Booty.B.Bouncin
New Member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2020
- Messages
- 15
- Reaction score
- 5
- Points
- 3
- Location
- Oregon
- Vehicle Year
- 97/00
- Make / Model
- Ford Ranger XLT
- Engine Type
- 4.0 V6
- Transmission
- Manual
- 2WD / 4WD
- 4WD
- Total Lift
- None yet
- Total Drop
- Never!
- Tire Size
- 30"
- My credo
- Do better. Love more. Judge less.
Greetings! Let me start by saying I'm sorry if this isn't the right place to post, I'm not really sure where my issue/struggle fits in. Please give me a chance to move the text to the appropriate thread before I get deleted. I joined because every other search I've done while working on my current project directed me here, so I thought I'd join the community!
I am a new owner of 2 totaled rangers that I took on as a project to build one solid working vehicle. Seemed simple enough, but boy was I under-estimating the work that I was about to undertake (3 months ago now), along side working full time, and hunting! I'll back up and explain where I started, the assistance I've had, and where I'm stuck at now, in that order.
I was hoping, a year ago, that I could offer to take on all the maintenance costs, and labor for my dad's '97, 4.0L manual, in exchange for use of the truck whenever I needed it. Shortly after I started having the thought, but before I had a chance to talk to him about it, he got t-boned on the driver's side door. The frame is fortunately still straight, and just about everything else in the truck was working and running just fine. I allowed some time, brought up my initial thought to him, and offered to buy it from him cheap, if I could do the work there and get a donor vehicle parked next to it. He agreed, and later decided not to charge me, instead gifting the truck as a birthday present! Fantastic! So far, so good.
I watched used car sales, largely on craigslist, watching for another vehicle with the same body, but differing damage to pop up for cheap. After a while of watching, I found one that had rear-ended someone and damaged the frame. That seemed fine, because all I needed was the body, and I know a guy who works at a ford dealership body shop, does his own body work, and was willing to help me out when the time came! I did some quick research before buying the truck (at asking price, for I didn't have a way to tow it, but they would deliver for full price). I find out later there may not be much difference in bodies and mounting brackets, but my issues are with electrical, as the truck I bought was a 2000 3.0L automatic.
I'm using the '97 frame, engine, manual transmission, and everything else, but replacing the body with the '00 donor.
My work was definitely cut out for me. I started almost immediately scrapping all the broken stuff on the new truck, and promptly called my mechanic to come by assure me that I hadn't made a huge mistake. He swung by, looked it over and assured that the work could be done, but noted that I had a BIG PROJECT on my hands. Later that week, I called my body shop guy to come confirm that the body wasn't completely toast, and he assured that he's got the tools needed, and the work can be done fairly easily (my father was also a fabricator/welder/sheet metal worker for all of my childhood, and has a plethora of specialty tools to work out metal shaping issues).
I spent the next month and a half (between work, hunting, and sanity breaks involving disc golf) gutting both vehicles, and reducing as much weight from the body as possible, so I could gather some muscle to move the bodies off and around. I'm working in my Father's backyard for this project, and we don't have any kind of lift, aside from an engine hoist, so I had to enlist the help of some friends for a couple hours to move things aside. Since then I've lost a lot of daylight after work to be able to see what I'm doing, and have had to not be there as often, or long. The biggest difference I noticed between the 2 body styles was the wiring connection to the body from the chassis harness. I did a quick search, which led me here, and that thread as well as another forum I saw said I needed to use the wiring harness from the donor vehicle. So I buckled down again, stripping both wiring harnesses (labeling everything), and started laying them out to see what connectors I needed to clip and replace so everything worked proper.
I decided that I needed to swap the fuel tanks, and take the emission controls and filters from the newer vehicle, so I could just use all the wiring from the donor. I pulled the tanks today, and they are different sizes, and fit slightly differently in the slightly different cross members of the chassis'! *Expletives!!!* I all but broke down crying today, 3 months later and I'm still only about halfway through this project. I'm ready to stop spending all this extra time and have the truck driving and on the road already!!
I really don't want to have to strip down both wiring harnesses and rebuild my own, but I'm prepared for that possibility. I'm way out of my league with wiring, and I've got a million ideas on what could work, but wanted to "ask the experts" before I go cutting stuff up. I'm really hoping some of you all can confirm my suspicion that I can just swap the body connection from the new truck on to the older trucks wiring, and use all the old stuff otherwise? Do I use the newer truck's wiring for the engine but splice the transmission controls/sensors for the manual, and use the old truck chassis wiring but replace the body connection?? Do I go ahead with what I was thinking and replace all the mismatched components from the new truck on to the old truck? What's the best way to find wiring schematics and diagrams, websites or books?
HELP!! I'm trying my best not to have to buy anything but tools for this project, and hopefully only end up a few hundred in costs, after parting out and scrapping what I don't use.
