Bronco II owner swapping to Explorer drivetrain

[dangayle]

Hi all. My name is Dan, I own a 1984 Bronco II. It is a gutless wonder (2.8 plus the 3-speed automatic), no use at all for going up into the mountains for camping trips or getting to hard to reach trailheads. Everything on my Bronco is bad. Every bushing in the steering is shot. Everything that can leak, does. The suspension is hot garbage. The cat has a hole in it and the tailpipe is patched on with some JB Weld and some wire.

Fortunately, I found a 1992 Ford Explorer Sport with a manual 5-speed. I plan on swapping all of it, essentially turning my Bronco II into an Explorer Sport under the hood. What I'm researching are the gotchas for the swap, and learning a bit.

 

[Rick]

That is a great swap. I know many have done it and loved the results.

If you are into documenting your build, I trade Elite Explorer membership time for "How to" threads.

 

[Mike65]

Welcome.

 

[dangayle]

That is a great swap. I know many have done it and loved the results.

If you are into documenting your build, I trade Elite Explorer membership time for "How to" threads.

I definitely want to document things, but I'm not sure if I can do all or even most of the work myself. I had a shop say they would do it, but they bailed on me. So it's going to be more piecemeal, since I don't have a shop to do the work in.

I think I'll start with the rear diff, but if I'm doing it one piece at a time I might find a limited slip 8.8 with discs instead of what I have. I'll definitely try to document that as well as I can.

 

[BKennedy]

Its mostly bolt off, bolt on new stuff. You should replace every bushing as you go along.