Well i went to the junkyard today and i found one of those Eddie Bauer edition exploders with the counsel and the electronics in it and it was all in tact... now i geuss my ? is can i hook those electronics up in the ranger or not???????????? i geuss i am looking help from rwenzing and nelz but everyones help would be great considering i have seen a few people put pcs in their trucks

 

ETAC thingy..console overhead console..um seats..they might heated..um..mirror might dim..bezel..thats all i can think of tha tyou can get out..

rear end..um..

 

The thing at the front of the consel with like the oil life and stuff like that

 

there was a thread bout that beard was askin..i think you can do it just alot of wirin or somethin like that i cant remember the outcome of it.ill try to look for it

 

That is the Explorer "Message Center" and several of its features can be enabled. The problem is with the trip computer fuel economy functions. The Explorer PCM outputs some derivative of the injector pulsewidth which the trip computer uses along with other inputs to calculate the instantaneous and average fuel economy and distance to empty value. As I understand it, the Ranger PCM lacks that output and so the trip computer FE functions will not work in a Ranger.

 

Bob, when you say it "outputs" it -- do you know if this is simply another pulse width modulated signal, or is it a digitally encoded bit stream, analog voltage/current or whatever? I'm wondering if it can be reproduced and even scaled to give usable results in a Ranger.

Probably wouldn't need much scaling on a 4.0, but on a 3.0 it wouldn't be close I don't think.

 

I have no idea about the form of the signal but I have heard that the Ranger PCM does not have the ability to send it to the Message Center. Could be true or false. A couple of guys on RPS have them in their Rangers but I don't believe that they have been able to make the trip computer functions work.

I've always intended to check the Ranger PCM pin to see if I could detect anything going on there but never got around to looking at it. I usually get stonewalled doing this kind of thing anyway because I lack the necessary knowledge and I don't have access to an oscilloscope.

If you want to check it out, the pin number is 43 on the Ex PCM.

 

I'm thinking to "reproduce" the signal from an injector output perhaps. Using a buffer and perhaps some processing to scale the pulse width to the console. I'd love to have an Explorer with that feature to put an o'scope on and see what's there...[thinks about walking around the neighborhood and looking for one, and knocking on the door of the hour nearby: "hey, I'm your neighbor and I was wondering if I can disassemble your truck a little bit to verify a signal in the wiring harness..." <door slams>]

 

lol i love it. John do u guys think its possible to get a pcm from an exploder and put it in a ranger to see if that would work for the trip????? and if u guys want an exploder i might be able to get a hold of one my dumbass cousin has one and he doesnt drive it.... so i geuss now the ? is "is there a how to on this message center?" cause i want to hook it up and use it i mean if the trip thing is the only thing that wont work i can deal with that

 

The Explorer is different enough electrically that its PCM will not work correctly in a Ranger without some modifications.

I have not seen a How-to for the Message Center. There are 20+ connections that need to be made to the vehicle wiring harness and some sensors that must be added and/or changed. For all I know, there could be other incompatiblities besides the possible problem with the trip computer. Clearly, this is not a simple mod.

If you REALLY want to do this, I would recommend getting a genuine Ford factory Wiring Manual from the year of the Message Center donor Explorer.

 

That's funny but it's almost exactly what I did when I reflashed my truck's CSM for the keypad. I was at a friend's house and I used the DLC in his next door neighbor's Sport Trac to get the hex value I needed.