4x4 conversion with tranny swap

[Natedog]

Standard cabs I assume? That would be alot easier as they are not as heavy or big, the SuperCab is HEAVY for it's size.

Unplug engine wiring harness from the engine only would be easiest way, remove the steering column piece down by the steering box that has the rubber flex joints in it, remove speedo cable from whichever end you prefer (is the cable still good?), remove a couple grounds from cab to frame and engine, drain engine coolant and remove radiator, unplug all wiring harnesses at driver's side inner fender and firewall, if it's an automatic transmission unclip the two hard lines from the bottom of the core support and remove the rubber connector hoses from them (if you have auxiliary trans cooler) otherwise undo them from the radiator when you remove it, six body mounts and that's it. Alot less hasssle than all the stuff I went through with a SuperCab and swapping my dual fuel tanks, engine, trans and all. I say go for it but use a hoist of some type to lift the cab so nobody gets hurt and you don't rip any wires off that you forgot. It's much easier to lower it back down and undo whatever you forgot than to have a bunch of guys try to gently set it back down several times. ALso you have to lift it pretty high to clear the engine especially if it's 4x4 and/or you have a lift and/or bigger tires.

EDIT: If you lift the cab like I did with a strap through the side windows make sure you use some wood 2x4s or something to spread the load or you'll bend the cab at the rain drip rail area...might bend the top of the door frames too.

 

[danger88ranger]

i have a hoist similar to what you used for your swap, as far as lifting it high enough i dont think that will be a problem b/c the front end(fenders and core support) are off and should be able to roll the chassis away if im not mistaken. Whats the best way to disconnect the wiring from the cab into the dash( the big harness near the master cylinder)?

 

[Natedog]

Sounds good and you have it alot easier with the front clip removed. Easiest way is to just unplug all the wires right there on the inner fender.

 

[Natedog]

Cut (again) and re-welded shift stick now shifts into ALL gears:

Drove it yesterday!!! And it hauls ass compared to with the a4ld junk!!! I love it! Gotta few details to clean up, but mostly done! My shifter boot etc is on the way, still need 4.10s for front axle, going to swap my cleaned up TB with TPS, do a tune up on it, remove un-needed pulleys since AC is gone, fix headliner, manual front hub conversion (when I swap the front gears), install tcase shifter when I find mounting bracket for a4ld/M5R1 with manual tcase setup....alll I can think of at the moment.

 

[Natedog]

I'm finishing my a4ld to M5r1 swap and need to make it so it thinks it in neutral so that it will crank the starter. Also need to make my reverse lights work. I'm not using the clutch neutral safety switch that goes on the clutch pedal, hate those things.

My wires are different colors than the ones in the a4ld to Fm145 swap tech. Played with a DVM using volts and ohms settings but didn't want to fry my ECU or something else possibly. After using DVM I used a test light and connected a few wires in the plugs and couldn't get the engine to crank or my reverse lights to come on.

I have two plugs from my a4ld. First one is a two wire, a red and an orange wire. The red wire has 12 volts power only in KOER. Orange wire don't know what it does.

Second plug is round five wire. Black/purple stripe wire is ground. Brown/purple stripe is 12 volts power only in KOER. Red/purple stripe don't know what it does. White/pink stripe is ground. Red/pink stripe don't know what it does. I jumpered with a test light from the brown/purple stripe to ground and with koer it lit the test light. So I tried a few others. If I connect the brown/purple stripe wire to the white/pink stripe or the black/purple stripe the test light comes on with KEOR, but goes out when ignition is in the cranking position (starter engage). However, the engine will NOT crank and run no matter what I've tried. Didn't want to try to much more without a diagram to help keep the smoke in...call me chicken I guess.

BTW, o2 sensor that is part of this harness group was not plugged in during these tests but don't think that should matter.

Just cut the two plugs off the ends of all the tranny wires and pulled them halfway out of the harness and up to the middle of the upper intake manifold. Plugged my O2 sensor in and jumpered the starter solenoid on passenger fender and it fired right up by jumping the starter solenoid on the inner fender and runs!!!

FYI white/with pink stripe wire joins two red wires in the harness just above the wires that go to the ignition module in the distributor. These two red wires look like red/dark blue or green stripe and red with couldn't tell for sure as they're kinda dirty and it's dark out and I"m tired from a late night last night and work today.

Wires figured out...the two wire plug (one red and one orange) is for the torque converter lockup and is not needed for anything.

