Occasionally you may have a hard time locating an engine for your 3.0L Ranger pickup. Sometimes people just buy the wrong part. In this case, I informed my boss the truck needed an engine and was brought a Taurus motor. The block is the same and this will work, but there are just a few modifications to be taken into account first. This will explain hopefully well enough to help you out with your Ranger to Vulcan conversion.
As long as your Ranger engine isn't completely destroyed, you can salvage the parts you need.
The oil pan and the oil pickup will need to be put onto the Vulcan, as the Taurus oil pan interferes with the front axle.
The flywheel will need to be swapped. I know, they look the same...don't be fooled. The Taurus flywheel will have you pulling the motor back out when you realize the spacing on the torque converter bolts are off by less than 1/4 inch and there is nothing to be done about it.
Injectors. You'll need those. Once again, appear to be the same, but they aren't. Leaving Taurus injectors on will leave you with a relentless check engine light for having too rich a mix.
I have heard from others that the upper intake needs to be swapped. I swapped the lower intake because it was just slightly different, but the upper one was fine. I also don't care for the plastic upper plenums the Taurus occasionally uses.
This one is basically on you, your choice. Head gaskets. I recommend doing them while the motor is out as we all know the Ranger 3.0L and the Vulcan 3.0L are absolutely going to blow a head gasket. It's when, not if. Won't keep it from running if you don't do it, but you might as well if you've got it out.
And of course none of you would even consider having that engine out and not replacing the water pump. I know, it's crazy. Okay, I know it's dumb but I've seen it happen, make sure you get the Ranger water pump when you do the replacement. The Taurus one is the same size and shape but the Ranger one has a larger nose on it and it's threaded for your fan. If you don't you'll be scratching your head when it comes time to put the fan and shroud back on. Taurus has electric fan, Ranger has clutch.
Some of these pictures are just for reference purposes, but it should give you a pretty good overview. Also, it's okay to label! As you'll see from the Nesquik milk coming out of the oil pan, this particular motor had a blown head gasket, but, someone felt it was okay to continue to drive it indefinitely as long as they continued to put coolant or water into it. This is the result. A completely crapped out motor. And yes I cleaned those terminals.
I believe that is about it. Feel free to ask questions.
Thanks for checking it out. This is my first blog post, so sorry if the layout is rough. I'm open to suggestions.
