I built a home built snorkel for mine and have had in water up to the windshield once (spooky). Build it right, with quality parts and they work well (I have a built Ranger for really tough trails). It has seen a few semi tough trails here in CO. pics...

 

Massive trans cooler with a temp gauge. And adjust the bands (super easy). That would be my first mods.

 

First upgrades for any wheeler I think should be lockers. Having all four tire spinning does tons more than anything else. With just lockers you can still wheel and save up for a lift and bigger tires.

 

Go look at solid axle swaps (SAS) on the explorer forum. I went through several different lifts before I went with a SAS on my 94 XLT. It drives smoother on the highway than it ever did, and off-roads better than most vehicles I go out with (mix of Jeeps, Rangers, Explorers, misc). The TTB is good for light rock crawling and go fast type off-roading. If you do more rock crawling or flexy stuff, strongly recommend not wasting any money of trying to get the stock suspension to work. If I was going to start over with a fresh unmolested Explorer, I would immediately cut out the front suspension and go SAS.

You see that third picture that Bloodbane posted? The right-front tire would be firmly planted on the ground if that was a solid axle, and that's a well built, well used rig. You can look at my build on the explorer forum if you wish. Its got 65 pages of crap, and nearly 4 years of work posted (also the saga of FOA shock failures). bkennedy's SAS Thread | Ford Explorer and Ford Ranger Forums - Serious Explorations .
Link to my registry page BKennedy's 1994 Explorer | Ford Explorer and Ford Ranger Forums - Serious Explorations
There are other very well built and used Explorers on the forum as well.

Edit: Pre-built bumpers are hard to find. There are a few out there building them. My front bumper is for a XJ from Protofab. I modified the front frame rails to accept the bumper mounts. XJ and 1st generation Explorer bodies are the same width. Rear bumper, I made and modified over the years. Would go much lighter if I was going to do it again.

 

Well unfortunately the Explorer decided what the first upgrade will be today.

I got the brakes fixed and headed out on the road. The temp gauge fluctuated in kind of an inexplicable way, it would go 3/4, then 1/4 then 3/4 and what I did as far as working or resting the engine had little effect. But in general it ran warmer than i'd like even though the thermostat was open.

So I took it to the shop and used a chemical head gasket tester on the radiator and it almost immediately showed that the gasket is bad.

I had heard that 4.0's liked to overheat and apparently this one is no different. (I did check it as best I could when I bought it, oil looked good, antifreeze looked good, oil was thick between the fingers and neither smelled of the other, should have brought my tester though..) So it's scheduled for new head gaskets at my friends garage next week. But that'll drain my toy money for a bit. We'll roll with the punches and hit 'em again when it recovers though!

 

a 6l powerstroke trans cooler is massive and fits nicely in these.

mine is having cooling issues too. i know a 5l radiator will fit in these. will need to make mounts though. severe duty fan will help, and a faster opening thermostat. electric pusher fan and getting rid of the inner fenders should help too.

ive got the transcooler, and severduty fan clutch. bigger radiator and electric fan are coming soon. im also going to 4 pin the hood so its easier to just ditch the whole thing.

 

Have the heads tested for cracks while you have them off they are bad about cracking between the valve seats, worse between 2-3 or 4-5 for some reason.

 

THIS


Both of my trucks have cracked heads in the past. You can buy the new ones off ebay for a couple hundred bucks with the valves already in there. I would recommend making this part of your deal. It's not even worth having the heads magnafluxed. If you're doing the head gaskets, just go on and replace the heads. You will be much happier

Also, the intake manifold bolts like to snap no where near the torque specs.

 

This is what I would do and what I did when I had my 94 Explorer:

1. Manual lockouts if it doesn't already have them. The stock ones were junk from my couple run-ins with them.
2. Remove the sway bars if it is offroad only or make them so you can disconnect them if it will be a DD also.
3. Lock the rear axle with either a locker or welded. (Could swap in a disk brake axle from a 95+ explorer at this time but not necessary)
4. Suspension lift kit and depending on the style of front drop brackets, relocate the drive side beam so it does not contact the passenger beam drop bracket. On mine, I ran some 6" springs up front with 4" lift kit and went spring over in the rear.
5. Skid plate for the fuel tank if it doesn't have one or relocate it.

This is what I did to mine and wheeled it like that for 3+ years and I was very hard on it. The only thing that I did that I regretted was locking the front diff. With my driving style, I started grenading axles shafts but went back to an open diff and didn't break any.