3.5L ecoboost or bust

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I think small updates with pics is better as you are less likely to forget something. It's always good to be able to go back and look at what you did and when, that can alleviate possible problems.

 

[retep88]

I am getting ready to go on vacation next week so I have been putting off anything to big until I get back. Tonight was just piddly stuff, Vacuum lines for the waste gates, brake lines, and hacked on what is left of the core support. I need to buy a couple of totes to put my interior parts into so I can keep track of them. Once I do that, I can pull the seats and carpet and work on the transmission tunnel. I had to cut it up to make space but it wasn't a very clean job (just get it done) and I still need to make space for the shifter.

My brother just dragged home a '53 70 last month, it is a tad bigger than my B lol.

The good thing about the two cylinder tractors is that they are all pretty much the same (well except maybe for the diesels). Mine was converted over to a 12 volt system, but it was still positive ground. It makes things interesting when you start looking for a solid state ignition. I know where you can find a Series 1 loader if you want one

 

[retep88]

Here is the engine mounted. You can see the notch in the cross member if you look hard enough. You can also see how close the turbo is to the upper control arm. I Still have to figure out steering, the other turbo is right in the way. ooh yeah. I also got hardware to mount my throttle body, so that is on now (not pictured).

 

[85_Ranger4x4]

The good thing about the two cylinder tractors is that they are all pretty much the same (well except maybe for the diesels). Mine was converted over to a 12 volt system, but it was still positive ground. It makes things interesting when you start looking for a solid state ignition. I know where you can find a Series 1 loader if you want one

He actually just took a perfect #45 loader off of it that he is hoping to sell.

 

[retep88]

I HAVE A PLAN FOR THE STEERING!!!

and this picture perfectly explains it all

The Red line was the original steering. It has pretty much a straight shot out the back of the steering wheel, down to a Universal joint at the rack. There is a turbo there now so that obviously won't work.

So to fix it, I am going to move the point where the steering comes out, supporting it with a bearing mounted to the firewall. There will be a Universal joint at the firewall, then another above the shock mount, then another support bearing ,then it finally makes it down to the rack....

Again, I am going on vacation, so I haven't ordered any parts for this yet, I don't want them showing up while I am out of town, but I think this should work.

The universal joint for the steering rack was the hardest one to find, mostly because it isn't your standard double D shaft. it's a ford triangle, or ford pyramid, or a Flaming River Power rack? What ever it's called, there aren't many options on amazon, and buying them from Flaming River is expensive.

 

[bobbywalter]

i am not around much. but have some extensive hands on research into this. lots of people tried to say the rear face of block was not interchangeable ect front drive to rear and that is not accurate...the blocks are different for sure but bolt pattern is the same....you have to make a bridge mount to use the fwd in a rear drive due to no bosses on the drivers side...shit like that...and the water pump setup on the front drive sux....but they are cheap... glad to see you started with the rear drive to make stuff better.


your plan for the steering is common in some areas of the country where people run regular headers on v8 swaps in this chassis. in 98 we did a bbc swap with just 1 added joint to a 97 2wd flood truck that was otherwise brand new. with this style ranger column , moving it over on the firewall is much easier then the earlier fixed coulumns...which with older trucks cutting of the column inside with a collet/basket bearing and taurus parts work to move the shaft over on big block swaps. you take the factory reinforcing plate and move it over. i would wager you have it just right with the plan.


using the ford transit 150-250 forward engine dress gets you power steering and good ac. i will just likely use a transit powertrain complete with a 4x4 trans and extensive tuning.


for 2 grand the frpp stuff is actually a really good price for what you get. when i seen what goes into the tune on this system....it was very humbling and i have mucho respect for the tune masters at ford out of it. just the blow through alone as the cams phase about makes the o2 useless depending on scenario... so much inferred with the way the programming is layered....way way past my abilities ever.


it has more then proved itself past a pretty good engine even n/a .

