Well it seems the my 2003 Ford Excursion Aka the Jolly Green Giant has clicked past the magical 100,000 mile mark. While I don’t want to jinx my luck the TUV (Truck Utility Vehicle) has been a great truck. The old school 7.3L PSD has had one problem with a leaking injector pump/housing, but other then that nothing. I have put brakes, tires, coolant supplement , etc and regular maintenance and that’s pretty much it. I will say that I’m glad this is not one of the later problematic (IMO) Navistar engines that ended up in the Excursion or Superduty’s. So at 100k I’m hoping that the engine is just getting broken in . Is 100k anything special? No not really, and I expect a lot more out of this truck before I start to worry.

Sandy aka the Professor

Well, you might think I’m done with brakes on the Ttiger, sadly no. After starting to look at what I could fit in a 15″ rim the choices were pretty limited. Toss in that I really did want an E-brake it makes it more difficult to find something. The Tiger has a Dana 44 rear axle that has some old world parts and time also to think about that. The plan is to remove the housing ends of the Dana 44 and replace with Ford 9″ flang ends. This is a common swap for the Jeep and 4×4 folks seeking better axles and brakes. So after looking at 9″ rear brake packages it is still a problem to find something that looks track worthy and will fit 15″ rims. Most of the Wilwood stuff uses big (too big for the tiger) rotors, most of the hot rod 9″ brakes that are E-Brake capable have a brake pad that is HUGE and really not right for the rear of a car. Then I remembered a fellow I met who worked on the RCR GT40. Rob ant Vintage Venum (www.vintagevenom.com) makes some nice parts for early mustangs and some will fit within 15″ wheels. This is what they have – You use their special billet axle bracket, a set of 1994-2000 Mustang Cobra Rear calipers with Ebrake, and same car rotors (11.66″ vented) and all done. I just got the billet bracket as I didn’t want the rotors and lines (read on).  Well,  still need to yank out the rear and do the 9″ flang conversion and get special 9″ axles with Dana 44 splines.  The Calipers come with pads and are a Ford Motorsports product so easily available from Summit for about $220. The don’t look as good as you might like but they should do fine. Picked up E-Brake Cables from Lokar and related braided lines and hardware for them as well. But guess what, more fun. While looking for slotted rotors it ends up that Wilwood makes a Cobra rear kit for stock size brakes, and basically it is the 2 piece rotors and some ok pads. You know I like Wilwood stuff, and 2 piece rotors, well that is just cool stuff so will be using that kit. More as it unfolds!