hey, look who showed up.....its that 4.0b2 guy! "takes bow" --i'm thru being egotistical now lol. its funny how i've became "famous" b/c i kept the 1st gen dash, i'd NEVER put that fugly 2nd gen dash in my truck.
honestly, i can't remember nor did i write down the wiring...
but, what i actually did was just look at the diagrams in the books and see what my dash gauge wires are that come out the firewall-- and connect them to the wires that feed the explorer gauges. i honestly believe quite a few of the colors matched up. i'll see if i have anything wrote down in my haynes books. but all it takes is a book on both vehicles. also, another thing i did, was take both harness from the ecu and laid it over my woodworking sawhorse, and took an ohms meter and wrote down what each pin (on the connection of the ecu) was and where it went.. if pin #9 goes to the coolant temp sensor, i made sure that it was the coolant temp sensor on the explorer harness. so... that was just a little extra piece of mind for me.
now-- i've been told the ranger is diff than the b2. and it varies a lot depending on the donor motor and wiring harness also. just don't be scared, and take your time.. its not as hard or as bad as they make it sound. promise. i did it at age 15 or so... and thought i was doing something new, i didn't even know TRS existed then... hahahahahaha
that was only 6 years ago.
IMO--- use the manual trans you have until it causes you problems. address that later, i don't see it being a problem at all if you aint doggin' it hard.
i'll keep a watch on this, and see if i can help any. post up any questions you have or PM me. i'll help any way i can, would even show up and help turn a wrench if you lived local.
also i'll see if there is any wiring i can see on my truck, i have a lot of it un-loomed since i thought i had a wiring problem which turned out to be a bad ecu...