 

[retep88]

And I am back from vacation.... I feel like a need a vacation from my vacation.

using the ford transit 150-250 forward engine dress gets you power steering and good ac

I don't think I would be able to use it stock. I don't think I have enough room to the sway bar, but I think I can use it as inspiration to make my own bracket.

I think if I rotate the pump up a little, maybe move it out, I can get something like this to fit. That will need to wait until another day though. Now that I am back, I need to pull the engine back out, hopefully for the last time, and finish up the stuff where it's a pain having it in place, including all the cutting and grinding I need to do to make the radiator fit.

 

[retep88]

Updates!!! Now with Pictures

The first thing I did when I got back from vacation was to pull the engine back out of the truck, something I am getting really good at. With the engine out I could finish off the Transmission cross member. It worked, but I had to slot the holes so much that I wouldn't have been able to put a bolt onto the mount, and last time I checked, I need bolts holding the transmission.

You can kind of tell where I added the bump out to let me bolt the transmission in place.

After that I went to town cutting/grinding out the old core support so I could start test fitting the new one in place. After going through one grinding disk, I got the old one out. New one looks pretty good if I do say so my self.

It also let me know what I needed to do to get my coolers in place

That's my radiator and my intercooler. The intercooler is like 4 inches thick on it's own...

The bad news is that both are too wide. I have already cut and notched a bunch of other stuff on the frame, so might as well do that now.

I boxed it in, but I am not worried about strength, the only thing that the frame holds up is the bumper past my notching.

After I did that I attacked the interior, removed my seats, carpet, and dash so I could clean up the hole I put into my floor for the Transmission and work on the pedals. The stock throttle pedal bracket was really narrow and spot welded to the the firewall. The new electric one is wider and required some cutting in the firewall to make fit, if I hadn't, it would have been too close to the brake pedal. It's all mounted up, but I want to get some seam sealer on it before I take it's picture (to hide all the ugly ). Right now I am working on the clutch pedal. The stock one probably would have worked okay, but I wasn't sure how to hook it up to the Slave cylinder. Plus, it looked like the previous owner (curse his tool box) jacked up the switch. Every wire had a butt connector on it. Plus Ford gave me new switches that plug directly into the harness. Of course it's going to take some fabrication to get the Mustang clutch to work, but I think it will work out pretty well.

But for now... Iowa is hot and muggy and I don't want to be outside for very long. Any time I spend more than an hour outside I soak my shirt in sweat.

 

[adsm08]

I need bolts holding the transmission.

This is a common misconception. The factory really over-engineered stuff in this particular area. Gravity holds the transmission in place just fine for 99% of normal on-road driving.

 

[retep88]

My new throttle pedal mount:

The Blue circle is where the old cable poked out the firewall... I don't need that anymore so I have blocked it off.

The red square is the original flat spot where the old bracket was spot welded and was not nearly large enough for the new pedal. Not if I wanted any kind of gap/space between the throttle and the brake, although it would make the old heal-toe shift easier.

The Green is what I had to modify to get the new pedal to fit. Part of it is 1/8 inch steel welded in place, the rest is sheet metal riveted in place, and the whole thing covered in seam sealer on the outside. Only caught the foam on the inside on fire once.

Need to add the limit switches to the clutch and then I can move back to the steering, after that, air intake, then wiring.

 

[retep88]

I am regretting the decision to use the clutch limit switches ford provided. They don't bolt in place, they snap in place . They snap into very specifically shaped holes that aren't round , and it will most likely take me all weekend to make those holes with files . Of course I could have bought a braket that already had all the mounts for the switches (ford provided the part number) but it was out of a focus and from the pictures I didn't think I could get it to work with the ranger setup.

 

[retep88]

Pedals are installed

If only I had the seats in I could sit and make Vroom Vroom sounds while I pretended to be bang shifting through the gears.

