98 ranger non pats
 

I have a 98 ranger non pats truck that I installed a 99 explorer 5.0 in. I kept original steering column with understanding that ford dealer could delete pats and I could get it running but after just returning from towing vehicle to ford the technician tells me it cannot be done after spending an hour trying. any help would be appreciated.

Anything can be done if you have the right equipment. My guess is the tech either didn't know what he was doing in the first place OR his equipment wasn't capable of doing so.

It may be easier to attempt to install PATs rather than try to remove it. Optionally, you could get an ELM327 (USb to OBDII) and download Forscan which has PATs tools on it. I don't know if FOrscan is capable of deleting pats or not, but it's something you can try if you want.

does anyone reflash the explorer computers to delete pats ?

There was a post on one of the Ranger V8 swap forums where the OP wrote that he'd found a guy on-line that performed a PATS delete through the mail.

He sent his PCM and $200 to the guy, a couple days later, he got the PCM back ready to go.

Some searching through the handfull of conversion sites might find the original post and get you some ID on who to ask.

As mentioned, it might be easier to wire in a PATS module and transceiver, find a used key and use FOESCAN to get your PCM to recognise the key.

No reason to change the locks, simply use a nylon zip tie to tie the key to the transceiver and tuck both the module and transceiver somewhere out of the way under the dask.