e4od to zf5...

Hey all,


I have read many posts asking questions about the e40d to zf5 swap, and there is so much information in all of them it is somewhat difficult to take in. Therefore, I decided to break down the few things I am still unsure of into a couple of simple questions that will hopefully yield some simple answers.

I own an extended cab 4x4 1991 f250 7.3 idi with the e4od transmission. I just bought a whole running driving parts truck; a regular cab 4x4 1987 f250 with the same motor (The previous owner swapped in a 7.3 for the 6.9) which has a zf5 in it. The only reason im not going to just use the 87 is because it is currently operating as a v7 instead of a v8.

The three questions I have are these:

First, will I be able to use one of the front drivelines from either of the trucks? I have read that the zf5 is a shorter transmission and will therefore need a longer rear driveline, but I couldn't seem to find a definite answer on the front driveline.

Second, will I need to deal with jumping any wires for ignition, reverse lights, 4x4 light, etc? I have read about a lot of people having to mess with wiring to make these things function, so I am curious as to whether or not I can completely swap all of the wiring over and avoid this problem entirely.

Third, how would I go about completely deleting all wiring and such for the automatic transmission? If I take the e4od's transmission computer out, can I take out all of the wiring that goes along with it without causing any other problems?

I'll break it down for you.
1) The front driveshaft is based on the distance from the front output on the transfer case to the front differential. The length of the transmission doesn't matter as much as this distance. You should be able to use the one out of the 1987 with no problems.
2)&3) I've recently seen a post that says that there's a wiring harness that unplugs underneath the brake booster. You can use the one from the 1987 in place of the one from the 1991. Since this contains all of the needed wiring, you can them eliminate the wiring that has to do with the E4OD transmission. The good news here is that you have the complete donor truck so that you can compare them and rob the parts off of the donor. It's MUCH easier to do this swap with a donor truck.

I can't help much with the swap, but are you sure that it isn't just a bad injector on the parts truck?


Rock

Rock

I work at the same company as the previous owner so i had been following up with him on the progress, knowing that if it was any more than a bad injector he planned to sell it. He had it in a shop and was told it was much more of an issue than the injectors. I didn't ask many questions about the details. All I know is it would have been an expensive repair. Got the whole truck for a grand, with a brand new transfer case. All its really worth to me is the transmission, transfer case, and associated parts. Thanks for that idea though!

IDIBRONCO thank you for the answers. I was hoping the front driveline would work out of the 87, and im glad to hear it most likely will. Also glad to hear about the wiring, as tinkering with that is not really in my ballpark. Hopefully the swap will go well, from what ive read its pretty well a plug and play.

jonleroy2506 said:

Also glad to hear about the wiring, as tinkering with that is not really in my ballpark. Hopefully the swap will go well, from what ive read its pretty well a plug and play.

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I believe that it is other than the rear driveshaft. Transmissions aside, you still have the different length of the two trucks so you'd probably need a new driveshaft anyway. I don't care for the wiring part of it either. When I did my Bronco swap, I had a complete, wrecked truck to take parts from. I could look at the two of them and see what I needed to swap. I did cheat on the electric part though. I just used the complete wiring harness out of the donor truck. The only tricky part was the wiring that made the rear window roll up and down. I robbed it all back out of the Bronco wiring harness and ran it as a separate harness. I don't remember any of the finer details since that was in 2010 and the last time that I drove it was in December of 2012. It's been gone since 2015.