The ZF transmission, not an entire truck.

 

You can't tell by me because I have another driver and I kinda just piddled with it whenever I felt like it. It took me about 2 weeks.

If I was doing another one and I was in a hurry I could knock it out in a day if I had everything needed already. It helps a lot that I have a lift and a transmission jack in my shop, tho.

 

I'm considering the swap also, I have a '92 F-150 2wd 5.0L/E4OD RCLB, trans on the way out and sick of getting stuck in the snow.

I have an '89 F-150 4x4 4.9L/M5OD RCLB hammered body donor truck, would run & drive if the fuel pumps weren't bad.

Main things I haven't seen covered are brake differences, frame bracket differences and steering differences?

So, are 2wd and 4wd front brake calipers and lines different?

What about the brackets on the frame, both where the I-beams mount to under the motor, and where the radius arms mount?

What about the upper coil spring buckets and retainers?

And what about the steering linkage? Is it all the same? The steering box?

I have done much searching and haven't seen these questions answered, hopefully this will help more people than just me.

 

Hi, I wanted to ask about the 2wd to 4wd coversion topic, if the truck has the 4-speed bulldog trany, what do you have to do or can you put a transfer case on it? I know with the auto you have to dissasemble the trany and change the shaft, but am not sure on the standard? Thank you for any help, Mike

 

what is a bulldog tranny ? and the answer is the same for a manual tranny !

 

Same.

Same.

Same.

Same.

It doesn't matter if you have a manual or auto trans, you still need a 4x4 version of whatever trans you have.

 

Thank you for the reply "cj06", that answers a few questions for me. Now for your question, I guess it depeds on what part of the country you are in or your age as to what you call them. A "bulldog" is a 4-speed trany with 1st gear being a crawler gear, granny gear, super low, or around here they were always known as a bulldog. I think it aquired the name because it would crawl/dig in like a bulldog, great for a take off with heavy load or to pull a hill off road here in the country. Some call them a 3-speed with a low gear, but to me that is differant. I drive another truck at times that has a 3-speed with a low, it is not as low or heavy as my truck. Also back in the day when 99.9% of trucks were standard shift you had 2 common tranys, 3-speed which most of the time was "a three on the tree", and the heavyer 4-speed which was called the bulldog. Sorry if the common name from my area thru any off, Mike

 

I'm definitely with you on that! I love my '92 F150 but it isn't always the greatest here in Minnesota. Although right now I have about 400 pounds worth of sandbags in the back of my truck and some new winter tires so it sure gets through a LOT better than it did earlier this winter with zero weight whatsoever in the bed.

I rarely fishtail now, and when I spin tires they usually grip within a second or two instead of continually spinning for about 10 seconds.

I really want to do the conversion but it's going to have to wait until spring/summer because the only place I can work on it is my driveway as my garage is too small to fit it in there.

So there is no possible way that I can KEEP my current, original auto transmission in my truck? Can it be modified to work with the transfer case or do I simply need a 4x4 tranny to replace it?

Thanks

 

naw man if I read things right, they said that you could re-use the current transmission but in order to adapt it to work with 4wd you'd have to change the output shaft & tail housing.

Ok here we go RLA said it quote "The transmission output shafts are different between a 2WD and 4WD as well as the tail housing. You will need to source both pieces from a donor. The entire transmission will need to be disassembled to make the output shaft swap."

So in a nutshell it's a double edged sword while on the 1 hand Yes you can modify/adapt your current transmission the flip side of that coin is that'd necessitate rebuilding it and replacing the tail housing and output shaft

 

OK so you're saying it will probably be easier to just put in a "new" 4x4 transmission altogether? Otherwise I could take it to the shop and have it done, but I'm not sure which would be cheaper.

 

yup it would be cheaper

 

To clarify, I said you need a 4x4 version of your transmission. You can either replace the entire trans with a 4x4 unit, or convert yours to 4x4. As stated, the latter requires a complete tear-down of the trans in order to swap the output shaft to the 4x4 version.

 

OK it'll probably be better to just put in a 4x4 tranny then. I'll have to start getting some price ranges for all this stuff.. As I have no way to do the tranny myself.

 

spring/shock brackets/buckets , ARE different , they are specificly denoted 4x2 and 4x4 in the ford parts catalog .

 

No, they actually aren't different.