I'm working on a 92 Ranger with a bad auto trans. I have a trans. from an 89 Areastar, is it a direct swap? If not what needs to be changed? Both were attached to a 3.0.

Thanks,
JIM.

 

Few things to ask yourself, are they both two wheel or is the ranger 4x4 ? If Ranger 4x4 then no, as they will have different tailends. Assuming they are both 2wheeel, I believe you need a model 1991-94 to match, but check chiltons repair manuals, they will tell you what years are compatible

 

Yes, both are 2wd. Everything "looks" the same, but the Direct Interchange Book also list 91-93. Just trying to find out what makes this not a direct swap.

JIM.

 

???? Possibly the mount to the crossover underneith. Possibly the inner workings, fluid flow, linkage, torque... Sorry I can't better help you. Maybe this will help.... go to a junk yard, you can usually buy one from the yard for $300-$500 from the same year vehicle. I just swapped the M5od (5sp manual) 250000 miles, in mine with one from a Bronco a year older with only 87,000 miles. Problem is..... CHANGE ALL THE SEALS before you put it in... they dry rot from sitting (input, output, top end, etc.)

 

For these reasons and others, it is almost always better to rebuild you old one than to try to swap another POS in.

 

Well first question - was the 89 aerostar transmission working good in the van to start with? Good color fluid no burn smell etc.
- How many miles on the aerostar? Was it owned by the proverbial little old lady who was meticulous about maintaining it, or your brother-in-law who drove the snot out of it and ran it into the ground? (No intended offence to any of your actual family, just trying to make the point)
- Do you have lots more time (and a place to work) than money so its worth your while horsing around with the swap vs rebuilding or getting a rebuilt transmission .
- Are you planning to drive this truck another 100-200k or are you trying to keep-er running another couple years 'til you get into something better? Is this your only way of getting around (exactly how far up the creek will you be if you swap in a used tranny and it craps out in a month or three?)

Somebody else can hopefully be a better facts person than me - one thing Ford did sometime around 88 or 89 to the a4ld was add a solenoid for overdrive/lockup. The early trannies have a so-called "two wire" connection and the later trannies a three-wire connection (to run the additional solenoid). Hopefully your 89 transmission is a three-wire setup, or you've got some adaption-wiring to do (and may want to read up more or re-think the swap).

If you do get semi-serious about the swap, suggest early on you drop the pan on the '89 tranny and put in a new filter/gasket (and check out the amount of crud on the old filter while you're at it). If there is a serious amount of fine black crud in there, this may also be a good time to re-think things.

Good luck whatever you decide to do

 

#1 Yes, the van was running fine when wrecked.
#2 No idea who owned it or how it was maintained. I don't know how many miles.
#3 Time is not a factor, this will be a 4th vehicle. The money situation I don't know about. No problem with working area.
#4 I will drive this thing 0 miles for 0 years.

The info on the solenoid is the kind of info I am looking for. New seals & a filter were already in the plans.

Thanks,
JIM.

 

Look realistically, if you do a swap, you want to go newer, not older. The newer A4LD have updates and design changes, in other words, Ford does learn. The best A4LD is the 1994 4.0L unit. That unit will also direct swap with yours, the '89 unit will not.

Realistically, rebuilding your old one will still give you a better result. How do I come to that conclusion? Allow me to point that out.

You could drive this for a couple years, or for 5 minutes. Chances are it will be closer to 5 minutes, as it is not even a direct swap.

For less than $500 you can get a basic rebuild kit that will give you ok results. Spend a little more and you can get into upgrade parts that make the trans tougher than an off the shelf Ford unit.

 

Well now that we know this is not a life or death thing - you've got a crippled truck, and you've got a transmission that's a bellhousing match (3.0) sitting around that came from a good running/driving van. You're not asking us to warranty this swap, just point out stuff that will (or won't) make this swap doable. Cool

- you know of course you have no hope of swapping in a transmission from anything that isn't a RWD 3.0 - so your potential swap pool is a fairly limited number of Rangers and (possibly) Aerostars. Maybe some Mazda B3000s.

- the main reason the direct interchange says only 1991 and up ranger transmissions will fit is 3.0 engines WERE NOT available on rangers before 1991!
When I check Aerostar interchange transmissions for a 1992 Aerostar on car-part.com (Hollander based), it spits me back Aerostars back to '88 (good sign)

-But for both 1992 rangers and Aeros, it asks me whether it is electric or cable speedo pickup - your 1989 Aero will be a mechanical (cable) speedo so if your 1992 Ranger isn't cable driven you will have (possibly) a challenge to work this out. You will probably want to use your ranger speedo pickup gear in the swap transmission anyway, since the Aero probably has a different rear end ratio

- somebody somewhere else mentioned there may be an issue with the shifter bellcrank on the transmission, as the older Aeros used a floor mounted shifter, while the later Aeros (and the Ranger, I'll bet) used a column mounted shifter. Once again, this hopefully is surmountable, as you've got the ranger setup right there to rob parts off if you need to.

- have a good look at your starter and how it mounts. I got burned one time grabbing a brand new starter off a 3.0 L Aerostar (auto trans) at the boneyard assuming it would fit my 3.0L Ranger (manual trans). Nosiree - the Aero had a single hot wire coming down from the solenoid while the Ranger had a two-wire setup (sorry - fuzzy on the details - just remember I ended up with a newish, useless to me starter.). Just saying, have a good look before the swap.

Once again, hopefully somebody who's done this swap or at least has lots of Aero/Ranger back and forth experience will chime in. But for now, best I can suggest is get the ranger in the air, drag your aero transmission alongside, crack a cold one and do some staring back and forth before you tear into anything.

I for one would be interested to hear how your 'research project' turns out!

Cheers

 

I don't know if the owner will want to put that much into it.

I guess I should give you the story on this. A friend has a 1 man painting business, normally he uses his full size van. He just wants the truck for smaller jobs. I'm putting a clutch in his Mustang & playing with this, in exchange I'm getting the interior of my house painted. I'm not on any sort of time table, I work full time nights(9-6) & part time days(6:45-11) so I only have time on the weekends. The house will be painted the 3rd week in Oct. I think I'm getting a good deal & so does he.

I'll keep checking here & I'll post update as I go along.


JIM.

 

Update:

He has been driving this for the last 2 months with no problems at all. The only problem with the install was the shift linkage, used both to make one.

Thanks again,

JIM.

 

Congratulations!

He who dares, succeeds (given favourable planetary alignment, and a modicum of skill/common sense, and/or maybe a good dose of stubborn curiousity)

Thanks for the update - nothing like hearing from someone who's actually done it!