V8-Ranger.com

Hey Guys,

I built an 84 Ranger V8 5 speed years ago. I still have the truck but the body has see better days and it’s been real hard to find replacement body parts for it, especially the cowl and firewall area. My wife keeps urging me to take my engine, trans, mounting parts and put them in a newer truck. I have a friend who has a 98, 99 or 2000 not sure of the year yet but I know it has A-arm suspension. I’ve heard that I can’t use my equipment for this and that I would have to buy the drive train out of an Explorer in order to do this, is this true? I’m not worried about making the ABS or things like that to work, is my swap possible and is there a feed or some kind of list I can follow for this to find out about mounts, headers and things like that, I'm currently using Hooker headers which fit well and an original Total performance radiator which fits inside the radiator support, will any of this work. I plan to street/strip this truck like my old one so heat and defrost needs to work, A/C is an option. Would a newer 98 on up body and bed fit on my older chassis kowing that everything fits already? Any input would be great.

Thanks,
Bob

I think I've heard of people putting 302 blocks in those year vehicles. But I would suspect you'll need special/custom headers and the radiators will probably be incompatible. The radiator design changed somewhere around 95. The good news is I believe a stock 2-core will work just fine unless you have a really aggressive cam which does tend to run engines hotter at cruise.

look here

http://www.advanceadapters.com/products ... mount-kit/

I know of some that have swapped the old body onto the newer chassis but not the other way around. Any 302/5.0 will fit but using the front dress from the Explorer makes it a lot easier. Same goes for using the later V-8 CPU and engine harness. It's a plug and play when using the 99-2001 Explorer engine and battery/starter harness, only a couple wires need re-pinning. The intake manifolds are better on the Explorer also. Mounts are easily found or made. Headers - can use the stock Explorer cast iron ones or the Torque Monster ones.
Dave