Electric BW1354 (transfer case) swap to a Manual BW1354 (transfer case).
Tired of the pushing your 4X4 button on the dash and getting nothing in response? You have two options.
Option #1: Rebuild the electric motor on the back of the T-case. May or may not solve your problem.
Option #2: Swap in a manual shifting transfer case. When it’s all said and done it’s a wonder why you’d want the electric t-case in the first place.
Parts Needed:
-The transfer case
-Shifter
-Shifter boot
-Transmission floor plate…this is the removable plate that bolts to the top of the transmission tunnel where the floor shifter sticks out of.
-A long chunk of the wiring harness that plugs into the manual t-case. This is only required if you want your dash lights to light up when you engage the t-case.
Donor vehicle tips: You have to find a donor Explorer (Sport) (91-94), 2nd gen (89-92) Ranger, or a TTB (Twin traction beam) equipped 3rd gen Ranger (93-97ish?). In my travels of the junk yards I have found the manual t-case in more or less all of the vehicles listed above. However here are a few things to watch for. Explorer Sports (2 door models) are probably your best bet for finding the manual t-case. You will want to consider your transmission and t-case combo so that you can get the right shifter boot assembly.
Auto (A4LD) transmission equipped vehicles will almost always have the electric shift t-case. But you will find some with manual t-case and will have a single shifter boot for the t-case, as is the case with my Explorer. Manual transmission equipped vehicles will have a double shifter boot (trans and t-case) that is all one piece. So depending on your set up you’ll want to try and find the right donor. However they are hard to find in some places so you may have to suck it up and take what you can get.
Ok enough rambling about miscellaneous stuff. The install is pretty easy and doesn’t require a lot of time.
Step 1: Remove your front and rear drive shafts.
Step 2: You can do this step now or later, your choice, go inside the vehicle and peel back the front carpet area enough to expose the transmission floor mounting plate. Remove the old one and replace it with the new one. You may or may not have to remove the front seats and the center console to do this. I managed to get it done with only removing the seats and not the console.
Step 3: Disconnect all electrical connectors to the t-case and remove the speedo cable (I think it’s an 11mm bolt?)
Step 4: Support the transmission and transfer case combo and remove the transmission cross member.
Step 5: Lower the tranny/t-case combo down enough to allow access to the top t-case mounting bolt.
Step 6: Remove the 5 (13 or 14mm) bolts that hold the t-case to the transmission. Be prepared to have tranny fluid pour out of the back of the tranny once the bolts are removed. Manual trannies shouldn't have that problem.
Step 7: Remove the t-case and replace it with the manual t-case. You’ll have to clean up the mounting surfaces and I’d recommend that you use some type of silicone gasket maker to seal it back up.
Step 8: Mount up the shifter, shifter brackets and tranny floor plate. You may have to fiddle with the shifter mounting bracket a little to allow for a smooth shift.
Step 9: Put it all back together in the reverse order, and do not forget to top up your transmission and t-case fluid.
Enjoy reliable 4x4 shifting without worrying about whether or not it’s going to engage.
Optional Step 10: Wiring up your dash lights. Ok so here's the inside skinny on how to do this. It's actually really easy. Total time should be 30mins max if you're going slow.
First we did a crap load of testing to try and find away to tap into your current wiring harness for a more plug and play install. It's a no go. The wires for the shift motor plug go to the 4x4 computer. The computer uses variable resistance to turn the dash lights on and off. Needless to say we abandoned that idea in a hurry. Wasted a lot of time here, but at least we gave it an honest effort.
There are only 2 wires that come out of the manual t-case. A blue wire which is for the 4X4 light and blue with black stripe wire for the 4low light.
You need to find this plug. It's located on the tranny tunnel right where the carpet ends.
Look for a Grey wire and a Brown(with white stripe) wire. I spliced in and soldered on my wires. You can attach them any way you like. I just prefer this method as it makes a cleaner install. I ran 2 pieces of wire about 3-4' long under the carpet and out a rubber grommet that was located on the floor right in front of the drivers seat.
Now you go under the car and neatly run your new wires over to the t-case wires. In the end it doesn't matter what colour of wire you run as long as you attach them correctly. Mine were free so it didn't matter to me.
The Blue (4X4) wire connects to the Grey wire at the plug. The Blue with black stripe (4low) wire connects to the Brown with white stripe wire at the plug. Again I soldered all my connections, then shrink tubed them. To finish off the factory look I ran new loom and zip tied them in with all the other factory wires in the frame rail.
You should also check and double check that all your connections are correct before soldering or connecting your wires.
If you wired it up the way I have the 4X4 light will come on at the selector switch as well as the dash light (below the instrument cluster), same when you shift into 4low. You can bypass that by isolating the individual wires on the other side of the plug.
ie, the brown with white stripe goes in as 1 wire on one side of the plug and comes out as 2 wires on the other side of the plug. You just have to do a quick test to see which is which. Same goes for the grey wire.
Now I know this will work for the 91-94 Explorers and most likely the 2nd gen BII's and rangers. First gen's I'm not so sure about. However it should be similar so you can figure it out from there.
59Bisquik sent me this. Might be useful to the 1st gen'ers
Mine is an 86 with a stock electric t-case. When I added my doubler, I kept the rear case electric and the front is obviously a manual. Right there on the frame rail was the plug. I just plugged it into the swith on the t-case and my dash lights worked. No splicing or anything like that.
If you have any questions just ask. I'm going to make a short tech page on the entire swap with all the details for anyone else interested in swapping t-cases.
Well I hoped that helped. If you have any questions or want to see something added to the tech write up please let me know.
Please note BII.org or myself are not responsible is you screw this up resulting in death or injury. Use at your own risk.
