I have a 88 Bronco II with a 2.9L and a 5 speed tranny i was wondering if anyone had any information about converting it over to an automatic tansmission. i also have a 3.8L moter and automatic transmission i was wondering about putting in it any information will help thanks

 

Without buying expensive adaptors and such, you have two choices for auto tranny. The A4LD, which doesn't have the best of reputations or a C3 (maybe a C4), which is only a 3 speed tranny. Unless you have some real good reasons for switching to an auto tranny, you'll likely be better off sticking with the 5 speed.

As far as putting the 3.8 in there, anything is possible with enough time, money, and know how. A 4.0 is in the same engine family and shares the same engine mount locations and such. It is by far the easiest engine to swap into a BII. The 4.0 is nearly a bolt in swap. With the 3.8, you'll be doing a lot of your own fabrication and figuring out how to get it to fit in there.

 

C5 would be your best option. Won't be too hard to find one that bolts right in. Good trans too.

 

I pulled the A4LD in my 88 and replaced it with a C-5 from an 84. The C-5 was used in the 83-84 Ranger and 84 Bronco II behind the 2.8 V-6. If you have a C-5 rebuilt today it will have C-4 stuff in it as the C-5 lock up converter is no longer available. The C-4 was also put behind the 2.8 in the 70's Mustang and Capri. The 2.8, 2.9, and 4.0 all use the same bell housing patern. So trannys will bolt up. The C-5/4 has a removeable bell housing. There were two different types of C-4 Trannys. A case fill and a pan fill. The 2.8, 2.9, 4.0 C-4/5 bell housings are all case fill and need a case fill tranny to bolt to.

The 3.8 uses the SBF bolt housing pattern. So you would need to approach this swap in much of the same way as you would a 5.0.

What tranny is behind the 3.8?

Is you Bronco II 4wd?

You can use a floor shifter from a early Ranger or Bronco II in your Bronco II but the floor cover plate is smaller on the early trucks. So you'd need all the shifter parts and linkage. And a larger plate from an 88 with a floor shifter. Then the shifter will need to be removed from the smaller early cover plate and installed on the larger 88 plate.

 

thanks for the information this is one step farther than i was

 

Have to read that info carefully. In two places on that link above it lists the C-5 as 83-84. Only one place does it list the C-5 in 85. And that place has in caps that if you have a non overdrive tranny. All the 85's I have seen have had an A4LD in them. Even had a guy tell me over and over for months it was a C-5 and it "shifted" in to lock up. He finally figured it out. It was of course an A4LD. Now I'm not saying that there were no C-5's put in the 85's. It's just that they would be few in number I think. If you do a Car Part search at a salvage yard ask for an auto for a 83-84 to be sure you get a C-5. If you ask for a 85 you'll most likely end up with a A4LD.

 

The A4LD was probably more likely to be in an XLT or Eddie Bauer than a bone stocker BII in '85. If the door tag has a code "W", it's a C-5, if it's a "T", it's an A4LD. Another source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_C5_transmission