On the five wire plug...

Neutral safety switch is red/light blue stripe connected to white/pink stripe. The white pink stripe runs into red/light blue stripe in the harness just before the tfi ignition control module (on the distributor). This is the is the same red/light blue wire that goes to starter solenoid on inner passenger fender!

Parking lights and dash/gauge illmumination does not work now, but the fuses are all good. Also parking lights and dash/gauge illumination don't work now, but the fuses are all good. Right rear brake light and turn signal usually don't work....but are intermittent.

Come to the conclusion that I have a bad ground somewheres. Either I forgot a ground wire, a wiring harness plug has a dirty/loose connector, or a ground wire is broken inside the insulation. Aw crap.

Great wiring diagram link:

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/0f/94/61/0900823d800f9461/repairInfoPages.htm[/QUOTE]

I also bought a one year subscription to www.alldata.com for my specific truck, which is also very well worth it since my Ford factory manual has no wiring diagrams and generally is kinda useless.

Got it all working tonight! Used a dvm and checked for 12 volts (with the parking lights in the on and then the off positions) at the tail light plugs where the tail light and license plate harnesses plug into the main harness under the left rear frame rail corner. Also ohmed out both sides of the harness plugs at the same spot. Everything was looking good at the rear so I moved to the fuse box.

Checked for 12v+ at all the fuses with parking light switch in both positions.

Then went under the hood on the left inner fender next to the firewall and checked for 12v+ with parking light switch in both position at the large rectangular harness plug that goes to the rear of the truck (fuel pump, both fuel tanks, tail lights and license plate lights). Things didn't seem quite right here and there was alot of half dried up connector grease and lots of sandy dirty grime, so I unplugged the connector and did a serious hosing out of both halves of the plug with a fresh can of WD-40. Let it drain out and wiped it off with a clean rag, plugged it back together and still not working correctly!

Went back to the fuse panel and checked both sides of the fuses for 12v+. The tail lights fuse (15 amp) had no power on one side of it! Pulled it and it looked ok but kinda funny. Looked closer and it had blown fuse, but a piece of the fuse was still across the terminals inside! It was barely, sorta, kinda, maybe making contact occasionally, hence my usually NOT working tail lights and instrument lights. Replaced the fuse and all my lights are working properly again!

 

[Natedog]

Tried to set my base ignition timing tonight. Adjusted my TPS so that it is at 0.855 volts KOEO throttle closed, disconnected battery positive, reconnected and fired right up as usual. It has not wanted to idle below 1200 rpm in neutral with my new m5r1 4x4 (was a4ld and 4x2) and the tach seems to kinda jump up and down occasionally 50 rpm.

Got it warmed up, checked the timing and it was at 30*BTDC, pulled the spout plug to check base timing and it's at 10* BTDC but is surges and won't stop until I plugged the spout connect back in. Any suggestions?

Drove it to work a week ago and pulled codes that evening. Pulled spark plugs the other night and they look good. Here's the codes I got:

KOEO: 89 and 11

KOER: 12 and 13

89.....I think is the Lockup solenoid (LUS) circuit failure is because of my a4ld to m5r1 swap. I hooked up the neutral saftey switch wires and figured out the reverse light wires (but haven't hooked them up yet), the rest of the wires are still bundled up and waiting to cut them out of the harness. 89 could also be Converter Clutch Override (CCO) solenoid - circuit failure OR Exhaust Heat Control (EHC) solenoid - circuit failure....don't know which but assume prolly the lockup solenoid and/or converter clutch.

As far as the 12 and 13 go....12 can't raise engine speed above normal idle....it's idling at 1200 to 1300 RPM! 13....RPM out of spec during normal idle operation OR D.C. motor does not follow dashpot.

During this whole test my timing was at 30* BTDC and at one point went off the scale....maybe 44* BTDC (just guessing as it was off the scale on the harmonic balancer.)

Any suggestions?

After all the tests I unplugged the EGR vacuum line at the right side upper intake manifold and plugged it with a cap, re-started the engine and it still idled high...around 1200 to 1300 RPM. Had thought maybe a vacuum leak in the cheesy hard vacuum line that breaks easy now that it is old and brittle...that's why I tried blocking off the EGR vacuum, system with no change in idle speed. No popping/slight backfiring at idle either.

I got my code definitions from the Actron reader book that came with the reader.