Thanks for reading, and again please direct me to a proper sub forum if this is an inappropriate location for this! I'd hate to have to re-type all this detail out, but I'm happy to copy/paste it in the correct location. Also happy to divulge more information, and upload some pictures in the near future! Please, and thank you!
Sincerely,
- Novice Oregon Builder at Wit's End
I am a new owner of 2 totaled rangers that I took on as a project to build one solid working vehicle. Seemed simple enough, but boy was I under-estimating the work that I was about to undertake (3 months ago now), along side working full time, and hunting! I'll back up and explain where I started, the assistance I've had, and where I'm stuck at now, in that order.
I was hoping, a year ago, that I could offer to take on all the maintenance costs, and labor for my dad's '97, 4.0L manual, in exchange for use of the truck whenever I needed it. Shortly after I started having the thought, but before I had a chance to talk to him about it, he got t-boned on the driver's side door. The frame is fortunately still straight, and just about everything else in the truck was working and running just fine. I allowed some time, brought up my initial thought to him, and offered to buy it from him cheap, if I could do the work there and get a donor vehicle parked next to it. He agreed, and later decided not to charge me, instead gifting the truck as a birthday present! Fantastic! So far, so good.
I watched used car sales, largely on craigslist, watching for another vehicle with the same body, but differing damage to pop up for cheap. After a while of watching, I found one that had rear-ended someone and damaged the frame. That seemed fine, because all I needed was the body, and I know a guy who works at a ford dealership body shop, does his own body work, and was willing to help me out when the time came! I did some quick research before buying the truck (at asking price, for I didn't have a way to tow it, but they would deliver for full price). I find out later there may not be much difference in bodies and mounting brackets, but my issues are with electrical, as the truck I bought was a 2000 3.0L automatic.
I'm using the '97 frame, engine, manual transmission, and everything else, but replacing the body with the '00 donor.
My work was definitely cut out for me. I started almost immediately scrapping all the broken stuff on the new truck, and promptly called my mechanic to come by assure me that I hadn't made a huge mistake. He swung by, looked it over and assured that the work could be done, but noted that I had a BIG PROJECT on my hands. Later that week, I called my body shop guy to come confirm that the body wasn't completely toast, and he assured that he's got the tools needed, and the work can be done fairly easily (my father was also a fabricator/welder/sheet metal worker for all of my childhood, and has a plethora of specialty tools to work out metal shaping issues).
I spent the next month and a half (between work, hunting, and sanity breaks involving disc golf) gutting both vehicles, and reducing as much weight from the body as possible, so I could gather some muscle to move the bodies off and around. I'm working in my Father's backyard for this project, and we don't have any kind of lift, aside from an engine hoist, so I had to enlist the help of some friends for a couple hours to move things aside. Since then I've lost a lot of daylight after work to be able to see what I'm doing, and have had to not be there as often, or long. The biggest difference I noticed between the 2 body styles was the wiring connection to the body from the chassis harness. I did a quick search, which led me here, and that thread as well as another forum I saw said I needed to use the wiring harness from the donor vehicle. So I buckled down again, stripping both wiring harnesses (labeling everything), and started laying them out to see what connectors I needed to clip and replace so everything worked proper.
I decided that I needed to swap the fuel tanks, and take the emission controls and filters from the newer vehicle, so I could just use all the wiring from the donor. I pulled the tanks today, and they are different sizes, and fit slightly differently in the slightly different cross members of the chassis'! *Expletives!!!* I all but broke down crying today, 3 months later and I'm still only about halfway through this project. I'm ready to stop spending all this extra time and have the truck driving and on the road already!!
I really don't want to have to strip down both wiring harnesses and rebuild my own, but I'm prepared for that possibility. I'm way out of my league with wiring, and I've got a million ideas on what could work, but wanted to "ask the experts" before I go cutting stuff up. I'm really hoping some of you all can confirm my suspicion that I can just swap the body connection from the new truck on to the older trucks wiring, and use all the old stuff otherwise? Do I use the newer truck's wiring for the engine but splice the transmission controls/sensors for the manual, and use the old truck chassis wiring but replace the body connection?? Do I go ahead with what I was thinking and replace all the mismatched components from the new truck on to the old truck? What's the best way to find wiring schematics and diagrams, websites or books?
HELP!! I'm trying my best not to have to buy anything but tools for this project, and hopefully only end up a few hundred in costs, after parting out and scrapping what I don't use.
Thanks for reading, and again please direct me to a proper sub forum if this is an inappropriate location for this! I'd hate to have to re-type all this detail out, but I'm happy to copy/paste it in the correct location. Also happy to divulge more information, and upload some pictures in the near future! Please, and thank you!
Sincerely,
- Novice Oregon Builder at Wit's End