I finally ran my rear brake line, something I have been putting off because I didn't want to crawl in the dirt (mostly ground up oil dry). It was so hot, and I was sweating so much, that I looked like I had rolled around in the mud. I was sent straight to the shower when I came in for dinner.

 

[retep88]

Three shirts later the Fuel tank is back in and the fuel lines run to the engine compartment. The engine is also put back in for the last time (for the first time )

I want to do more on the truck, I just got a bunch of stuff from Amazon, Rock Auto, McMaster Carr, and FordPartsGiant (it's where I have been getting my "dealer" parts) but...

I pushed it too hard last night trying to get all that done, and I am paying for it.

 

[retep88]

Finally, the weather has been decent the last couple of days and I have made progress.

I had bought the wiring diagram book for the ranger a while ago (april I think?) and I have been studying it, learning the circuits, taking notes, fulling understanding the electrical in the ranger. I feel like I studied that stupid book more than any class I took in college. Finally, on Sunday evening, it was time for the final exam. Fortunately it was open book ! Now the harness is stripped of anything for the old 2.5L, it will all get replaced with the new wire harness that came with the power pack. The plug for the new harness is wired in as well. Had to feed it a run/start wire, a start wire, a run/acc wire, an AC request wire, and finally hook it up into the wire harness for the fuel pump. It also has some aux power wires, but I didn't end up using them, an extra CAN hi-low pair in case a vehicle controller needs them (I am thinking about using them with a digital dash though), and a "clean tach signal" wire. My ranger doesn't have a tach, but a friend of mine was scrapping out his ranger so I bought his Bed, Tilt steering wheel, and gauge cluster for $350.

With the wiring done, I put the dash back in place. I put my steering column back in so I could start mocking up my steering, but before I could make real progress, my McLeod clutch line showed up and I just had to see if it fit. That was a huge pain to get done, I tried to massage the floor to make it fit, but ended up ripping a hole in the sheet metal (pry bars will do that). Since I already had to repair holes, I just made them larger so I could actually get my hand in there to install the fitting. The fitting is on the slave cylinder, the line is in the master, I am waiting for the exhaust to route the line and then I have a clutch.

I did get back to the steering though, and it's mocked up. Need to make a permanent bracket for it thought. There are a lot of rubber components in the suspension near by, and from experience, I know the frame has a bunch of seam sealer or glue or something that doesn't like heat, so I am trying to avoid welding on the frame. So that leaves me with two options. The mostly likely correct way, and the way I am going to do it.

The correct way would be to remove the upper control arm, make a plate that bolts to the back of the upper control arm mounts, and then use my bulk-head bearing to support the shaft. The way am actually going to support the steering shaft is a bracket that comes of just the from control arm mount, then bolts to the top of the frame with a nutsert and call it good enough.

This is about what it will look like, except the bearing will be closer to the silver U-joint. Didn't even need to cut a hole in the fire wall to make it work.

Oh, because I am getting ready to start on the Air Intake/Charge Air Cooler/Radiator soon. I needed the little rubber bushing to hold the coolers in place. Except ford wanted like $15 bucks a piece for them (at least for the radiator, couldn't find any for the intercooler). So I went on McMaster-Carr, found the ONE type that would fit the post on the coolers and bought those... $1.80. https://www.mcmaster.com/64865k87

I am trying really hard to not pull the engine again... I might make it, but we will have to see.

 

[retep88]

Steering is Sort of done... Technically, the bracket is finalized and painted, but I am with-holding pictures till I get the Steel double-D shaft. The real exciting part for this week is that I have a new driveshaft.

it's halfway installed just to make sure it's the correct length, but I don't want to finalize the installation until after the first start. The drive shaft shop took my original drive shaft and added the slip joint and flange.

I am moving onto the Intercooler/Intake/Radiator next since those are the next highest levels of fabrication needed.

The Hype is real, I can see the finish line, I am SO close... That first drive might not have a hood, fenders or a transmission tunnel, but it's becoming a reality.