I kinda wondered if IAC was dirty, I have a spare that looked dirtier inside that I cleaned with carb cleaner and swapped on...NO change.

Wiring and plug looked good, but I'll look at it again, maybe dirty contacts on the plug or something. I tried for lower end of voltage range thinking that would give me lower RPMs at idle. What about my left over a4ld wiring and the 89 causing other problems?

I removed positive battery cable after setting the TPS to clear all codes.

On cold starts it starts fine and revs to about 2000 RPM and then as it idles down it kinda stumbles and almost dies (sometimes does but starts right back up) however the idle never goes below 1200 RPM.

Gahh! Broke one of the dang plastic vacuum lines for the EGR and in the process of fixing it, I broke the other one! Is there a good solution for replacing these brittle old pos vacuum lines? BTW, Toyota vacuum lines (metric, but don't remember the size) last a very long time and are a perfect fit over these lines.

After installing my spare IAC it still starts fine and idles up to 2200 RPM for a couple seconds, then down to 2000 RPM for about a minute, then down to 1200 for about ten seconds, then it tries to go down to 800 RPMs and sputters and revs back up to 2200 RPM, then after a couple seconds it goes down to 1200 RPM and then after about ten seconds it goes down to 800 RPM sputters almost dies and revs back up to 2200 RPM.....it'll do this over and over if you let it idle.

Adjusted the TPS up to 0.984 volts tonight and now it idles up to 3000 RPM when first started and then settles down at 2200 RPM after twenty seconds or so. At full open throttle I get 4.64 volts on the TPS and the power wire has 4.97 volts KOEO. Sprayed the crap out of the IAC with Berryman's carb cleaner (good stuff) via the inlet in the throttle body just upstream of the butterfly valve and it didn't seem to make much difference....this is after soaking the valve for a half hour last night and swapping valves with my spare used one off my other 2.9. I'm at a total loss what to do next so swapped my MAF sensor even though that didn't seem like the problem....and of course no change.

Thinking that I need a MANUAL Transmission EEC because this is getting nowhere and an a4ld idle speed is supposed to be about 800 rpm in Drive, which puts a load on the engine! Using the same computer with no load on the engine because it's in Neutral, not Drive!

Wasn't sure, but after driving it more this morning I'm pretty sure that I'm getting some pinging at medium throttle between 2000rpm to 3000rpm. When grabbing second gear it kinda jerks a little. When the engine gets down around 2000rpm while decelerating, when I ease the throttle back open a little it kinda jerks too.

 

[Natedog]

Just got back from the jy with a complete 1988 Ranger 4x4 manual transmission airbox and intake system including all vacuum lines and the heat riser hose, smaller TB w/TPS EEC, EGR block off plate, and MAP (wasn't sure if it's the same). Going to try just the computer in my truck and see how it runs. Didn't bother with the exhaust manifold plug, I'll just cut mine a bit shorter and weld it shut.

At the moment, I've got terrible drivability, pinging and my a4ld computer high idle problem. So if this new EEC fixes all that I'm going to disconnect the knock sensor, egr and all and go to the referee station to make it a 1988 smog vehicle.

BTW, I had to take the airhose from the airbox to the TB because the 88 and up airboxes outlet is alot bigger and my TB hose won't fit onto the later airbox! How did you guys use the larger TB with the 1988 and up airbox?

Why and how does the larger TB keep it out of open loop operation? Swapped in the 1988 Ranger 4x4 manual transmission EEC and it runs alot better. Drivability is very good, pinging is way less, but I still have a high idle problem....1200rpm! All I did was swap the EEC, plug the egr vacuum line at the intake manifold. I did not disconnect the knock sensor or anything else for this test.

Checked timing and it was at 24*BTDC (that seems better than 30*), pulled the spout plug to check base timing and it's at 10* BTDC with steady engine RPMs....my surging is GONE!

Pulled codes after driving it and....

KOEO: 95
(O) Fuel pump: open, bad ground or always on - Power / Fuel Pump Circuits
(R) AIR not Diverting (AIRD) - Air Injection
(M) Possible bad fuel pump ground or open between fuel pump and pin 8 at PCM (Fuel Pump Monitor signal) - Power / Fuel Pump Circuits


KOER: 13
(O) ISC did not respond properly (extends to touch throttle then retracts for KOEO) - ISC
(R) Idle Speed Control motor or Air Bypass not controlling idle properly (generally idle too high)
(M) ISC sticking, open ITS circuit or TP sticking
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've swapped between my two IACs and no change, so I think I need to replace my IAC with a new one and hopefully that fixes my idle speed too high. Then clear computer, test drive and pull codes again?

