I helped a friend change the fuel pump on his '94 Ranger pickup today. I read on a forum on the website www.explorerforum.com that it would be easier to access the pump by removing the bed versus dropping the tank. It only took about 15 minutes to remove his bed mounted toolbox, bedrails, bedliner, tailgate and then the bed itself.
If you ever need to do it, you'll just need a T55 Torx bit and common hand tools. The bed is held down by 6 Torx bolts, and then you unplug the taillight harness under the left rear of the bed and take 3 screws out of the filler neck flange inside the gas door. Then get a couple strong friends and lift it off. Two people could probably handle it, but it was easy with 3 of us. Set it on the front end as you see in the picture below, to prevent bending the lower part of the fenders.
At that point, the pump/sending unit was right there, easily accessible. We installed the new unit easily. We noticed that the filler neck was cracked at both ends, with the worst being where it attached to the tank itself. He told me that he had noticed gas spilling out when he filled the tank, but couldn't see where it was coming from. After seeing the cracks in the filler hose, it all made sense.
With a new filler neck costing about $300 from the dealer, we opted to get an aftermarket part off of eBay for $66 shipped. When it arrives next week, we'll take the bed off again and install the new filler neck. That should take care of it, hopefully.
