2000 5.0 Explorer Swap Into 98 Ranger 4.0

[DonovanJM]

I'm always a fan of stronger so the BW4406 calls to me. I have two worries though. 1. Fitment. I'm not sure I have the welding skills or equipment to move the engine over to make room. 2. Driveshafts. In the Explorer thread it talks about using a 4.6L front and a 5.4L rear with and adapter. Do those fit the Ranger? I have seen other people say they have used both the front and rear from a standard cab f150 4.6L It seems all over the place.

 

[G8orFord]

Because the F150 case is immensely stronger, and because it gives you an opportunity to go with a manual case. There isn't much cobbling to it. Alternatively, you're sourcing an expensive adapter to use a weaker case.

Because we are cheap, lazy or both.

The BW1354 shaft installs from the front of the 4R70W. So you will need to pull everything out of transmission - pump, gears, clutches, etc to remove the existing output shaft and replace with the one for Ranger transfer case. It's OK, if you were planning on rebuilding the transmission anyways, but it is a lot of work if you have a good transmission. And a lot of people are intimidated/don't have tools to rebuild an automatic.

Note: Swapping the transmission to transfer case housing is child's play, so I am discounting the requirement to do that.

The Advance Adapters sells the shaft for ~$600 US with availability occasionally being sketchy. $1k Cdn after purchase, shipping, duty made me look into other solutions.

And ya, the 31 spline input shaft/34 (BW1356) or 39 (BW4406) tooth gears of F-150 case are substantially stronger than the 25 splines/24 tooth gears of the Ranger case. And the BW4406 can be found in electric shift models that basically bolt/wire in (look for Expeditions of same vintage as your Ranger), if you don't want to cut the floor up. The BW4406 is also only 14.5mm (~9/16") wider center to center than BW1350/4, so fits between frame rails a lot nicer than BW1356.

Thanks guys. That's just the information I was looking for. $600 for an adapter seems a bit pricey. I haven't seen one, but damn! it must be a pretty piece. I would like to keep the electronic shifting if that's a possibility. Just a preference. I know the manual shift is probably a bit more reliable, but I'm also not building an offroader, so that's not as critical to me as it might be to some of you.

 

[don4331]

Its a ~9" x Ø 2" cylinder of steel with a couple grooves, holes, 25 splines and heat treat. But when you have market cornered, you can just just below what a competitor could tool up for.

You shouldn't need to move engine over for BW4406. BW1356 is different story - it is 3" wider for shaft centers, and 4-5/8" wider overall. I recognize, I play with supercabs so things like gas tank are a little further away/frame rails are a little deeper and when shoe horning, a size larger makes big difference.

My truck being SCLB with Superlift, is so far from std, that I'm no help with driveshafts - both mine are custom.

 

[Craig0320]

Thanks guys. That's just the information I was looking for. $600 for an adapter seems a bit pricey. I haven't seen one, but damn! it must be a pretty piece. I would like to keep the electronic shifting if that's a possibility. Just a preference. I know the manual shift is probably a bit more reliable, but I'm also not building an offroader, so that's not as critical to me as it might be to some of you.

If running the stock ranger tcase with a the adapter then the electric shift will work fine. The 4x4 uses it's on module to control everything.

 

[fastpakr]

It's also possible to use the stock controls with the part time electric shift F150 case. I'm not sure of the wiring details, but I think that's discussed in the thread I previously linked from Explorer Forum. Just be sure not to get one of the 4406 Control Trac cases.

 

[Craig0320]

I pulled the bed back off yesterday and installed the float assembly off my old pump onto the new one. Fuel gauge is back to normal now.

 

[Craig0320]

Checked fuel pressure and reving under load it only drops from 60psi to 54psi. Holds full pressure when truck is off. I am getting more wobbles from the rear end. I noticed if I power brake it for a second I get the seat of the pants feel back driving down the road. I am about to start working on getting the expo rear end in the truck. Mine is toast.

 

[Craig0320]

Finally got the explorer leafs installed. They rear end sat one inch below the front so I installed the blocks and now it has 2 inches of rake in the back. I think I am going to plasma cut them down to 1 inch to make it have less noticeable rake. I spent 1 1/2 hours on the drivers side grinding and cutting bolts. I removed and installed the passengers side in 10 friggin minutes because everything came right out. Springs feel great and truck squats an inch when I step on the back bumper and not 4 inches lol.

