Can't argue with that.

 

Well, the wiring is all straightened out and all the required connections are made. All the non-used wiring is neatly tucked away in the left rear quarter panel for future use and the carpet is laid in for now.





Here are some shots of the sides of the bed after some body filler and a lot of sanding. Notice the placement of the gas door. Yes, Josh, we had to dimple the inside of the bed for the filler, about 1/4".







We've got less than a week to finish and test before a 1000 mile trip to Texas, so keep your fingers crossed.

 

Lookin good guys. I was wondering if those welds would cover up very good but they look great. And the beds not as short as It looked in the other pics lol. And I personally like the gas door placement. Itll look neat once its painted and you can stand back

 

Looks awesome!

 

Here are a couple of full side shots to give a better idea of how the shortened bed looks. I'm going to have to shim up the back of the bed a little to bring it into perfect alignment, but it looks pretty good. None of the body parts are fully lined up yet, since we are still going to pull it apart AGAIN to do some clean up and painting. We are going to try to do some primer and possibly some base coat tomorrow, depending on the weather.

 

Neat project! There is something funky looking with the rear wheel well. Seems to have a spacing issue. I like where you are going with it though.

 

That's some serious rake you have going on there

 

When we cut the bed, we marked the center of the wheel well arch and hung a plumb bob from it and ran it through the center of the wheel hub, so there would be equal spacing. If you look straight on at the rear wheel, you can see there is not a spacing problem, just a parallax view.

 

why is the rear so high?

 

Heavy springs, light body and a crooked camera.

 

That defiantly interesting looking. A rare beast. Great build though.

 

We did a bunch of miscellaneous chores, like making a mount for the rear bumper and a mount for the spare tire (the Explorer mount is a crank-up model that would have put it right in the middle of the bed.) The interior was installed, all Explorer. We still need to build a custom console, but that is on hold for now. We completely painted the truck and clear coated it in our garage. Not the best place to do a paint job, but it came out fair. It was extremely hot here (about 96) and the clear coat dried really fast, leaving it a little orange peeled, but we'll do a little wet sanding in a week and smooth it out a little. We took it to a local shop and had the front end aligned and the wheels balanced. It moves down the road really nice now. We charged up the A/C and it blows ice-cold, the cruise control works great and the brakes will put you through the windshield, if you're not wearing a seat belt (we always do). So here are the final pictures and we are leaving for Texas with the truck tomorrow (1100 mile trip). I'll let you know how that turns out.





















And away we go!!!

 

It looks like it already has a lift lol. Id put some bigger, more aggressive tires if it were me.
And what a way to test drive lol. 1100 miles

 

...and they're crazy enough to do it in one shot... it's already begun and will be over by tomorrow afternoon...

 

Lol yup. I woulda definitly tried it out a bit before taking it on a long trip. I was skeptical on taking my el camino on a 140 mile round trip after 2 weeks on a new engine...

 

Well, we made it to San Antonio, Texas from Central Florida, 1100 miles, in about 20 hours. That includes a few stops for gas and to rest. There were a couple of minor glitches, but nothing we couldn't fix along the way. For the most part, it hummed right along and we got 17-18 MPG doing about 75 MPH most of the way. It was around 100 degrees outside, but the A/C kept us nice and cool and the cruise control just kept us moving down the highway.

 

Good to hear it's running nicely for ya

 

good deal

 

Im proud of that little truck lol. 2 more cylinders and AWD and still getting the same mpg as a stock 4.0!

 

It shows that a V8 swap ,if it's in your budget or skill set is totally worth it

 

Great job guys. Definately a unique machine.

Good to hear that its running smooth. MORE!!

 

Wow, thanks for sharing all the great info! I just picked up my donor 5.0 AWD Explorer and now I need to find a Ranger for the body donor...

I personaly wanted the AWD instead of conventional Hi/Lo t-case for the improved dry road drivability and cornering manners. A conventional part time T case tends to suffer drive line binding in tighter corners.

Just a little info to share, from my early research it looks like the Explorers have a wheelbase in the area of 111.5 inch wheelbase and the '98 and up RC/SB rangers have a wheelbase of 111.6 inches. If you (Edit:not refering to 302RANGERAWD or Ayegor, just other readers) are looking to do a similar swap, this might save the bed shortening.

Quick question: had you ever considered using the ranger fuel tank? Does it look doable, or is that a whole other can of worms?

Thanks again!

 

If you want to use the whole Explorer chassis, it would be best to use the Explorer fuel tank. And if you want to use a '98 and up Ranger all you have to do is swap in the Explorer drivetrain. The AWD in the Ranger is fun along with the V8 power, but it still handles like a truck . And as far as dry pavement traction in stock engine form the AWD doesn't really help . But, in wet conditions the AWD is fantastic, it really plants the power to the ground. If you want to really take full advantage of the AWD system up the engine power and upgrade the suspension.

 

We already had a 1995 Ranger, so that's what we used. The later Rangers used the same chassis as the Explorer, so that swap is easy. Never let it be said we do things the easy way. Besides, we wanted to do something that others said couldn't be done. The bed situation was either shorten the bed or do surgery on the chassis. If you look on earlier posts, we gave the reasons for that and they are substantial. The same goes for the Ranger fuel tank. More modifications had to be made than it was worth. Both of those mods would have made an inferior product at the end.

We appreciate the interest and I think we'll have more projects like this in the future. (Andrew has 3 younger brothers and they all have ideas about what they want, if I live that long).

 

Thanks for the replies. I live in a snowy area so the AWD is pretty tempting. I guess I'll be reading some more swap tech before I pick my donor Ranger.

Thanks again!