Just finished a 5.0 swap into my 2002!

[R-code]

The truck was a 5-speed 4x4 from the factory, I managed to shoehorn an M5OD and an e-shift BW4406 under it as well. Everything’s working just fine with the exception of 4-Low, not sure what that’s about just yet but I’m going to keep at it. Main wiring harness still needs some cleaning up but it’s about 95% there.

Anywho... happy to be here, this forum was invaluable during this whole process, happy to share my experiences with anyone else that’s thinking about doing the same!

 

[mic98xlt]

First Explorer Sport (2001-2003) I seen with a V8! Congrats!!!!

 

[410Fortune]

So you have a 5.0, M5OD and 4406e?

4 low....you need to run a neutral safety feed to the 4x4 system

The 5.0 trucks never had 4 low so there is no neutral safety wire feed for the 4x4 system to see you are in N (or in your case have the clutch pushed in)

Well done!! Is your speedometer working? ABS light on?
We just finished up a 2002 Sport trac 5.0 and got that stuff sorted out

 

[vroomzoomboom]

welcome to the v8 sport club!

 

[R-code]

So you have a 5.0, M5OD and 4406e?

4 low....you need to run a neutral safety feed to the 4x4 system

The 5.0 trucks never had 4 low so there is no neutral safety wire feed for the 4x4 system to see you are in N (or in your case have the clutch pushed in)

Well done!! Is your speedometer working? ABS light on?
We just finished up a 2002 Sport trac 5.0 and got that stuff sorted out

That’s super helpful, I’ll take a look at my wiring diagrams and see what I can come up with.

ABS and speedo are both good, I wound up installing the G-Force switch on the frame rail (mounting holes were still there!) and running the three wires up through the trans harness, into to the main engine harness, and out C115 to the ABS module. It was super easy because I had a bunch of un-used wires running up from the trans that were left over from the automatic. I just unplugged them from the ECU and fished them over toward C115. Made a small pigtail that came out the side of the transmission harness and tacked it to the frame rail going back to the sensor.

I found that the sensor didn’t like being in the engine bay, it would throw an ABS code as soon as the motor came up to temp.

 

[410Fortune]

cool!!
I did not want to mess with pulling the g force mod off our donor (out in the mud) and wiring it into the trac so we just used a $90 Dakota digital speedometer calibrator...the cool thing is this one can be adjusted for tire size changes

Many ways to skin a cat

 

[fast_dave]

@R-code

Sweet Swap!

Checks of ALL boxes = 2 Door, V-8, 5 Speed Manual M-5OD, and 4WD!!!

 

[mic98xlt]

welcome to the v8 sport club!

Sorry Vroom, I meant to say first 2001-2003 2 dr Sport. Yours is one of my favorites!

 

[R-code]

I’m not sure I’ve seen one just like it either. After I went through all the headache of moving the gas tank to fit the 4406, I think I know why

 

[vroomzoomboom]

Sorry Vroom, I meant to say first 2001-2003 2 dr Sport. Yours is one of my favorites!

i was never offended.

I’m not sure I’ve seen one just like it either. After I went through all the headache of moving the gas tank to fit the 4406, I think I know why

there wasnt enough room for the shifter motor?

 

[R-code]

Nope, had to push the tank back about 2”.

 

[fast_dave]

Nope, had to push the tank back about 2”.

Did that require floor pan modification or tank modification or both or?

 

[R-code]

Did that require floor pan modification or tank modification or both or?

Neither. It did require removing the brackets from the frame and welding them in further back. All of the lines had enough slack in them to accommodate and nothing hits.

 

[R-code]

So you have a 5.0, M5OD and 4406e?

4 low....you need to run a neutral safety feed to the 4x4 system

The 5.0 trucks never had 4 low so there is no neutral safety wire feed for the 4x4 system to see you are in N (or in your case have the clutch pushed in)

Well done!! Is your speedometer working? ABS light on?
We just finished up a 2002 Sport trac 5.0 and got that stuff sorted out

Can you expound on this a little more? I’ve tried and tried to sort this out and I cannot for the life of me find a signal wire that will tell the truck it’s safe to go into 4L.

 

[CDW6212R]

That signal will be in the trans wiring, the neutral safety switch is the vertical one on the side of the trans.

Edit, since that has a manual transmission, the wires may not be there in the truck side of the connector, or the dash wiring. Thanks Jamie for the excellent detailed post below. I may need that if I do the BW4406 TOD some day.

 

[410Fortune]

Well done!! Nice 02!!!