 

[captaingofast]

Very interesting thread guys. Hope it continues. I'm doing a 2WD `96 Explorer V8 swap into a `96 Splash. I've had two V8 Rangers previously. First one was a `90 with a 5.0 and the second one was a `96 with a 347. My brother did the `90 swap after I sold it to him with a blown V6. He also bought the 347 already done and then sold it to me. I eventually sold both due to not passing the etests we had. Emissions testing has been cancelled now though so it's my turn to build one. I'm gonna keep all the emissions stuff and make it run as as clean as possible. Just not gonna have to pass idiotic pointless tests. `87 and older vehicles were exempt so I can only imagine how badly my `50 Ford would have failed. It still has the original flathead V8 in it.

 

[Craig0320]

Good deal. When you start a thread on it keep us updated.

 

[fastpakr]

It's also possible to use the stock controls with the part time electric shift F150 case. I'm not sure of the wiring details, but I think that's discussed in the thread I previously linked from Explorer Forum. Just be sure not to get one of the 4406 Control Trac cases.

Clarification on this - apparently it's as simple as using the stock Ranger shift motor on the electric shift 4406 rather than its original F150 shift motor. No wiring changes needed.

 

[6gun]

Clarification on this - apparently it's as simple as using the stock Ranger shift motor on the electric shift 4406 rather than its original F150 shift motor. No wiring changes needed.

I'm really hoping this is good intel because I'm looking into the same swap now. My truck is a 99 Standard cab shortbed on 39's and Super Duty axles so a little beef over the factory ranger case will be a good thing. Plus I can just swap yokes on my axles and keep the fullsize 1/2T U-joint sizes.

 

[Craig0320]

Me and a buddy swapped the explorer rear end into the ranger today. I used the axle swap kit from ruffstuff. Everything went smooth and it only took us around 3 hours to get it done Ranger has more power and NO MORE WOBBLES. I also custom bent an egr tube for my obx headers and got that working. No more check engine light. I'm gonna put a windshield in it and fix a couple small things then put it up for sale or trade.

 

[Craig0320]

It has been a great ride but the ranger sold last night. Went to an older gentlemen that really fell in love with it. He wants to drive it a couple times a week back and forth to work. He loved the build and told me everything was tight smooth and done right. Made me feel good.

 

[thumpper81]

Well I just finished swapping a 2000 ford explorer 5.0 with 54,000 original miles on it into a 98 ford ranger 4.0 automatic 4x4 extended cab. I used a BW4406 manual shift transfer case out of a 03 f150.

I wanted to post this to put some more information out there in the ranger world.
I am going to try and stay in series as much as possible.
Here it goes.

98% of the wiring is plug and play. I will get to what needs to be wired later.
If I would have stayed with the 2wd 4r70w or went with the adapter kit to mount my 1354 it would have been pretty much a drop in swap.
Pull the evap and blower housing box out of the truck. It opens everything up and is so much easier to work in. I pulled most of the transmission bolts out from that side with ease.
After I pulled the 4.0 and transmission out I changed a couple of things that were easy to get to.

Such as:
High pressure power steering hose and return line from the explorer along with the power steering cooler because it sits a little farther forward to clear the 5.0 oil pan. Plus its only 2 bolts to get it off.
Note: Make sure you install the small o-rings in the high pressure line and the return line when you reinstall them into the ranger. I lost mine when I took them off and had to go to napa to get new ones. Oh and I did not use that stupid over engineered power steering return line from the explorer for the ranger. I bought 2 feet of transmission line and put a clamp on each end. It is simpler and cleaner looking.

I had a little trouble on the suction line with the o-ring falling off so I shoved thread locker gasket adhesive into the outer fitting ring and stuck the o-ring to it. Worked like a charm.

Motor Mounts Transmission install with adapter housing
Next you need to unbolt the motor mounts off of the explorer frame and install them onto the rangers. The studs on the explorer driver side mounts are opposite of the ranger for some reason and the ranger's drivers side mount will not line up to 5.0 plate on that side without the explorer mount in there. (Ask me how I know ). If you have a 4x4 ranger you will have to remove three bolts and drop the front chunk to get to the 18mm nuts that hold the motor mounts on. It is a tight fit but can be done. If it is a 2wd is no pain at all. Everything is accessible.

