daily doubler build

[railman]

damn you work slow

i cant say much...my expo has been on jackstands for months just figured id give you a hard time

that is what I was thinking.....the pot calling the kettle black....

l8r, John

 

[Bray D]

 

[railman]

exactly.....

l8r, John

 

[89PBR96]

 

[Bray D]

Played around with the ranger today. Still no call from the junkyard. I'll give em a ring this coming week. I put money down on an engine. They better have one for me haha.

Anyways, I put a slight bend in my track bar so it won't hit the top of my diff under full compression. The limiting factor now is the rear of the engine crossmember. I've got it cut straight, but the diff still hits it. I'm pretty sure the oil pan will be right there too. I'm gonna mock the engine in, and see how far I can go before my diff gets into my oil pan, I may even do some work to the oil pan to get some more compression out of it. I'd REALLY like to have ~5" of compression. I'm sitting at ~3.5" now.

I pulled my coil buckets off too. My passenger side always bowed worse than the driver's side, and I'm OK with the amount of bow in the driver's side.

When I took the pass side bucket off, there was dirt and shit between the bucket and the frame. That tells me the coil was pulling the bucket away from the frame under extreme droop. I could believe it if it was bending the bucket slightly under extreme compression as well.

I measured the angled portion of pass side bucket and it was at 22*. The driver's side was 25*. I think I'll bend the passenger side bucket until it matches the 25* that the driver's side has, and add a support tab that runs to the top of my frame similar to what I did with my shock towers. That should eliminate the deflection.

No pics

 

[Kyle M.]

pics or GTFO





I was thinking about putting a bend in my track bar too, but I can go full bump right now, just gets close to things. Post up some pics when you get a chance of your track bar.

 

[Bray D]

If you can go full bump without a bend I wouldn't bend it. A straight bar is stronger.

That being said, it doesn't take much bend to open up a quite a bit of compression. I'll snap some pics next weekend. I left my damn camera down there

 

[Bray D]

Luck has not been in my favor lately. Called the machine shop to tell them to stop work on the 4.0. All they had done was hot tanked it and mangafluxed it, so that's good. Should be relatively cheap. I've yet to pick it back up from them.

Called the junkyard last Wednesday. Guy acted like he couldn't find my ticket, said he'd call me back. Never got a call. Drove in there Thursday. He said all their 3.0's had the freeze plugs popped out of them. Gave me my deposit back. Ugh.

Back to square one.

Sooo, tonight I talked to my brother's buddy that has a towing company. No 3.0 rangers, but he's got an OBDII 4.0 Explorer. I'm going to check it out this weekend. We'll see what comes of that.

 

[RangerSVT]

FYI, both the OBD2 4.0L OHV and 4.0L SOHC share the same bolt pattern, so you can bolt a SOHC motor to your trans ( which I know, you had a 3.0L, but had mentioned something about getting a 4.0L case), and both are plug and play with your truck, just make sure you get the engine harness to the 42 pin plug, and ECU...But you knew that already, right
SVT

 

[Bray D]

Yep, got a 4.0 case. Explorin94 was kind enough to swap the 3.0 gears into the 4.0 case for me. I PM'd him telling him I had a 3.0 lined up and would pick them back up, he didn't need to swap the gears back. He sent me a PM back saying he went ahead and swapped em back into the 3.0 case for me.

And now I'm looking at 4.0's again. I swear, nothing goes right. I'll be swapping the internals back into the 4.0 case myself. I already feel like an ass after all the work Brett has done for me.

I've been researching and all I can find are older 4.0 swaps, and newer 4.0 swaps. Not much documented on the 95-97 3.0 to 4.0 swap.

A buddy tells me all I need is an OBDII 4.0. Said it should plug right into my 3.0's engine harness, then all I need is the 4.0 CPU and I'm good to go.

Can anyone confirm that? I'm worried the wires on the cab side of the big plugs won't necessarily meet with the correct wire on the 4.0 side of the big plugs, even if they will plug together. Like I'll need to re-pin a few of them in the plug.

Can anyone confirm that the OBDII 4.0 will be plug and play with my 3.0 harness?

 

[Bray D]

Just went and looked at a rolled 97 explorer. 4.0. 120k miles. OBDII. It looks like a winner. The engine bay looks like my engine bay haha. Everything is in the same location, battery on the driver's side, etc.

Pulled the dipstick and the oil was a nice amber color, so it looks like its had regular maintenance.

Its not going anywhere. Told him I'll get back to him before the end of the week. If I go this route, I hope to be pulling it this coming weekend.

 

[RangerSVT]

Pull the engine with all accessories, unbolt, but don't unplug the ECU in the firewall, lay it on the motor, disconnect the 42 pin plug, and unplug the altenator harness at the fender, then install this into your ranger. It is plug and play, no other wires to worry about. It is as straight forward as my 4.0L to 5.0L swap...
SVT

 

[Bray D]

Very good news. My buddy that tells me the 4.0 just needs to be OBDII and it'll be plug and play says it'd be the same as if it were an OBDII 5.0. I still wanna stick with the 4.0 though. At least I know the 5.0 swap should be smooth if I ever decide to go that route (doubt it though haha).

I've got some other questions, but I could probably ask them more intelligently after I get the Ex. in my possession. Like I'm kinda confused about the ECU portion.

From what I remember, there was a longer, flatter plug at the firewall. Then there was a large square plug that was "free" in the engine bay and plugged into the engine harness. I'm not sure what the alternator harness is, but it should be easy enough to locate by following the wires from the alternator haha.

 

[RangerSVT]

Not sure on the plugs your talking about, shoot some pics and post them and I could tell ya. The altenator harness runs straight across the front of the motor, behind the AC compressor and right behind the battery box towards the firewall. The plug for the altenator harness is right behind the battery box...
SVT

 

[Bray D]

Ran down to the shop today. Snapped a couple pics of the plugs I'm referring to and got a couple pics of the bent trac bar for Kyle. It'll probably be late tomorrow before I have the chance to upload em though.