Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and Inherited Thunderbolt
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2020
- Messages
- 36
- City
- St. Petersburg
- Vehicle Year
- Multiple
- Transmission
- Automatic
- Total Lift
- stock
- Total Drop
- stock
- Tire Size
- stock
- My credo
- I don't subscribe to causes that are compelled by irrational fears.
Hey everyone, just wanted to introduce myself to the forum, since I've been coming here more and more as I start working on a 2002 Ranger that was handed down to me by my father. He loves this truck, and just couldn't bear to part with it. It also is coming up on 200,000 miles, has the death rattle along with all of the other traditional Ranger malaises such as noisy steering, sludgy brakes, broken armrest, one windshield wiper works...basically, right now it runs, drives, and hauls, and that's about it. My dad wanted to fix it, but thanks to COVID, it became a whole lot easier to find a nice used car with astoundingly low mileage for about the same price as a remanufactured engine. Plus, my dad's north of 60 and is no longer at all about doing engine teardowns and rebuilds. I'm younger, have expendable income, needed a truck, and wanted a project vehicle, so this seemed like a perfect fit.
I've already got a handful of parts already to fix some of the easier things, and I know where a couple other problems are and how to solve them. But eventually, I'm going to have to deal with that engine. I drive the thing like I'm scared of it because I don't want the engine to die until I'm ready to replace it. The question though is with what, and leads me to the question I want to ask today.
I've taken a look at the different builds and tutorials for possible engine swaps into this Ranger, but one of my goals is not to compromise the existing trucks features to do this swap. That means, the truck has AC, heat and power steering now, and must when I complete the swap. That basically takes all the V8s and all the turbo 4s out of the equation. Additionally, I don't like the idea of swapping to a 302 because it needs it's own transmission, and those only have four forward gears, I like that this truck has five. At the same time, I don't like the idea of building a new SOHC: to me the engine looks over-complicated with a lot of points of failure and even more points where I can create one by not knowing what I'm doing. One thing I haven't found, is if anyone has taken a vehicle with the 4.0 SOHC and gone backwards to the 4.0 OHV as a replacement. Has this been done anywhere/is doable? If there's a thread, that's great, but if not, I'm wondering what kinds of hitches might catch me if I decide to go to an older engine design; like will my 5R55E bolt to it, will it fit to stock engine mounts, that kind of thing.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and for helping if you can. The picture is my truck.
I've already got a handful of parts already to fix some of the easier things, and I know where a couple other problems are and how to solve them. But eventually, I'm going to have to deal with that engine. I drive the thing like I'm scared of it because I don't want the engine to die until I'm ready to replace it. The question though is with what, and leads me to the question I want to ask today.
I've taken a look at the different builds and tutorials for possible engine swaps into this Ranger, but one of my goals is not to compromise the existing trucks features to do this swap. That means, the truck has AC, heat and power steering now, and must when I complete the swap. That basically takes all the V8s and all the turbo 4s out of the equation. Additionally, I don't like the idea of swapping to a 302 because it needs it's own transmission, and those only have four forward gears, I like that this truck has five. At the same time, I don't like the idea of building a new SOHC: to me the engine looks over-complicated with a lot of points of failure and even more points where I can create one by not knowing what I'm doing. One thing I haven't found, is if anyone has taken a vehicle with the 4.0 SOHC and gone backwards to the 4.0 OHV as a replacement. Has this been done anywhere/is doable? If there's a thread, that's great, but if not, I'm wondering what kinds of hitches might catch me if I decide to go to an older engine design; like will my 5R55E bolt to it, will it fit to stock engine mounts, that kind of thing.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and for helping if you can. The picture is my truck.