Dont' know what to think about the 95 error code.

Used a dvm and checked out my IAC and wiring this morning. It seems my IAC is bad. The 1987 IAC is a different part number and the passageways down inside where the valve is look smaller than the 1988 IAC. So looks like I should go with the 1988 part for compliance test purposes. For those who've put the larger TB on their 88 and newer 2.9 how does it run and did you change the TPS or anything else when you changed the TB?

I'm going to call and make a smog referee appointment tomorrow.

 

[Natedog]

Spoke with a CARB referee today and he said, no problem to convert my 87 emissions, efi etc to 1988 stuff....just have to make sure I get all the correct parts and hook it up properly!

I can go to any newer year and same size or larger (but not smaller) engine. Therefore I'm going to install the TB with TPS, IAC, EEC (already installed), MAP, wiring and remove the EGR (install block off plate and plug). I'm pretty sure that all I have to do with the wiring is unplug the knock sensor and leave it in the block just to plug the hole. For now I may just leave the wires for the EGR solenoid (on passenger inner fender) and the knock sensor, but will cut them out of the harness for the long term.

Also thinking about cutting out the 'low oil' level warning sensor wiring too...just more crap in the way down there next to the starter and that is what the engine dipstick is for....dipstick!

Once I'm all done removing and installing the appropriate parts, I call and make an appointment with a smog referee who will inspect and test my truck. If it doesn't pass they will tell me what I need to do to make it pass (and I get one free re-test). Once it passes they put a sticker on the door jamb re-labelling it a 1988 emissions vehicle. Sounds easy right?

 

[Natedog]

Replaced my IAC with a NEW one (Wells p/n TV200) for 1988 Ranger and idle is way better. Did the complete emissions swap to CA 1988 last night and now my idle is perfect at 850rpm in neutral at operating temp! This swap eliminates EGR and knock sensor.

 

[rickcdewitt]

BTW, I had to take the airhose from the airbox to the TB because the 88 and up airboxes outlet is alot bigger and my TB hose won't fit onto the later airbox! How did you guys use the larger TB with the 1988 and up airbox?

Why and how does the larger TB keep it out of open loop operation? For those who've put the larger TB on their 88 and newer 2.9 how does it run and did you change the TPS or anything else when you changed the TB?

i used the late model tube and air box.the reason it stays out of open loop is the big throttle body doesn't need to be open all the way for max acceleration until about 3000-3500 on the 2.9l.it keeps you from going pig rich as soon(WOT) unless you also ran a chip like me which makes it go rich sooner.i can't remember but i think i used the TPS off my 91 when i put on the throttle body.

 

[Natedog]

Rickcdewitt, I think that you're saying that you just stretched your late model air tube over the larger TB intake? Correct?

Thanks for the explanation on keepin it out of open loop.

Seems like the smaller TB would get better mileage assuming you're not flooring it everywhere you go?

 

[rickcdewitt]

Rickcdewitt, I think that you're saying that you just stretched your late model air tube over the larger TB intake? Correct?

Thanks for the explanation on keepin it out of open loop.

Seems like the smaller TB would get better mileage assuming you're not flooring it everywhere you go?

the 58mm TB is the same size on the outside.its just thinner wall(you'll see if you hold them up together).the big TB helps with mileage since you drive outside of WOT more therefore spend less time pig rich,and its nice having that extra throttle when you're up at 3500-5000 gittin er done.you have a 4 banger yota,you know what i'm talking about.

 

[Natedog]

OK thanks, just assumed the intake tube was smaller...looked smaller...

That's kinda what I thought about the mileage and power deal. I can definitely feel less power.

 

[rickcdewitt]

OK thanks, just assumed the intake tube was smaller...looked smaller...

That's kinda what I thought about the mileage and power deal. I can definitely feel less power.

well i hope the pinging issue gets sorted out. you should get decent power and economy once its running good

 

[Natedog]

Replaced the TPS and mostly good now. Need to sort the wiring for my fuel pressure code 95....

Pulling up all the engine management wiring diagrams today....it's beautiful day out so may as well get this done. That and my temp reg only lasts so long.

Got an Alldata subscription for my 1987 Ranger....lookin for 1988 4x4 diagrams too....