2000 5.0 Explorer Swap Into 98 Ranger 4.0

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.

Good info.. Pics?

I will post some more this evening of the finish exhaust.

I really appreciate your documentation effort Craig. It's very helpful. I'm doing something similar (96 Exp to 96 Ranger).

I have the shop and equipment I need to remove and install engines now but I did more than one transplant with a tractor mounted 3 pt boom back in the day. I put a 428 CJ into a `67 390 Cougar that way. It was a ridiculously tight fit and the tractor I used had a hydraulic hiccup. The boom would suddenly jerk up an inch or so and then gradually settle back down, then do it again after a little while. Made things pretty interesting. My father eventually bought a big Koehring backhoe. It was huge and clumsy so we used a set of chain falls hooked to the bucket. It's been retired from hole digging for many years but dad used it about 5 years ago to take the cab back off an F350 and plop it back on again. He was 82 at the time.

Your welcome for the info. I hope it really helps. My Mahindra has around a 1000 hrs on it. Luckily there is not any leak down in the hydraulic system. I agree it would be a heck of of time fighting the motor in
with the lift system jumping around. If anything ever happens I still have the backhoe to turn to . It is still pretty much new with 1200 hrs on it. Here is a few more pics of the truck and exhaust system. I used the tips and the flowmaster 50 series dual in/out off the explorer. Local exhaust guy only charged me 150 to put it on the ranger with catting the back to cats off. Please excuse the mud on the exhaust. I just came back from hunting in it. This is my daily driver.

Looks good Craig. Very very good informative post on the wiring. I know its cold now.. But sis the Ac system seem to work the way you wired it up?
I can't tell but did you use the clutch fan also?
My plan is to use as much stock stuff as possible as far as radiator clutch fan and shroud

The a/c system works perfectly. The signal wire for the high pressure switch I wired in is in the same spot as the explorer on the right side of the radiator in the harness. Only difference is that the wire in the ranger runs all the way around the fender well to the the back of the a/c compressor on the 4.0. Yes I used the clutch fan, shroud, hoses, and radiator off the explorer. I would make sure to use the explorer radiator. It has more cores for cooling. I do not think you will keep that engine cool enough with the 4.0 radiator. Plus it drops in the same place and you still have 3 inches from the front of the fan to the radiator as it was designed. The 5.0 heater hoses lined right back up into place to the heater core. Another thing, check your cooling system, hoses, water pump, thermostat. My engine has 54,000 miles on it and the antifreeze was never changed in 17 years. I had to put a new water pump and thermostat housing on it because of rust. I did this while the motor was out. I went ahead and put all new hoses, and 180 degree thermostat(I live in south Mississippi). My cooling system from the radiator to the engine is new. I bought all gates products on ebay except for the radiator and only spent 200 dollars. Well worth the money pulling the rad cap and seeing bright green.

Thanks for all the notes and pictures. I pulled the Explorer engine and trans on Friday night and finished yanking the 3.0/4R44E out of the Ranger last night. Looking forward to beginning the installation process.

No problem. I am happy to help. If you are not swapping in any f150 items as I did the swap should be pretty much direct. Oh by the way, you might want to put a new pcv valve in the 5.0 while its on the ground. I forgot and had to do it in the ranger. It is at the to the back of the intake. Lots of fun to do in the truck. Remember to just pull the plastic 90 off the new one and use your original hose.

I'm doing almost the exact same setup with a manual shift 4404. PCV (and quite a few other things) are ready to go. Started to put the engine on the stand last night but it was late and I didn't have any bolts that were long enough.

Just realized I didn't give much info earlier. I'm using a 2wd '99 Explorer 5.0 as a donor to my 4wd '99 3.0 Ranger. Picked up a 4wd 5.0 4R70W and the case/linkage in separate craigslist purchases to accumulate the rest of what I needed. Not sure on driveshafts yet. Pretty sure I have one that will fit, but time will tell. Also replacing a bunch of the a/c stuff, doing some general engine work plus new valve springs and cam, etc while everything is out. A 1" body lift is going in before the drivetrain install as well to make things a little easier.

