mazda b2300 1997 5.0 swap c124 plug help!

[hellhound11268]

ranger burnout

youtube.com

 

[hellhound11268]

heres a video of when i tried it quickly last summer wasnt too hard on it i didnt had any fan yet on it

 

[hellhound11268]

some progress have been made fitted dual 12inch fan in the front , got purple loom kit ( the truck going a midnight purple with white engine bay ) and looking on google i cannot find picture of people who did it yet anyway and im getting ready to remove the cab from the frame.... so now my question is im strongly thinking of swapping the front grill and light for ranger 2006 instead of keeping my 1997 mazda grill and light...since ive seen one today at the scrap yard the guy told me 60$ for all i need to swap over but i wanted to ask you guy on here if its mostly bolt on so id like to make sure that everything would fit without too much issue if anyone has done it yet ?

 

[sgtsandman]

The swap to the Ranger front end will not be bolt on. The radiator support will the spot welds drilled out so you can replace it with the Ranger one. I’m not sure if the inner fenders will mate up to the Ranger fenders or not. The hood may be different than the Mazda one. I’m pretty sure the fender body lines are going to be different from the Mazda body and you would probably need to install the Ranger fenders to get the lights to fit correctly.

You’ll need to look real closely at everything before you leap.

 

[hellhound11268]

i dont know about newer year but 1997 the mazda b2300 ad ranger was the exact same truck its a brand new rad support and passenger fender and they are both ranger one when i ordered them and they are exact fit even the body line but going newer style i dont know that part actually but made quite alot of progres today body is already ready to be of the frame, started to work on the rust and primed where it was bare metal im progressin slowly but surely kinda taking time doing everything myself but i hope ill be done before summer

 

[hellhound11268]

one side done atleast

 

[hellhound11268]

tomorow im hoping to finish the rest of the engine bay and having the cab off , next step gonna be to do the whole frame and im waiting on the full suspension kit from energy suspension, then ill start making the crown vic strut fit in the front i got quite alot to do but should be worth it in the end ill keep posting update on here specialy if i manage to make the crown vic strut work in the front but it should work great since they are the same diameter , travel is close enough tbh and same lenght.. i may just have to modify the stock coil spring location anyway ill keep taking picture and show you guys since i never seen or found anything about anyone doing it before

 

[hellhound11268]

so i ended up with doing way much more work then i was suppose to havent tried the suspension yet i ended up cleaning the engine bay , taking the whole wiring harness out and trimming it down to only keep the necessary and loomed the whole harness purple to math with everything , extended and rerouted everything i had to , making quite alot of progress

 

[RobbieD]

The wiring looks good. Time well spent, to do it right.

 

[hellhound11268]

The wiring looks good. Time well spent, to do it right.

thank you!!! took me awefully long specially removing every single wire that i didnt needes from the oem harness i did it the right way by unpinning each wire from connector and must have removed like 10lbs of wiring from oem harness hahaha that is everything i removed

 

[RobbieD]

And now that it's done, I bet that you're glad that you did it. Nice work.

 

[hellhound11268]

exhaust crossover deleted , catch can and over flow installed , rad support back on , wiring taking place slowly... ad well to the important point so far it look really good for having the crown Victoria front strut working well on the ranger.. definitely a lot of fab and a lot of measurement but at this point im pretty confident its gonna work very well once done im half way there on one side

 

[hellhound11268]

so quick update i was able to make the crown vic strut work but i had to remove them and went back with stock cause it ended up way too stiff almost static so no go for me which was a mistake of my part for not doing enough research about the weight of the p71 compared to my ranger and the spring rating in the end i ordered a new set of moog HD coil spring which actually made a bigger difference then expected maybe by next week truck will be back on the road and next step is complete bushing kit and body wise and paint job haha right now looks like a total sleeper which i kinda like

 

[hellhound11268]

okay so i im wondering if there a way i could make the speedometer work on my ranger since im using a m5odr2 or theres no way to make it work since i dont have an ecu anymore? if anyone knows the answer it would be a great help