Starting an engine swap, I have no idea what I'm doing!!

[ChopTopII]

I have an '89 Bronco II that gave out on me on a particularly long, cold stretch of highway over the weekend. Now that that nightmare is over the true terror has begun! It's been looked over by a mechanic and unfortunately the engine is completely locked up. My options are scrap the whole thing (not on my life!), or start pouring money and parts into it.

My plan is to cobble some things together from a local junkyard but I need some help putting a shopping list together. So far I'm looking at a few parts; a Ranger tailgate, some nicer seats, a new dash but none of that solves the problem at hand.
The real meat and potatoes of it are, of course, an engine and the transmission it's paired with.

The Ford 4.0 liter seems to be a popular choice but those seem to be all taken, in part or whole.
My question then is will any Ford engine do? can it take a 4.6l? are all transmissions interchangeable so long as they match the engine? Is it worth the risk of running the same engine after doing a home rebuild? What should I be looking for so my money isn't wasted?

Any help would be very much appreciated

 

[duffy]

If you are looking at a drop in with no modification you will need another 2.9L. With some wiring modifications (Limited from what I have read) a 4.0L OHV will drop in and hook up to the existing trans. Any other engine will lead to larger and harder modifications. Folks dropping in a 5.0L V-8 is fairly common. Do a search on the site for "engine swaps" and you'll get lots of reading.
With lots of dollars you can put just about any motor in any vehicle.