I had a 4wd output shaft installed into the 2wd 4r70w so I could use the bw4406. Transmission guy only charged me 75.00 with parts.
I attached the transmission with transfer case adapter attached and chain the motor with two chains at a hard angle and walked the whole package in. It went in pretty easy. I would lower it and move back a inch or so at a time.
Transfer case install
After the engine/trans were in the first thing I did was install the transfer case to see where my clearance issues were. I found out it hit pretty much everywhere.
So I cut and ground all the casting ears and tabs that were on top even with the case bolts that hold the case together. I got the transfer case adapter and front/rear driveshaft out of a 98 f150.

Transmission mount and Shift Cable
Install the explorer shift cable in place of the 5r55e cable onto the shifter column and through the firewall. It is a direct fit. The 5r cable will not work.I installed the f150 shaft into the back of the transfer case and had less than a 1/4 inch of clearance from the gas tank and about 1/2 inch from the bottom fuel tank cross-member. I shimmed the side and bottom of the yoke with washers. There was no way the stock mount was going to work. I made a mount out of 1 1/2 inch square tubing and 1/2 plate. The torsion bar mounts are offset so I cut the square tubing with a grinder and closed the gap so it formed the right angle. After installing the mount the transfer case sits around 1 inch from the bottom of the truck body. I can actually reach my hands all the way around to the other side with ease of access to anything. The case also sits around a 1/2 from the driver's side frame rail. The engine/trans package is 1/8 inch shifted to the passenger side and dead level with the body of the truck. I measured this by marking a line on the clutch fan and using that same point of reference for each measurement. I wound up with 3 inches on top and bottom of radiator. 3 1/8 inches on the driver's side and 3 inches on the passenger side.
Note: The outer ring of the ford yoke on the rear driveshaft is attached with rubber compound. I had the driveline shop remove the ring and rubber. It gave me another 1/2 inch clearance. I have plenty of room now.

Front driveshaft
Now I have read that the front f150 shaft is a drop in with the conversion u-joint. Mine was a 1/4 to long. I do not know why but I solved the problem by removing the slip yoke and cutting 1 inch off the slip yoke and the splined shaft. I heated the seal on the slip yoke and it popped right off. I had to re-bevel the splined shaft and clean all the burrs out of the splines. There is a indentation ground in the slip yoke for the seal to fit in. I also had to regrind this grove after I cut the yoke. Once I did this the seal popped right back on and was snug. I installed the front shaft and had 3/4 of a inch of slippage.
Exhaust from manifolds to the back cats fits perfect. After the last cats you will have to get a custom exhaust put on.

Engine wiring
After I finished the drive-train of the truck I tackled the engine. Everything plugged right up. There is only a couple of items to wire up.

A/C high pressure switch
solenoid wire plug(5 wire plug on ranger but explorer only has three wires on it. I will explain shortly)
Tachometer wire
Pats
Transmission main plug relocation for manual shift bracket

A/C high pressure switch
The high pressure a/c switch is on the back of the ranger compressor. It comes out of the main harness on the driver's side of the radiator on the explorer and the black wire/white stripe grounds to a stud next to it with the ground from the negative battery terminal.

So I found the red wire/ yellow stripe(a/c signal wire for high pressure switch) in the ranger harness to the right of the radiator. I spliced into it and wired the explore high pressure switch plug to it. The black wire/white stripe goes to ground. I grounded it right back to the lug with the negative battery terminal wire.

Solenoid wire plug
This plug is right underneath the lines that come off the abs.
The explorer and the ranger plug do not match up. (I think they were both male)
The Ranger plug has 5 wires
Yellow/white strip (Starter solenoid wire)
Red/yellow strip (signal wire high/low pressure a/c switch)
Black-white strip (ground for high/low pressure a/c switch)
Gray/white stripe(a/c clutch relay signal wire)
Black wire(a/c clutch relay ground wire)
Explorer plug has 3 wires
Yellow/white strip (Starter solenoid wire)
Gray/white stripe(a/c clutch relay signal wire)
Black wire(a/c clutch relay ground wire)
The reason the other two are not in there is because they come out by the radiator. So just wire up the 3 wire plug from the explorer and your good to go.

