Well I actually hit the JY and looked at various systems looking for inspiration.
The Explorer "hose" isn't as much hose as I thought it was. It seems most of it is rigid, not sure if it is steel or what but I couldn't cut it with a knife.
It has a big dogleg in the hose off the drier to drop it down. Relative to the body even with the bodylift I think my engine sits a lot higher, guestimating I think the dogleg would put the hose about even with the bottom of my alternator.
I am also not sure how it will fit with my old vacuum advance distributor.
The '98 4.0 with the big hose
@Shran mentioned has a ton of potential. It goes down under the engine and back up on the passenger side. Compressor mounts similar to the 5.0. Not sure why they didn't use the same hoses really. Anyway that would be a clean option to keep the crossover hose out of sight and it seemed to have a lot of "hose" to it for wiggle room.
Then I walks past this ol' '93 F-150 with a 300. There is a lot to work with here.
Hardline back to the firewall which looks like about the same distance as a Ranger. Drier connection takes the same wrench. 10 miles of hose going up and out of the way of everything along the firewall which drops down the DS with a hardline ahead to the compressor.
And then to the condenser it has a bolt together end (which I guess I would really prefer) with a bunch of straight rubber hose with plenty of room for alterations.
The 5.0 variant hose manifold set looks like it has more provisions to dodge things like exhaust manifolds... I need to find one of those to observe while I try to wrap my head around the evaporator/drier.
Anybody know what the style/size the fitting going from the compressor to the Ranger condenser is? Some sort of quick disconnect o-ring thing.
I do have an evaporator on the way so I can get that put in and start seeing for real what I have to work with.