I can help with the low range shift, sure thing!!
Basically SOME of the 5.0 trucks (99-01 it seems) were shipped without the required NSS wiring in place. The neutral safety sensor is inside the digital transmission range sensor on the side of the transmission, this is a ground wire and neutral feed dedicated to the ESOF 4x4 computer.
The 5.0 trucks never had any sort of 4x4 shifting so Ford simply left these wires out and you need to add them

checkout the 132 and 133rd post in this thread where I built a 2000 5.0 Ranger and had to add these two wires to get the low range shift:

Ford Ranger forum

The Premiere Site For Ford Ranger Enthusiasts

ford-rangers.com

Here:

#5, no low range

Okay so this one is a bit tricky and has stumped many people over the years. Lucky for me we have run into this a few times before. You see in order for the truck to allow the shift from 4hi to 4 low you must be stopped and in N. So how does the truck know you are stopped? signal from the VSS to the gem module of course. How does it know you have your foot on the brake? Signal from the BPP (brake pedal pos) switch to the GEM module of course. How does it know you are in Neutral...well there is a wire that feeds the GEM module directly from the neutral safety switch on the side of the transmission. Also known as the DTRS (digital transmission range sensor). So what gives?
Well the 5.0 explorers never had electronic shift controls, they were all either RWD or full time AWD> no 4x4. So Ford for whatever reason left this one wire out ONLY ON SOME TRUCKS! The crazy thing is the wire is shown as existing in all of the wiring books. However when we go to check we can see, sure enough although the wire exists on the truck side of things it is MIA on the 5.0 engine/trans harness.

Pin 33 is Red/White circuit 463, NSS (neutral safety sensor) from trans DTRS through the 42 pin connector to the truck
Fuzzy but you can see pin 33 is MIA on the engine side

I drilled out the blank spot

Now I need a wire, the best thing to do is use the SAME wire from the old 4.0 harness
This guy is carefully removed from the old harness

from 42 pin plug to transmission DTRS unpinned on both sides and pulled out

Now to install on truck/5.0 harness

It was late Sunday night so I decided to stop here. But before I could sleep I had to know, did it work? I know that the NSS signal is simply a ground (when in Neutral the transmission sends ground through this wire) so I placed it on the - battery terminal, put truck in N and with foot on the brake without hesitation the truck EASILY shifted into LOW RANGE!!

the new circuit 463 red with white wire (RD/WH) was run to the 4r70w transmission DTRS, pin 8.
research shows you must also add a ground wire to the pin next to it.
Again I turned to the old v6 harness and nabbed the black ground wire for pin 7

red and black wires seen here in their new home. This plug on the 5.0 truck side was empty as these two wires are dedicated to the 4x4 electronic shift system......

The ground wire was kept very short and is actually terminated at the red bolt top left of this picture. The t case body and brackets make for a solid negative ground -

4406 E shift transfer case fully functional, check.

 

[R-code]

That signal will be in the trans wiring, the neutral safety switch is the vertical one on the side of the trans. So the wire you need should be in the main C115 connector I believe.

Even on a manual? I don’t recall any terminals coming out of the trans aside from the reverse sensor.

 

[R-code]

Well done!! Nice 02!!!


I can help with the low range shift, sure thing!!
Basically SOME of the 5.0 trucks (99-01 it seems) were shipped without the required NSS wiring in place. The neutral safety sensor is inside the digital transmission range sensor on the side of the transmission, this is a ground wire and neutral feed dedicated to the ESOF 4x4 computer.
The 5.0 trucks never had any sort of 4x4 shifting so Ford simply left these wires out and you need to add them

I don’t have any of that, my truck was a stick from the factory, still has a manual after the swap.

 

[CDW6212R]

So you still need to add those two wires pictured above. Your manual harness should have those for the neutral safety switch. That will be the easy part, they need to lead up to the GEM and 4WD modules as described. That your truck was manual, iy means the wires might not be in the truck dash harness or engine bay harness. But the post above by 410Fortune shows you the circuit numbers and connectors where the wires have to go through.

 

[410Fortune]

Easy to fix on a 5 speed!!

Ground the NSS wire in the 42 pin connector on pin 33 truck side of things, this is circuit 463, neutral safety sensor to gem/4x4 control module.

The NSS wire then goes through the 3 position clutch switch. So once you ground that wire (circuit 463) then it will allow the 4x low range shift, stop (or under 3 mph) press in clutch, shift low range

The automatic transmission has a ground on pin 7 and a NSS wire on pin 8, when you place the DTRS in N contact is made, so the NSS wire is a ground signal to the truck