I lucked up and got the 2wd shaft changed out to a 4wd for 75.00 with parts on mine. I stayed with the stock cam. From what I read it was perfect for mid range torque because of the weight of the suv. I pulled my four wheeler and trailer and all my hunting stuff 80 miles to the camp and it's amazing the power difference in the truck now. You can really feel the torque around 2100 and up. I do not have a body lift. Just the stock 2 inch blocks in the rear and I twisted the torsion bars to raise the front end up 1 3/4". I have to say even without a body lift I had no problem accessing the top of the trans case and transmission at all. I can reach my hands all the way around with minimal obstruction and I mounted the engine/trans package dead level with the body. I had already replace the evap core and drier about 3k ago in the ranger. Only thing I did was vac it down for 30 minutes and put a couple ounces of oil in it just to be safe. Works great. Oh and good job on finding that trans and case. I looked on craigslist for months with no such success.

Transfer case with linkage was $80, so I couldn't really turn that down. Bought it a couple of months ago while shopping for parts, back when I was planning to do this swap next year some time. When the Ranger engine died (technically it was only dying, but as bad as the compression results were, it needed to be handled soon), everything got pushed to the forefront. Found the Explorer about an hour away and drove it home for $400. High mileage, but it runs great so I don't mind spending a little on a bit of overhauling expenses. Transmission was $150 from a third seller. That one was a couple of hours away but my dad was able to pick it up while he was down that direction for work.

Body lift is partially for convenience, partially to create a little extra space for the tires. I'm running 33's (285/75-16) on a small torsion twist and rear spacers. A little more clearance will help there.

I'd decided against the cam for cost reasons, but was already replacing springs. Found a ridiculous deal on a CompCams grind that's perfect for me (similar to the stock truck cam but with higher lift). Out the door for $85, just had to contact the company setting me up with springs to adjust the selection to match. I'll need to measure and probably replace the pushrods, but they're relatively cheap.

You got really good deals on everything. Are you going to work the stock heads over to flow more air for the higher lift cam or go with aftermarket? ? Or are you not going that aggressive on the cam lift to worry about it?

High mileage is not always a bad thing. You will find out how the engine was treated when the valve covers come off. Throw some gaskets and timing chain kit along with your other items your doing and you should be good to go. I am running 30x9.50x15's because I am worried about having to rebuild front end parts more often then I would like. So far I have 60k on a rebuilt front end and no slack at all. I grease the front end every 6k. Tires weigh 36 pounds and rims weight 17.

I'm definitely keeping the stock heads. The cam (CompCams 35-510-8 is relatively mild, and it's just not worth the money for my purposes to swap them out. Even that wouldn't have happened if Amazon hadn't screwed up the price from $285 down to $85. There's a small chance I might stare at the heads with a die grinder if I'm waiting on some other part from the shop, etc, but that's very unlikely.

Headers would be amazing, but they're definitely not in the budget. The Torque Monster's are the only game in town at the moment for a GT40P in a Ranger/Explorer torsion bar chassis, and they're over $900 with shipping. Maybe after I sell off the leftover parts from the Explorer, my current axle and drivetrain, etc...

Main and rod bearings and oil pump are being replaced, as well as the timing set and water pump. Heads will get new springs and seals, and a once over from the local machine shop in case there's anything I miss in a quick visual.

On the outside I'm doing new plugs, wires, tensioners, belt, hoses, and thermostat. Oxygen sensors, PCV, transmission filter (with JMOD), fuel filter, injector pintle caps/o-rings/filters, etc.

Also running the wires for an amp and installing a remote start while it's all apart. Really trying to knock as much as possble out while everything's accessible. There's still an Explorer rear axle to install, but that's mostly prepped and I may get it done in the middle of all this.

Almost forgot, I've also got a Contour fan and controller to install. That might also get pushed off to later.

Local shop rebuilt both of my heads for 150.00 each on my ls 5.3. I am glad they did. You could have them port and polished while they are working on them. You could do it yourself. It will take a little time smoothing all the bumps down in the casting. The air does flow a lot better with them polished though.
I looked at those headers too. For 25 hp or so I am not spending the money. I could buy a tuner and a custom tune almost twice for that money. Plus it s a 5.0 in a ranger. It already has plenty of power for me . In my opinion you are very wise knocking out all the major/minor overhaul items before you install it into the truck. Once I got done and was driving mine it was nice not having to tinker here and there on random things.
Oh by the way I found this website that sells the entire conversion kit for our rangers to accept the explorer axle. Here is the link.

http://www.ruffstuffspecialties.com/catalog/88SS-31.html#reviews

125.00 is a good deal.