thinking about starting a project...Super Duty

[Mike Dziubina]

a fellow member of my fire department donated his older work van to our company to cut apart in an extrication drill this week. he towed it down the other week and took out everything he needed. he then opened it to the whole company and told us, "take whatever you want on it." everyone looked inside, i looked under the hood! it's a 1997 Powerstroke Turbo Diesel with 120k on the motor. needs to be jumped to start, but it fires right up and runs awesome. i told him i will take the motor after we cut the car apart. SOOOOOO, i think i'm going to look for a '94-'97 super duty with the 5 speed. anyone know if i have to switch the computer or anything? it's off an automatic and going to stick so other than that it should bolt up to a super duty. any other tips ahead of time?

 

[Fudged Undies]

Take the computer and any wiring, better to have than not to. Auto tranny is controlled by a seperate computer (at least in our tracs) so if that's the case on the van that may be an issue you will have to find a work-around to as I don't think the harness can be left unplugged. I'd check some ranger/explorer forums or any forum for that matter, to see how others have managed this type of swap. Not impossible by any means though. You may want to look into the engine/tranny options for this vehicle and see if it ever came with manual. If so, you may be able to find a harness(manual tranny) online or in a junkyard.