How do you replace a transmission on Ford Ranger?

Answer 1

How you ask? I will tell you, since I just did it. But listen very carefully or you will be hating your life and you will regret getting your hands dirty. First of all, it depends if your ranger is automatic or standard. I will explain how to do it with a standard transmission. You are going to want to have the following equipted:

-Jack stands, and or blocks of 4x4 wood to jack it up on

-floor jack

-a full tool set or wrenches and sockets extensions etc etc

-A rubber mallet

-Oil pan or ice cream bucket works fine, even a paint rolling tray

-screw driver set, flat head, and torque head.

-gasket maker, or just buy a gasket. that's ok too

-monkey wrench

-automotive grease

-A half sack of beer, and a full pack of cigarettes ( age required )

Ok so now your ready to start? I hope so! Cuz from here on in the job becomes very time consuming.

STEP ONE) Chalk, or mark your driveshaft alignment somehow I scratched it with a screwdriver people also chalk it, and then remove the 8 bolts holding the rear drive shaft in place from the differential and transfer case. and set it aside, you;lll also have to take off the steady bearing from the support member mounted to the frame of the vehical.

STEP TWO) use the floor jack to raise your vehical tires of the ground, and cautiously put it on jack stands or blocks of wood so the tires are free from the ground, do this so all four tires are off the ground and free for movement.

STEP3 ) this step is to remove all the electrical clips from the transfer case, ok. there should be two of them. one is located beside the driveshaft, and another is located on top of the casing. Once they are out, proceed with removing the 5 bolts mounting the transfer case to the transmission. It might be smart to remove the frontal drive shaft aswell before this since the transfer case is the only thing holding it up from hitting your head! Once the transfer case is removed, you should see either a silicone seal, or a terrible looking gasket which you in turn will need to scrape off completely, clean it with brake cleaner or some other solvent to get the gunk off and make it shiny and new again, do not skip that part it is very important to have a good seal.

STEP FOUR) now your going to want to remove both shifters, so climb in your truck, and under the shifter boot there are 4 torque shaped screws holding the main shifter in place to the transmission, remove the screws and put them in a safe place ( make sure you don't lose any bolts or anything , at all, have a safe place to keep them and keep them organized so you don't confuse your self putting everything back together)

STEP FIVE) get out of the vehical, go underneith the truck and remove the electrical parts from the transmission now, there shall be two of them aswell like the transfer case. one is for the speedometer and the other one im not sure. After that, remove the starter, it's located at the bottom driverside of the bell housing of the transmission, there are two bolts holding it in place, just remove the bolts and set the starter aside. Take your floor jack and put a block of wood on it, or a piece of plywood since it isn't recommended to jack a transmission. It's bad for it. atleast with plywood it will disperse the pressure on a wider surface area of the bottom of the transmission so it will not crack or get damadged by the weight of itself. Now that you have the floor jack slightly supporting it, you are ready to take out the 6 bolts holding the bellhousing of the transmission to the engine, aswell as the supporting crossmember under the transmission. safely and slowly try to pull the transmission out , backwards from the engine it will slide out rather awkwardly so don't lose balance of it on the floorjack someone ccould get hurt.

STEP SIX) now your essentially ready to put the new transmission in, or if you are needing to do work on your clutch, you can also have access to it from this point of the job. With the new transmission your replacing it with, you don't want to trust it's electrical components, or even the clutch lever bleeder valve. I made this mistake and needed to take everything appart again after I finished the transmission swap just to fix it, since if the clutch lever valve stripps while bleeding the clutch fluid, your literally screwed and have to start over again. With no pressure in the line full of air rather than clutch fluid( brake fluid) you cannot shift gears to drive the thing.

STEP SEVEN) assuming you've gotten to this point, your well on your way to saving yourself a giant mechanic bill being a do it yourselfer. Put the transmission in, clean the surface where the gasker between itself and the transfercase bolts together , apply gasket or gasket maker and bolt it all together. Put the cross member in place, attatch all electrical back into the clips. and lets face it, if your doing a transmission swap, CHANGE YOUR TRANSMISSION OIL, AND YOUR TRANSFER CASE OIL, AND YOUR DIFFERENTIAL OILS. why risk having anything go wrong again because of bad oil? its like 50 $ in oil that will save you in the long run. anyways.. put your drive shafts back in place, remembering that the shafts need to be marked since they are weighted properly how they are, because if you don't... problems with kill you. your driveshaft may shake furiously while driving and blow your NEW transmission to pieces inside. yes, that would suck. so don't do this to yourself.

STEP 8) assuming you don't know how to change your transmission oil, theres a drain plug located at the very bottom. drain everything out completely. tighten the bolt again. also, on the side of the transmission is another bolt, this is the fill level, take the bolt out, and climb into the truck with a bottle of transmission oil at hand. pour this oil into the shifter hole until you can see oil pouring out of the side of the transmission where the fill level is, once it does this put the bolt back in the side of the fill hole and put your shifter sticks back in place!.

STEP NINE) to change the transfer case oil, the drain is located at the back of the transfer case, there will be two valves that open up by using a socket extension of 3/4 " twisting counter clockwise. the drain is the bottom valve, and the filler is the valve up and to the right of it.

STEP TEN) Go take your ranger 4x4ing and celebrate saving yourself a huge mechanic bill!! :)

STEP !!) PS I forgot to mention, while taking out the transmission in the step where you are removing the old transmission, make sure you also unplug the clutch line! and don't forget to plug it back in the new one, also make sure you bleed it properly of air bubbles , you won't have to bleed it if you decide to switch the clutch slave cylinder from the old tranny to the new one. This will avoid headaches. because if your slave cylander bleeder valve strips while bleeding the clutch line. YOU'LL HAVE TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN.