Hey Guys,

I've built a little camper trailer, I rebuilt a motorcycle, now, I want to build a turbo diesel Ranger. It's my next and biggest project yet. I've done research, and the 4D55 sounded like the best option. I'm sure there will be a couple guys roam in here and compare it to the 4BT.. but their is no comparison. It's half the weight, almost half the displacement. I'm not out to build a race car, I'm out to build a solid, reliable, efficient and comfortable 4x4 capable truck. I'm actually a little further than I'm sure I'll post tonight and the next several days, I lost a bunch of pictures, and the ones I have now are scattered so I'm trying to sort through them, and present them in a sequential order.

So the story goes.. I set out to get an engine for the project. I found one, thought that it had everything (it didn't) and had a heck of a time finding parts for the swap. Brian, a friend that lives up in Canada saved my butt and donated some of the parts I needed to complete my swap (various pulleys..etc). He uses these engines on his boat, and customizes much of his accessories and various parts to suit his needs. With his help, I was able to sort out a rough idea of what I was getting myself into. I also had a friend that lived near by, Ethan, who has also been someone for me to run to in the event I run into something that I need some explanation on. I'm no diesel mechanic, I haven't owned a diesel at all, but with the help of these guys, I was ready to move forward.

So here is the Victim! 1994 Ranger with a blown 4.0 OHV - 500$
The day I towed it home:

It is fair shape, the truck had 230,000 miles on it I believe? So it is far from perfect. Didn't bother me, I wasn't going to use any of the drivetrain anyway. No major body damage, and I'm likely to give it a paint job if everything goes as planned. The interior was really bad. I lost pictures of it, but the headliner, torn and saggy, the carpet was actually cut out of the passenger and driver floorboards, seats were bad.. but 500 bucks?! alright, I can work with that!:rock:


It didn't take me to long to gut the 4.0 / M50D outa there. I was able to sell them for 250$. Made a little back there.



So, now the heart of the swap. The engine! I tore the head off and was very happy with what I saw, very clean pistons and nice cylinder walls. I don't know how many miles are on the bottom end / engine.. But it looks good from what I can see. Slapped a new Felpro Headgasket on there.




While doing this, I had my injector pump and injectors rebuilt at Seattle Injector. They did a great job.






Anyway, thats all I've got to post tonight, maybe I can post more tomorrow and try to catch you guys up closer to where I'm at. Let me know what you think / questions / input!

 

The next thing I had to do was get in and fitted. Had to make sure it was possible. So here is the deal, the 4d55's bellhousing will mate to the FM-145 , FM-146, and the TK5. I Don't want to have to mess around with drivelines / anything any more custom than I have to so I chose the FM-146. The FM-146 is the same length as the M50D (what the truck had originally) so If I used that transmission, I wouldn't have to shorten/lengthen anything and or make transmission cross members. I did have to change the front bearing retainer on the transmission (again no pictures) to accept the FM-145's slave cylinder style. With the transmission and engine mated, I could now drop the engine down into the engine bay, and see where the engine needed to sit. I ended up having to get creative. With the engine sitting where I wanted hoisted by my cherry picker, I used a chunk of dense styrofoam and cut it into the shape of the 4.0 motor mounts I was going to use. I was then able to determine what I needed to use for brackets.. etc. On the driver side, I was lucky, and it lined up with the crossmember. The passenger side was a different story, I had to come up with a bracket and use several grade 8 bolts.











Wiring is going to be a blast!

 

Screw a 5.0, I want one of these!

 

Man this is a cool project. Can't wait to see more progress

 

very cool! be sure to keep us posted!

 

Alright, pulled the bed, cleaned out the tank. Flushed it a couple times with diesel. Ran new lines from the tank to under the hood (one for flow to engine, one for excess return back to the tank). It only needs a couple PSI (2-4) so I removed the high pressure fuel pump and bypassed it with a fuel hose and sock. This way I can retain my fuel float for the gauge. Replaced it with a inline fuel pump.

Here is something kinda neat kinda strange :





Thats bastard looking thing is a couple things in one. It is first of all, a fuel filter.. but also has a long heating element acting as a fuel heater (for colder weather) it also has a sensor for monitor water levels in the filter. I will be able to use this to trigger a warning LED for 'Water In Fuel'. There is also a drain spout in the event the water needs to be drained. It's a cartridge style filter, so it snaps in with clips vs. the standard spin on filter. Fuel system is pretty well figured out.

 

Would any parts from the old factory diesel rangers work for this?

 

Hell yeah brother, this is going to be cool.

 

Some parts do, some parts don't. Because it's going into a newer body style, different interior.. dash.. etc. it's not a plug in and play kinda deal. Many things will and have been fabricated and altered to accommodate the new truck. I will be using the 'factory ranger' accessory drive setup.. (alternator..etc) assuming it all fits without major complications. But the tachometer, other gauges.. throttle cables.. all that is going to be custom tailored. The truck has cruise control, so I'm gonna make sure that works after all-said-and-done.. I'm looking forward to the challenges, I really enjoy them.

 

Thanks man, won't let ya down!

 

Alright, good news and bad news. The good news is, I half-hearted bolted all of my accessories, power steering, alternator.. etc and it looks like that is all going to work fine. Clutch line is going to have to be custom, and the power steering lines are going to be special. I'm going with the 4.0's radiator, its a nice thick unit, however the engine and the radiator have different ideas which side should have the inlet and outlet. I'm going to have to hunt down some hoses with the right bends and make persuade them to fit or get a universal fitting hose. We will see, little ways out from that.

Bad news is, it sitting a little high. The engines height is alright, but there is a spout that comes off the head that goes to the radiator that won't allow the hood to come down. Here are some pictures of the little bastard on the engine before I started cleaning it up:


So I had two options, put a scoop in the hood,... or... get a newer front end with a raised hood. I vote #2 largely because I had someone selling what I needed for a great price. It's been up on craigslist for a while, but I just need the justification. So I got new fenders.. lights etc.

As of now, engines back out, going to spray down the crossmember with some paint, get some of my wiring through the firewall while I have easy access, and start figuring out how much of the stock harness I'm going to use. I'll probably not use much if any at all for the engine. The alternator designed for the motor was a 2G and the truck had a 3G in it before. Gonna have to weigh out if it makes more sense hacking up the 3G wiring and keeping the 2G alternator, or trying to make the 3G alternator fit in it's place... hmmm

Here she sits with a crappy cell phone shot on my 'Engine Stands' ugh..

 

lol.. at least she balances easy

 

Awesome project! What kind of fuel mileage do you expect to get out of it? I imagine it'll be far better than the 4.0.

 

Yeah, far better than the 4.0! That is the golden question. Research leads me to believe that I can expect mid to high 30's in a 4x4 properly setup. There have been claims by others in similar setups.. some guy had a mighty max and said he was well in the 40's.. I don't think so. We will see! there is a lot of fine tuning available for power and efficiency on diesels, and this one especially. It uses a VE Rotary injection pump, almost identical to the first generation cummins 5.9/4BT. Pretty much got all the tools to play with for power, smoke, efficiency.. It's just finding the balance in the engines safety net. Before the engine gets tucked in the bay for good, I'm going to drill and tap a EGT/PYRO gauge to monitor things.. along with a Boost gauge of course!

I'm thinking it's gonna be pretty neat! Thanks for the comment!

 

haha yea. It has a third jack stand holding the rear.. but it's solid! It really pretty light.

 

Had someone PM me, they wanted to see how my trailer I built ended up ( the trailer I credited myself building in the first post). if you are interested, I had made a thread on that too. You can see it here:
http://www.popupportal.com/index.php?topic=50469.0

Should be able to upload some more progress on the truck later tonight though!

 

damn nice job on that camper build! makes me want to pick up a cheap one and rebuild!

 

Thanks Man, it was fun!

 

Alright, so I'll admit it. When I first got the idea to start this project, I had / still have a very elementary understanding on a lot of the fundamental aspects of the swap. I had to do a ton of reading, trying to educate myself on what to do and what not to do. I hope that those who read my thoughts and see my process can achieve a understanding that I had to get piece by piece thread to thread. I also want to welcome those that may have a greater understanding to share their thoughts on what they like or don't.. and improvements. To get as far as I have I relied on those who have done similar projects to explain what they did and how they did it, If I can be a tool for anybody else attempting something similar, I would like to be.

So.. that said, here is my starting circuit:



And here is my 'engine harness' that I'm going to be putting together. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make sure that the stock instruments can read the values of the engine. I would Ideally like to make it look as factory as possible. I'm big on factory looking mods.

 

Why are you installing two batteries? One standard sized battery will be plenty to turn over that four cylinder, even in cold weather. However, if you're planning on running lots of accessories, I can understand why.

 

I won't be running much accessories, and not completely decided on having two batteries.. but .. The trucks that had these originally had dual batteries set up. I assume due to the glow plug cycles in colder weather that it would be beneficial. That starter really needs to spin fast to get it to start well. It is only a 2.3 but that little bastard almost takes 2 gallons of oil.

 

Understandable. My truck (24 valve Cummins) will start just fine with one battery (unless the temperature is around or below freezing), but the second battery is mostly for the grid heater cycles that continue to take place after the engine is started. HUGE amp draw. If you're outside of the truck, you can see the lights dim when the grid heater kicks on, and if you're inside, you can watch the volt meter drop then rise whenever it comes on and shuts off.

 

I'm in Seattle, temperatures are usually pretty mild. We will see below freezing occasionally, but all-in-all mild. I like to think I follow that moto that states .. "If it is worth doing, it's worth over doing" .. even if that second battery never gets installed, it will always be ready for it.

 

good plan..it can't hurt that's for sure. I know my 250 loves two fresh batts when its -30 outside.

 

Busy doing work! So I re-geared the truck, was previously 3.27's now 3.73's. Beauty is the axle / front pumpkin were out of a low milage truck (130k) so I can say truthfully say I've touched the entire drivetrain here. I also replaced all the bearings and seals, brand new front brakes, and rear brakes. Synthetic Gear oil, and C-Clip eliminator mod. Also shimmed up the springs to level out the truck, with brand new shocks on the front and rear. Got the flywheel machined, and started to put it together. Brand new clutch and throwout bearing with custom line. She is ready to go in now!