BroncoII4x4.com

my engine came from a Ranger, there must be a huge difference in the ranger and explorer pans cause my starter is at least two inches away from the pan

ok i took out the flex plate, :D it was damaged, bent actually and chewed up from rubbing flywheel, so i found some flat washers the same thickness as it, ( MICKED THEM TO MAKE SURE) and stuck behind the tranny at the bolts, this seems to be working untill the local tranny shop can get me a new plate in, and i found that the flywheel was ok but the teeth were screwed up on the 4.0 starter, so i took the bednix, and stater out of the 2.9 starter and installed the bendix gear on the 4.0 starter......i didnt want to buy a new one when i knew i couldnt use the 2.9 anyways......... so its working fine for now, i am going to let the tranny shop install it next time, i am tired of pulling the tranny and trying to get everything lined up since i have pulled it out 3 times now.....
:frown: :frown:

Paul wrote:ok i took out the flex plate, it was damaged, bent actually and chewed up from rubbing flywheel, so i found some flat washers the same thickness as it, ( MICKED THEM TO MAKE SURE)

Automatic flywheel is a flexplate. So, are you telling us you had a flexplate and a manual flywheel in there? How didyou stuff all that in there?

.... oh ok when i said flexplate i was refering to the shim plate.... and i realized i had pics of both flywheels so i looked, yeah the auto flywheel does flex where as the 2.9 was a solid plate and they wont interchange, i didnt think they would ..... no i did not have both in ...... LOL ..... i meant shim plate not flex plate..... thats my fault ...... that would beinteresting to see that all put in together, would take a lot of talent to cram all that in there at the same time ....

Shim plate must be there or starter will wobble around and continuously loosen up.

on the explorer oil pan it is aluminun casted and when the 2.9 starter is installed the starter is against the oil pan other than about 1/4 inch clearance to 1/8 of an inch on my explorer 4.0 so it is quite possible that the pans are different, but my 2.9 starter had the solenoid on the fire wall, so the battery cable bolts into a lug on the main motor housing on the back end of the motor on the same side as the oil pan was on, so there just wasnt clearance, so i used teh 4.0 which used a solenoid on the starter itself, so i took the explorer battery cable and cut it and put on a new lug at battery end, and just used the old solenoind with all wires on same side as a splicing point since it fed my main engine compartment fuse panel from the old solenoid and the took ignition wire off old solenoid and spliced it to the ignition wire on the 4.0 starter...... i wanted to use my 2.9 starter becasue it was about 3 months old, but it just didnt have enough clearance for the battery cable to hook in without grounding to engine.... trust me i thought it was clear and it cost me to buy a new battery where it shorted the old one.......but as i said the main body of the starter was too close casuing my problem, my 2.9 starter was larger than the 4.0 starter, its about 1 inch longer and same diameter, only thing that made it really different was the solenoid hookup, thats why the 4.0 worked better for me, it moved the battery cable away from the oil pan housing... i also know my motor sits about 1 inch higher with the 4.0 than the 2.9 did in my frame.... and i have about 2 1/2 inches to 3 1/2 inches more clearance between engine and crossmember now than before and everything fit under hood just fine, and i used the 4.0 motor mounts in the 2.9 stock location, and had to shift tranny about 1/2 inch forward at the tranny cross member mount

well i understand that, i just had to move the truck home form where it was and i have a buddy who runs a transmission shop trying to find me a new shim plate, plus a 4.0 flywheel and clutch assembly since i know the clutch plate and all is smaller on the 2.9 i figured it wouldnt hurt to get the right stuff to put in there ...... specially with the way itsa been acting thus far.....LOL....

ok i found a couple of crossed wires today and now the bronco runs much better, more power than ever, and is fun to drive both on and off road, i am glad i did my 4.0 upgrade although it was frustrating not being out using the BII, i am glad i did it and i really think it was probably the best thing i could have done to make it act like a 4x4 truck should..... ford should be kicked in the rear for the 2.9 ... what was they thinking.....