Easier swap?

[nathansmith50]

Body or drivetrain?

I have a 97 5.0 with a rusted body and messed up interior

And a 99 4.0 with an immaculate body and messed up transmission

I was going to swap the motor and teams from the 97 but then I got to thinking...why not just swap bodies?

So which would be an easier swap?

 

[turboranger91]

I've never done a body swap, but I have done engine/tranny before. As long as you have everything you need, you can swap drive trains in a day... Assuming no "issues" come up (which they always do) .

 

[nathansmith50]

Well my donor truck has a lot of rust so i expect my biggest issue to be getting the donor parts out. I'm just going to scrap what i don't use so i'm sure i'll be doing a lot of cutting on the donor truck.

 

[SoHK_alumni]

I'd think swapping the body's over would be at least as much work as swapping the engines, assuming you've got the equipment to lift a body off the frame. (A fresh trans for the 4.0 is probably THE easiest tho)

The '97 and '99 do have some differences that'll need to be addressed:

They run different fuel pressures and fuel return systems -- With bits from the '97, adapting the '99 to the lower fuel pressure system with a return from the engine won't be difficult.

The two years have different speed sensor systems -- the '97 uses one off the back of the transmission, the '99 uses the ABS system. Probably easiest to simply keep the '97 using the transmission VSS, the body using the ABS.

A quick scan of the wiring shows a couple other differences as well, particularly in the A/C control system but nothing that can't be resolved with just a bit of research and time.