My 3.0 Taurus swap experience.

[oachs83]

Did the Taurus swap Saturday on my 2002 4x4 Ranger and I found a couple things that I have not seen mentioned on here or maybe I missed but would like to share to save some of the hassle I went through. If you are going to do the swap please do the head gaskets as well. It is like a $75 head gasket kit and 16 extra bolts really no big deal. Now I used a 2004 3.0 Taurus motor VIN U so I can only comment on this particular year of engine. After you change the head gaskets I needed these items from my original Ranger. Upper and lower intake (throttle body), the whole front accessory brackets and harmonic balancer pulley, driver side valve cover, water pump, injectors, oil pan and just the pick up tube not the whole oil pump, dip stick, exhaust manifolds, oil sending unit, and flywheel.

Now what sucked for me is I searched on here and no one mentioned flywheel so I actually bolted the engine up and realized the taurus holes for the torque convertor are a half inch to narrow. Big bummer having to pull the engine back out. Also the sending unit plug looks almost identical but it was different. Also what I have not confirmed was the fuel injectors are more than likely different as I had two almost blocked original injectors so I used the Taurus ones. Now I have a CEL saying too rich on banks 1 and 2. My advice is if your injectors look great and work fine reuse them to be on the safe side.

 

[trail B2]

Thanks for the follow up these are the posts that give the web sight a lot of value.I have a 01 Taurus and just had to replace the head gaskets five days later the timing chain cover started leaking water right next to the head.I replaced the back head gasket again with a poor diagnosis.

I think you should add changing the timing chain gasket while it's out cause it and the dead gaskets kinda go together and it's cheap.

 

[oachs83]

It's really up to the builder on what gaskets they want to change now or down the road. It is always a good idea to change most all of them because of the easy access you have when the motor is out. I was just hitting the points that were a must but you are correct IMO. Also through part numbers I have confirmed that the Taurus injectors are different as they are 20lb injectors and I believe the Ranger's are 14lb. Also another thing I did was replace the main seal on the transmission shaft (the one the converter goes on) just because it is a 5 dollar seal, it took two minutes to change and it had 204k on it. Now I know I wont have to worry about that leaking on me and save tons of time pulling a transmission.

 

[oachs83]

Update, I cleaned and replaced my injectors back to the original ones. After a tank of gas no CEL and much better gas mileage. So in my case the Taurus injectors should not be used.