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Low buck 5.0 truck


malachipclover

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Hey guys I posted here last summer about pulling the old blown up 3.0 out of my Ranger in preparation for a 5.0 swap. A lot has happened since then, and I figure it's time to start documenting and sharing with everyone. About a week after Christmas of '17 I ended up finding and buying a 5.0 Explorer. My brain is failing me at the moment but I am pretty sure it is a '97, if not it's a '98. Had a 5.0, 4R70W, and AWD. It was already lifted on 35s so I figured I could transfer a lot of those parts as well. For $850 I think I got a pretty great deal.

At the beginning of this summer, I tore down the Explorer just before I had to leave for college. After that it just sat for about 2 months until this past Friday when I went home for labor day weekend. I worked hard all weekend and got the 5.0 in to the Ranger. I pulled the motor, trans, and t case out all as one unit. The Explorer is going to be junked anyway, so I cut the front rad support out to make room to pull the engine. The Ranger's rad support was so badly rusted that it wasn't doing anything anyway, so it was cut out as well because it already needed to be replaced. The body mounts were not connected at all because the metal above them was completely rusted away in some places. I also took the intake off of the motor to aid with clearance. I tried to keep as much of the wiring as possible attached to the engine so that I would have less to keep track of upon reassembly later.

I did not have a lot of the clearance issues I read about other people having, which I was pleasantly surprised by. I did have to put a driver's side Expo motor mount in the Ranger as the studs are inverse of the Ranger's. Unfortunately I was not able to use the one out of the Explorer because one of the nuts was too close to the engine block to work with, and I ended up rounding it off so I had to remove the stud with an oxy-acetylene torch. The new one was I think around $30 from O'Reilly's, and requires the front axle to come out to get at the stud through the frame. I did not need to pull the axle all the way out, however. I took out the 3 bolts holding the axle in, then removed the CV shaft from the passenger side of the axle and let the axle swing down. This gave me enough room to replace the motor mount. The passenger side mount was left alone, as well as the plates on both sides of the engine block. I did not have any issues with the Explorer oil cooler, it fit in with plenty of clearance to the steering box. I also didn't have any oil pan to front axle clearance issues either. On my Ranger there was a small power steering radiator in front of the steering rack that was slightly in the way of the front lower edge of the oil pan. For now I just removed it, and will worry about relocating it later. The upper line going in to it is butted right up against the side of the oil pan now as well.

I will post pictures later if anybody wants to see.
 


Craig0320

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I have a thread on my 98 ranger to 5.0 conversion. Here is the link.
http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174669

Here is also my write up on installing obx headers after the swap.

http://www.therangerstation.com/forums/showthread.php?t=177309

Fastpakr is at the end of his swap into a 99 right now also.

The reason you are not having clearance issues (I guessing you are talking about the transfer case) is because you used the awd case and did not swap in a 4406 out of an f150 which is much larger. The awd case is a direct drop in into the ranger. Just swap in the explorer power steering cooler and buy some transmission hose and do away with the pre-molded metal line to the cooler. The explorer power steering cooler sits further towards the front of the truck to allow the clearance for the bigger oil pan.If you did not swap in the explorer power steering high pressure hose onto your rack before the engine swap then you are going to have fun doing that. It sucks and takes a while. I did mine before hand. Yes driver's side engine mount has to be swapped because of reversed studs.

There are a lot of good people on here with a wealth of knowledge. Keep the questions coming.
 
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fastpakr

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For what it's worth, I didn't have case clearance issues with the 4406.
 

malachipclover

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Craig I actually just read through your thread before I posted this. I'm sure I'll reference back to it next time I go home to work on the truck again. I did not change any of the power steering hoses prior to dropping the engine in, hope it's not too bad. I do only have 3 motor mount bolts in right now and nothing else holding the entire drive train in other than gravity, so I guess if needed I could hook the engine back up to the cherry picker and lift the front up a few issues to get more room in there.

Clearance issues I was just talking about in general. I had read about all sorts of issues with firewall, oil cooler, oil pan, etc, but I didn't really run in to any of them.

As far as the transfer case I kept the AWD case for simplicity's sake. This is the first engine swap I've ever done and really the biggest auto project in general I've done by a huge margin, so I want to do everything I can to make it easier on myself. My goal is to get everything in and running as close to stock as possible, then troubleshoot any issues I run into right then and there rather than try to do everything at once and create so many problems that I don't know where to start and get overwhelmed.

I have a lot planned for this truck but most of it is still a long way off. After I get it running and driving the first thing to tackle will be doing all the rest of the swaps from the Explorer so I can get it out of the yard. Off the top of my head I think all I still need are the axles and the wheels/tires, however I will need to do a lift to install the tires. I am hoping I can fit the tires with just a 3" body lift, torsion bar crank, and lift shackles. They are 33x12.5, not sure about the wheels other than they're definitely not stock. Eventually I do want a manual t-case and a 5 speed tranny. But those both will probably be a long way off. I could go on forever about what I want to do but at that point it becomes less and less relevant to the 5.0 swap.

Right now the current issues I need to tackle in a few weeks when I go home again are reattaching the intake, swapping the fuel system, and wiring everything. My goal is to be able to be able to start the engine, even if just for a few seconds to confirm that it works, before I start any more reassembly or adapting of accessories and other slightly less critical items.
 

Craig0320

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Good deal. Just keep us posted.
 

malachipclover

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Oh I definitely will, I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions along the way anyways. I'm hoping to have it running and setting on the 33s in time for the 20th anniversary trail ride, but who knows if that'll actually happen
 

Craig0320

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Some other info the explorers went returnless on the fuel system in 99 and your ranger is returnless. So you will have to ad a line back to the fuel tank on your ranger. Regardless if you have the flex fuel ranger or not the explorer fuel pump will have to be used because the returnless system runs on a lower psi. 98 up rangers run on 65 +- fuel pressure. Returnless run around 35-45 psi.
 

malachipclover

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Yeah I plan to just swap the tank and all of the lines from the Explorer. My Ranger's had quite a large rust hole in the filler neck and when I took it out of the truck to make room for some other work I did in that area it got filled with rain water so I don't think it's worth trying to save the Ranger tank
 

fastpakr

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I don't think you'll be able to use the explorer tank, but any decent one from a newer non FFV ranger with the same cab configuration should work as far as I know.
 

Craig0320

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whats the difference in the ffv tank?
 

fastpakr

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You're right, there's not one. I was thinking of the pump difference on the FFV trucks, but that's not relevant here.
 

Craig0320

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Ok. I was confused for a second there.
 

malachipclover

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What stops me from using the Explorer tank?
 

fastpakr

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Does it mount in the same way at all? My recollection was that they were completely different.
 

malachipclover

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I'm really not sure, I haven't really looked at the Explorer's fuel tank yet.
 

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