adsm08's Ranger build up

[adsm08]

So, who is getting the old engine?

Mine is starting to knock.

I am.

My Bronco II is starting to have some issues that I believe are due mostly to worn cam bearings. When the weather gets really warm she will miss like no tomorrow until I really get on it, like a lifter won't pump up. The 4.0 swap into the truck right now is prompted by my suspicions that I may need an engine for the BII in short order. The truck has been built to take a 4.0, the BII has not been yet so the 4.0 can't just go in there.

 

[adsm08]

Hmm. Something seems to be... oh, what's the word?.....




Missing. I think "missing" works.


Hmm, pretty blue covers.




And there is the old one on the floor.



BAM

4.0

Oops.



Engine lift strap stuck under engine plate.

 

[97RangerXLT]

Looking good. I did my valve covers and tstat housing in the same ford blue when I did my upper engine gaskets 3 years ago

Sent from the Galaxy to the interwebs

 

[adsm08]

Now I am stuck. Engine is in, trans is lined up, input shaft engaged the splines. Can't get the trans close enough to the block to get a bolt started.

None of my normal helpers are available either. In descending order of unavailability they are:

75 miles away and working 6 days a week

8.5 months pregnant

and

dead.

So I'm not sure what I'm going to do.

 

[adsm08]

Got trans and t-case in. Got drive shafts up. Put headers on engine. Y-pipe doesn't line up. If you line it up right with one side it is a half inch off on the other.

 

[RonD]

Saws-all one pipe, cut a tin can, wrap it and clamp it.
Get pipe fixed at muffler shop when its running.

8.5 months pregnant and she can't hold a crowbar, people are just getting soft............lol.

 

[adsm08]

Well it is a brand new header set, so I would really like to avoid cutting on it. I'm really hoping I can just get the manufacturer to send me a new piece.

 

[MikeR]

Stick a broom handle in both ends of the y pipe and widen it slightly.

 

[adsm08]

Alrighty. Engine, trans, and what not is all together (still haven't heard back from Headman, but I'm not surprised in light of the holiday). I did get my hands on an 89 dash harness to compare to the 88 for comparison so I started in on the wiring.

Engine harness in:


Still have to install the trans harness fully, and deal with the lights. I need to splice in my front markers, and I think the best way to deal with the head lights is to just get different bulbs. I have the LMC conversion set, so I should be able to just throw bulbs from an Explorer in my housings.

Cross harness:


Almost looks like it belongs there.

Now to the fun stuff. I AM keeping my gen 1 dash, sooooooooo......

Time for comparative anatomy:



89 dash harness:





That plug fits, but it is one of the only ones, and it has a lot more wires in it though. So there goes that idea.

Climate control won't hook up:



So five hours later....



I have my blooming onion of cannon plug wires separated, stripped, and labeled. The clutch switch is hooked up, kinda. I have one wire to put back together and it will be as connected as it needs to be. I'm not going to bother hooking up the wires that feed the ESOF 4x4 module since I have a manual transfer case.

Now I just have to trace out, strip, and label the gen 1 side, and splice it all together without catching my labels on fire.


The engine bay is gonna be so cluttered up with unused plugs when this is done because my harness donor had a lot of options my truck doesn't have and that I don't want like 4WABS. I am probably going to have to cull the harness when I am done.

 

[MikeR]

That looks like fun haha that's the stuff that I hate doing.

 

[jhammel85]

I think keeping the Gen 1 dash will be worth it when all is said and done.

 

[adsm08]

That looks like fun haha that's the stuff that I hate doing.

It's not so bad. I put power windows and locks in the truck a little over a year ago, and when I did that I got two complete doors with just the plugs for the cross harness, so I had to build that from scratch. It wasn't pretty, but it did work. I think this will actually be a little easier in terms of making the right connections.

Like I said, I think the hard part is going to be not setting the whole thing on fire with the soldering pen.

 

[adsm08]

Well, it is mostly wired up under the dash. I even managed to solder myself a few times.

I have found some issues. I am, of course, using the parts I can get and not the parts I wanted, which means Explorer harnesses. The differences aren't big, but i have found a critical one (I am amazed by our lack of specific knowledge of the problems involved in using an Explorer harness beyond "It's different").

In the Ranger the brake lights pass through the dash at the cannon plug and run back the frame with the rest of the body harness. In the Explorer it appears that the brake wiring stays inside the body until it gets to the lights. This means I have nothing to connect brake lights to yet. I'll find something though. I do have lots of unused wires I can take yet.

The other problem is my head lights. I bought the switch and plug needed to swap over to floor switch a few years ago and then never did it. Now my factory switch is dying and I want to do it since I am there. Can't find my switch and plug now.

 

[adsm08]

Put dash in part way, hooked stuff up, nothing works. 12.7v at the batt. 12.7 at the fuses under the hood. 2.2v at the ignition switch. Looks like I have some resistance.

 

[adsm08]

Ok, so we know that round one was a miserable failure.

Round two:

Dash back out of the truck, in the house, stripped down and all over the kitchen table again. (Can you tell that my wife is not home this weekend?)





Sat for 3.5 hours yesterday re-pinning the plugs for the cluster. Pretty sure I am missing one or two little things there are I have one hot wire and two grounds left over. Also, the high-beam indicator is always on with the headlights on. Not sure about that.

I do have dash illumination, tach, and CEL though. Speedo will work correctly, obviously, since it is cable driven. Headlights work, have not done wipers or turn signals yet though.


Ignition switch plugged right in, seems to work right. Headlights were easy because the main light switch is the same from 86 (maybe earlier) through the mid 90s. Just have to re-pin the high/low dimmer, which is easy since I am going to floor-switch.

The climate head used the same colors and wire ends, just had to transfer them from one hard shell to the other. I am a little confused about one thing with the CC head. The 87 plug has 5 cavities. The 89+ has 6. I filled all the spots on the older connector and still have two wires in the newer one.

The two left were for AC, so I cut them off and dead-ended them since I don't have AC.



Radio head unit wiring is all the same, but the plug was cut off the new harness, so I moved it over. Also, the 89+ dash harnesses have no provisions for the dash speakers since the front speakers were moved to the doors. The dash speaker wiring is only 6 wires taped into the main dash harness, so it is easily removed and laid into another one.



I just laid both harnesses out on the dash and taped the speaker wires off where I wanted them.

Fuse block looks different at first glace, but if you look harder it is the same body, it just has some extra pieces clipped on it. Took them off, and swapped the wire retainer...









Tada. 5 minutes work and I have an 87 fuse block in an 89 harness.