2WD to 4WD

[briley]

I'm wanting to switch my Explorer Sport from 2WD to 4WD and i was wondering what the cost might be and what i would have to do.

 

[section525]

I did it for very little $. Your best bet is to get a complete donor Explorer and just start swapping parts. The true 4wd would be a little harder than converting to AWD like I did. But it is very do-able.

You should search for posts by Hartman (who converted a lot of his front-end parts over from 4WD to 2WD) and Stadx2 (who basically made his non-4WD truck become 4WD).

It's just a matter of bolting in the front differential, swapping on the knuckles, getting the driveshafts in, and either putting in a 4WD tranny and tcase, or changing the rear housing on your tranny to accept the 4405 tcase. Oh yeah, and hooking up the 4WD controls in the truck.

You can read a little about mine here. It's sorta extreme and not really what you'd need to do though.
http://www.section525.com/xpage/swap/index.html

 

[airforcemook]

Quick question : what's the difference between AWD and 4WD then? I'm confuzzled.. I thought I knew what it was but with the way people have been talking about it I guess not.

 

[fury]

i got a quick question since we are on this subject. how hard is it to make the 2wd tranny rear housing accept the 4405 t- case. the reason why i am asking is that i hope to buy a 4405 t case from a member on this bored and was wondering if this t case will work best. if it helps i have a 99 sport 4.0 sohc 5 speed automatic transmission.
thanks for any advice or ideas you may have.

 

[Mbrooks420]

AWD is always on. It sends power to the front wheels when the rear slips though a viscous coupling. No electronics. No low range. The 4wd in second gens has an automatic 4wd selection which uses an electromagnetic clutch to engauge the front when the rear slips. Not as instantanious as the AWD does, but does have a low range where power is sent equally to the front and rear differential.