96 4.0 in a 94 - issues?

[Yondering]

Hey y’all, just bought a ‘94 B4000, manual transmission, and the stock 4.0 has a head gasket or cracked head.

A ‘96 Ranger 4.0 motor popped up for sale locally, and I’m thinking it’d be a good donor motor, but I’m wondering if there will be some incompatibility with electronics for those years? I’m thinking the 96 was probably an OBDII system.

Do you all know which parts I’d need to retain from the 94 to use this 96 motor?

 

[rumblecloud]

3rd gen Rangers run from 93 to 97 so you could get lucky. Many parts are a direct fit in the Ranger line anyway - not sure about how that relates to the Mazda line.

Someone with more knowledge will be along to help out soon I am sure.

Welcome to TRS BTW.

 

[Shran]

You should be able to use the block, heads, etc with no problem. I believe various sensors have different plugs. You can simply swap the '94 sensors onto the '96 engine.

 

[Josh B]

I'm just poking along here Yonder, but I'm told my 96 Explorer 4.0 into my 93 Ranger will require their respective intake systems be left in their original places to omit swapping entire harnesses

 

[RonD]

1990-1997 4.0l OHV engines can be swapped between years, but you use YOUR vehicles upper and lower intakes on the "new engine", unless they are the same years, of course, lol

So you would pull out the 1994 4.0l OHV engine, and remove its intakes, then install those on the 1996 4.0l OHV engine, all wiring will then be plug and play, no OBD issues
1995-1997(2000) 4.0l OHV will have a Cam Sensor/oil pump drive, which was not used on 1990-1994 4.0l OHV,(except in Calif.) they just had the oil pump drive, lower part, so flush with block
You can swap these or leave the Cam sensor as is, just not plugged in

1998-2000 4.0l OHV used "fast burn" exhaust ports to heat up Cats faster, these years can be used with older computers but if you have a choice go with 1990-1997 engine

Always replace rear main seal when an engine is out or transmission is off

 

[Yondering]

Thanks for the replies, that helps a bunch!

 

[rumblecloud]

Thanks for the replies, that helps a bunch!

Hey Yonder...
If at all possible, please keep us informed of your progress and post a few pics. There is a wealth of swap articles in the Tech section, but every little bit helps and your efforts could help others down the road.

Thanks

R

 

[Yondering]

Hey Yonder...
If at all possible, please keep us informed of your progress and post a few pics. There is a wealth of swap articles in the Tech section, but every little bit helps and your efforts could help others down the road.

Thanks

R

sounds good, will do. It’ll be a while though, not till this fall when my kid is in auto shop class in school.

Our other alternative is to just have him rebuild the stock motor, and probably buy new or reman heads I guess.

When these motors display signs of a bad head gasket, is it pretty much a foregone conclusion that a head is probably cracked? This one is not running on all cylinders, and blowing big white clouds out the tailpipe and using a lot of coolant. The coolant system loses pressure quickly too, even when it’s still hot.

Oddly enough it ran smoothly at first when we test drove it, until we realized it was low on coolant and topped it up, then the symptoms became evident.

 

[RonD]

I had 1 cracked a head on my 1994 replaced that one and cleaned and surfaced the other, maybe at 250-300k, over 400k on lower end now still running strong
Rebuilding whole engine is fine but these 4.0l OHVs run along time, as long as you do not over heat them, lol

Doing the heads is a one day project, unless you need to send heads out to machine shop, which I did, tore it down on a Sunday and got the heads in on Monday, got the cracked head notification on Wednesday, got new head on Friday and cleaned machine shop head as well
Was up and running Saturday

And you can just order 2 new heads and do it in a day if needs be

 

[Yondering]

I had 1 cracked a head on my 1994 replaced that one and cleaned and surfaced the other, maybe at 250-300k, over 400k on lower end now still running strong
Rebuilding whole engine is fine but these 4.0l OHVs run along time, as long as you do not over heat them, lol

Doing the heads is a one day project, unless you need to send heads out to machine shop, which I did, tore it down on a Sunday and got the heads in on Monday, got the cracked head notification on Wednesday, got new head on Friday and cleaned machine shop head as well
Was up and running Saturday

And you can just order 2 new heads and do it in a day if needs be

Hmm, that’s good to hear, and maybe the reasonable thing to do for now.
I’ve always operated on the assumption that if the head needs to be gone through, might as well do the bottom end too, and this does have 288K miles on it.

But if it’s like my old Jeep 4.0 that I rebuilt at 237K which turned out to really not need it (it had a collapsed lifter and I figured might as well rebuild while the head is off) - then maybe we should just do heads on this now and let him do the rebuild at some later date when it really needs it. It does seem that the bottom end on these is pretty under-stressed, a good thing for long life.

 

[rumblecloud]

I can second what Ron has said.
Did the same with my 94 4.0 at 214K. Never did anything like that before and it wasn't bad at all. With your experience I would imagine it would be rather easy.