I hope anybody can help me out or lead me to somebaody that knows. I just bought a 96 F150 4X4 with 5.0L auto. I also have a 97 E350 1 ton van with 5.4L auto which I had used for my previous business. The F50 has huge milage but is in good shape, the van's body is rotting away but the drive train has very low milage and was very dependable and strong. The first question is can I install the 5.4 into the F150 with trans? from taking a quick look underneath the transfer case mounting looks the same on both tranny's Next question, is it possible to install the 1 ton front end parts onto the front drive axle of the truck? and what would be the chances of the rear axles having the same ratio for a swap. My goal is to really take the drivetrain from the van and swap it into the truck, but differant engines and one being 2wd and the other being 4wd. I've been a mechanic for 25 years and very good with electronics and fab if needed, it's just that I'm a big rig mechanic now and not familiar with these Fords as you guys are.
Thanks in advance and looking forward to ideas or suggestions.
Ed.

 

Bottom line is these truck trucks share nothing in common so you're looking at a lot of fabrication to make this work. Believe it or not even the rear axle isn't a simple swap because the frames are a different width.. so the leaf spring mounts are in a different place. You can't use the van front end on the pickup either, the engines have totally different tranny bellhousing patterns and engine mounts, and you cannot bolt a x-fer case on a 2wd tranny by simply removing the tailstock.

 

Well when I mentioned the front end, I meant the front drive axle, I would like to change over the ends to the one ton rotors calipers and spindals. I did work on a fleet of Ford E350 which where converted to buses for the handicapped. Believe it or not these where E350 4x4 cab and chassis 7.3 converted to permemant front wheel drive. The front axle wheels where locked and where the driveshaft for the rear should be was capped. They then copped and lowered the frame from there back to make them a "low rider" I see your in Ottawa, these buses where built by a company in S Ont and they where called ELF. The fleet was in Hamilton. So I do know how Fords can be changed up. I can't figure out why the X-case cant be bolted to a 2 wheel drive tranny as the only differance between 2 and 4wd is the x-case itself, if the bolt pattern and out put is the same then then it should work. Of course the front drive axle as well. For the rear axle I will go out tomorow and check the measurments as that wasn't something that crossed my mind. My main concern for the rear axle was the ratio, if the front and rear axle have differant ratio's I can just imagine what would happen in 4wd. I'll be taking a better look and comparing the two trucks in the next few days as I now have them side by side and I'll get back to what I found. Thanks for the imput so far. But never say never