Typo. Where's the edit button? No see um.

I was working at Santa Monica Ford when the Explorer's came out, the parts manager bought one for his wife.

About 6 months later, while getting gas, she decided to check the fluid levels. Opened the hood, saw a cap with a depiction of a can dripping fluid, figured it was the radiator cap. Took the cap off, didn't see any water, so she began adding some.

A guy filling his tank next to her, spotted her doing it, said STOP, that's the oil cap! Explorer towed to the dealership, the entire engine had to be torn down.

Didn't cost the parts manager anything, the service manager wrote up an "1863" .. FoMoCo paid for it. 1863 was the year Henry Ford was born and it was the form number for warranty R/O's.

 

My wife has a 96 Explorer Limited with the air-ride and Michelin LTX,s, it's about the best handling explorer I have ever driven, sits low on the air-ride in 2wd and is a real freeway cruiser, turn the 4x4 knob and the body lifts 1 1/2" for 4 hi-2 1/2" for 4lo.........It has NEVER given us a scary moment at highway speeds...........just like a mid-size station wagon.

 

Heck of a story Bill, wow............. Right on Dave

 

Ranger/B-series: Yes
Explorer/Mountaineer: Yes
Aerostar: Yes
Bronco II: No
Courier:?

Personally I know NOTHING about later FWD Ford minivans, so others should chime in.

 

What about them?

 

The Courier was basically a "rebadged" Mazda pickup, it was introduced in 1972, cancelled after 1982, as it was replaced by the '1983' Ranger, that was introduced in March of 1982.

Aerostar introduced in 1986, but I spotted a pre-production Aerostar in 1985 at a Tucumcari NM gas station. A pal of mine and I were driving straight thru from LA LA Land to the Pace Swap Meet held south of Dallas TX. We stopped here around midnight for gas, the only other vehicle was this "thing" we couldn't identify.

The two engineers taking turns driving the Aerostar thought we also worked for FoMoCo, due to the "Genuine Ford Parts" signs painted on the sides of the black Econoline box van we were driving, the FoMoCo blue oval painted on the front of the box over the cab. But the Econoline was owned by Valley Ford Obsolete in North Hollywood CA, I was just along for the ride.

'Course we didn't say anything one way or another, because we wanted to know just what this thing was.

(When pre-production vehicles are being test driven, the engineers ignore questions from the general public, may give the "one figure salute" to people taking pics).

When I asked one of the engineers if they had encountered any problems, one said this is a Unit Body, the structure is cracking above the rear axle.

Oh boy, I thought...this is going to create problems for new owners and dealers alike, and I was right.

FoMoCo didn't fix the problem until the 1988's came out, meanwhile FoMoCo instructed the dealers that the "fixum" for the 1986/87's, was to weld bits of angle iron to the structure to reinforce it.

 

I had a 74 Courier.........it was so small, that stepping from it to a Ranger, felt like stepping from a Ranger to a F-150.
It did get 30 mpg though.

 

I have seen a 318 swapped Aerostar on YouTube.



Don't know what happened to it. 318 is narrower than a 302. Still need a tougher rear axle to handle the torque of a V8. Ford 7.5 isn't enough. I'm sure an 8.8 can be swapped in and that ought to do it.

 

That would be a heck of a swap, probably blew the original v6

 

The 7.5 WILL handle a V-8.............IF you are careful and drive like a adult.

Start driving like a 18yr old, and you will be looking for a 8.8 in short order.

 

7.5 used the same differential shaft lock pin as 8.8 (D8BZ-4241-B). Its head was notorious for shearing off.

Lotsa luck removing the remains of that pin from the shaft.

And you better hope that the head of the sheared off pin doesn't affect other parts, while dancin' around inside the rear axle.

 

Bill if I'm lucky I can get broken part out with a pick tool, it doesn't always go that easy

 

Junk yards have PILES of 7.5s ready to go...........that's my fix!

 

My brother had a little Blazer with the affected tires, he went in to the Firestone dealer and got a new set for free too.

 

Iirc from my research, the best Rangers to do an Explorer V8 swap was a 4x4 with the torsion bar front suspension, then it would be a direct bolt in. From there, you could switch a few wires around in the main harness and have a working tach and passive anti-theft.

Also, by using the Explorer engine dressing, you could still upgrade to a 351W and not have to modify the hood too much if you didn't have the "raised power dome hood".

But, if you used the 2wd Edge, you'd have to swap a few suspension and engine mount pieces from a 4x4, even to make a 2wd V8 Ranger.

I looked into that long ago.

And it's such a sad story for my Ranger too, because it was the perfect candidate for a V8 swap. The 3.0 had a dead hole. But the fact that we needed a second vehicle to get kids to daycare and us to work meant just that. No space for a project truck. No time for a project truck. Funds weren't the issue, but time and space was. So we made the tough decision to let someone else nurse it back to health and have it return years of faithful service like it gave to me.

But I will have a V8 Ranger one day.