Good to know on the SAE. I assumed it was all metric like everything else modern. Appreciate you!
For the group, here’s where I’m at. My rear came from ‘98 Mountaineer. The ones local had much lower miles than the explorer. Contrary to some of what I read, same width as the explorers in the yard. Grabbed a spare short axle and slid it in the housing before they rang me up. At home, hacked everything off with the grinder and cut my 2-7/8 with a piper cutter. I went ahead and beveled it down to about an 1/8 and jigged it up. Tonight was welding night and tacked it in 6 spots, slid in the axle and ran 1 inch beads, beveled them back and ran the next bead back into them, jumping around. Almost finished but ran out of wire with about an inch left so I’ll wrap it up tomorrow. Cut is a 42” on center so my perches will straddle the weld.
View attachment 1716175225
View attachment 1716175226
View attachment 1716175227
View attachment 1716175228
View attachment 1716175229
