$20xx V8 Ranger

In reply to Ranger50 :

Thanks for the advice! I'll look into that.

Are the hardbody shocks stiffer yet? I'm assuming they would just be shorter to account for the 4" of drop.

In reply to NBraun :

Just shorter.

I've continued to make progress on this, though it's been frustrating. Lots of little things that shouldn't be an issue, yet are. 

We got the engine and trans in and bolted up this Sunday. What an absolute pain, I've never had a trans fight this hard to go on.  The driveshaft bolted right up too. I was thinking the truck was a 96, but it's actually a 94 which means obd1. The wiring was not plug and play, but I have most of it sorted as of now.

I swapped in new shocks and f150 springs. Though it looks like I'll probably have to cut down the springs, even with the extra weight of the v8. 

Still have a few little things to do yet, but i feel confident we're getting close to finishing.

Not much to update.

I'm terrible at electrical diagnosis. I got the starter in and hooked up, went to try and turn it over and nothing. Everything worked fine before hand. The sense wire going to the solenoid is not getting power in start. I tried jumping the clutch safety switch, but that wasn't it.

There really is no reason why it wouldn't work, as I didn't mess with any of the wiring for it.

So I suppose i'll keep messing with it in hopes I stumble upon a solution.

Ranger50 said:

In reply to NBraun :

For shocks you can use 89 Nissan D21 rear shocks for pennies vs the overpriced belltechs.

2000 Nissan Quest shocks are shorter still, and have the exact same ends, if'n you need that.

Don't give up, you'll get it.  

I bet you have the wire not hooked up right.

Take off the coil wire(s) then jump the solenoid from battery positive to the I think s+ terminal. It should spin over.

Are you running two solenoids, one on fender and starter, or just one on the starter, new style, or fender, old style?

In reply to Ranger50 :

I'm running two solenoids, one on the fender, and one on the starter. If I jump the solenoid on the fender, the starter will spin over. I have the R/B wire that goes to the post on the fender solenoid that isn't getting power in when ign is turned to start.

I'm just stumped, (honestly it's probably pretty simple of a fix), I have power into the truck, I've checked all the fuses both in the engine bay and cab. I cut and spliced three wires that go into the ranger PCM, but they don't have anything to do with turning the truck over, which makes believe this is unrelated. But I have 12v at the battery, 12v at the ignition fuse, 12v on the main power wire going into the cab. I'm not sure where the cut off is, unless it's in the actual igitino switch.

The circuit is pretty simple.  Start at one end and work your way to the other looking for power. 

Our DD Vibe lost its engine a couple weeks ago, so most of my weekend was putting a new engine in that but did work on the ranger a bit.

Figured it out the wiring issue. For some reason they ran the wire through the original engine harness, and the color changed at the plug. Spliced the wire in and were cranking. 

I needed to cut and reweld the Shifter to fit, my father bought a tig welder for one of his projects and I figured this was a perfect project for it.

Before

Welds

After

Pretty pleased with how it turned out, considering it was my first real project on it.

Well, after spending the last three months chasing my tail trying to figure out why the darn thing wouldn't start. I finally got it to run. After going through the wiring harness I don't know how many times, with experienced help as well, I finally found that the ground pin on the engine plug was loose, and not connecting. I fixed that and she fired up!

Still have final wiring, cooling and exhaust but we're almost there!

Fantastic!  Those loose wire problems are nigh impossible to find 

Man, those kind of problems can be a real pain. Glad you found the ground!