Tachometer
Remove pin 8 Black/Yellow wire from 10 pin connector and remove the Black/White wire from pin 1 on the 16 pin connector and install the pin 8 Black/Yellow wire.
I explain below on how I stumbled across this.
I read on this for a couple of hours and was freaking confused because I had a white/light green overdrive input wire in pin 16 on the 16 pin plug in which pin 8 from the 10 pin was supposed to go.
So I finally read about someone doing a v8 swap on a explorer v6 and they swapped pin 8 with pin 1 on the 16 pin connector. I did that and holy crap my tach read accurately. I know this because I was watching live data on my scanner.

PATS
DO NOT MOUNT THEFT BOX AND KEY RING WITH KEY UNDER THE STEERING WHEEL. I found out the metal support plate with the four 8 mm bolts holding it in interferes with the signal the truck would not start. So I moved everything to above the driver side kick panel. Starts every time.
Yes the dreaded pats. My 98 ranger did not come with pats from the factory. So instead of spending 175.00 and getting it deleted out of my pcm I decided to wire it in. I found a wiring diagram online. I took the box, key ring around the lock cylinder, and the ignition key along with all the wiring I could get.
So this is how I did it. All of the wires on the pats module are the EXACT IDENTICAL COLOR AS THE RANGER. White/Yellow wire(Fuse# 25 7.5A hot at all times) and Red/Light green (Fuse# 19 25A hot in run or start)wired directly to the wires coming out of the fuse box. Ground wired to one of the gold bolts next to the fuse box that holds the dash in. Pink/Light blue and Tan/Orange(wires in obdII coonector for scanner) Wired above the driver side kick panel where they go to the main harness plug at the firewall.
White/Light green Black/Yellow Dark Green/white Gray/Orange all wire back to each other because they go to the key ring. The Dark Blue/Light green wire I wired into the same exact color wire on the 16 pin connector. Theft light works perfectly. After that i zip tied the key inside the ring and mounted everything above the driver kick panel.

Transmission Main Plug
If you are going to run a manual shift transfer case like me make sure you relocate the main gray plug on the metal bracket on the transmission forwards. There are two small bolts that hold the bracket on. I drilled a hole in the bracket and mounted it to the first hole. This gave me enough room to mount the manual shift bracket with the two 21mm bolts.

Manual shift lever install
I pulled the carpet back and unbolted the floor plate over the top of the transmission.
I cut a hole with a 3 inch cutoff wheel and mount the lever. From there I made sure I could cycle the lever from 2 hi to 4 lo without any obstruction. Once I was satisfied I used some old car tag. I but plumber's butyl around the corners and riveted the tags in. I only used the top black f150 boot and cut out around 2 inches on one side of my cup holder and screwed one side of the boot down to the base mount with butyl for seal. I used butyl to seal the boot to the rest of the vinyl floor also. It came out great.(I love that stuff).

Side note:
I had adjusted tps to .93 volts because I was having high idle issues. I adjusted it to .94 to assure the stop screw was hitting the throttle plate so there was not any binding issues with the butterfly bottoming out. I could not get it down past 850 with the iac not plugged in. The truck was idling so high it was driving itself. I pulled the air supply tube for the pcv that goes to the filler neck and the engine idled down. So I put a brand new pcv valve in it(the old one was original from 2000) Bingo it runs and idles perfect. Pcv had failed and was acting as a vacuum and leaked sending unmetered air into the intake. Oh and the new pcv valves have plastic 90 degree nozzles on them now. Do not worry pull it off with some pliers and mount your original hose back too it.

I really hope this post helps someone else out. I have typed everything that I could remember. I know it is a long post but I wanted to put reasons behind why I did everything. If anyone has any questions please feel free to ask.
I have a bunch of pictures. I will post them as requested.

I am in the process of doing this swap to a 2000 xlt 3.0 4x4 donor is a 98 5.0 explorer awd system. At the moment I'm confused as do I have to swap my original 3.0 dash Harness out, the explorer Harness is 3 x the size and it was fully loaded, the explorer has a la4ge gray plug underneath the drivers side of the dash which every like fuel pump brake lights taillights ect all plug into. I guess my question is how should I go about it.