- Joined
- Jun 23, 2020
- Messages
- 9
- Reaction score
- 7
- Points
- 3
- Location
- Sweden
- Vehicle Year
- 1989
- Make / Model
- Ford Ranger
- Engine Type
- 2.9 V6
- Transmission
- Automatic
- 2WD / 4WD
- 4WD
Hi there, newcomer to the forum and to Ford Rangers.
(If this should be in another forum-section, pleaser let me know.)
TLDR; HELP!!! I can't get it out of 4wd, can't get it into R and I have a video to prove it below.
Longer version.
Bought a -89 Ranger of a buddy yesterday. It has a few issues here and there, but being a car that has lived it's whole life in Sweden and is rust-free, I bought it as a fixer upper. Now, the issues it had up to a few hour ago are things like fubard fan-clutch, broken tempsensor and a bad generator/voltage-regulator was something I could live with for a while, but now something new just happened...
I went driving for a bit this morning w/o any issues, and when I came back home I decided to do some work on the truck. It had an old tape-recorder in it, so I started out with popping in a cd with a AUX input and got some Spotify going while I continued the day.
I cleaned out the past 5 years of dirt and dog-hair from the interior, cleaned the windows inside and out and took care of the vinyl.
I went to start her up to move it a bit closer to the barn when I realised I had drained the battery with all that speed-metal that was blasting out of the speaker.... Thankfully I have a spare battery on a charger for these kind of situations (you live, you learn) so I popped on some jumpercables and fired her up.
At this point I see that the 4wd is engaged and the 4 Lo is blinking. I push the button to turn it off. Nothing.
I put it into N and push the button. Nothing.
I drive a few meters forward and push. Yeah, you get the drill.
It's basically stuck in 4wd.
To make matters worse, I can't shift into R. The gears are just grinding, badly.
And well, to add insult to injury, there are some not-to-pleasant clunking/snapping sounds from the driveshafts and/or transfercase in the front.
List of underlying problems that maybe causes the issue:
Low voltage - The generator (and most likely battery) will need to get checked at. O emptied the battery woth the domelight and a stereo in 20 mins. Can low voltage make it so that the shift motor doesn't work correctly? IIRC the battery reads somewhere around 12.4V with the engine running. On an european car I would say that anything below 13.5 is kinda bad. I do hear clicks from behind when pushing the buttons in the dash.
Something got disconnected - I pulled the stereo again and made sure that the connector on the back of the switchpanel was secure. It actually was popped out a few mm.
One of the front wheels has a smaller diameter - One wheel is 235/15, the other is 245/15. The buddy had a flat a few weeks back. Im thinking this can be an issue with driveshafts turning slightly dirrerent and it creates a lockup that the shiftermotor cant pull apart.
I filmed a short video on how it behaves when I am in different gears and pushing the buttons.
Sorry for the Swedish accent, but hey, Im Swedish so.
Any ideas on where to start?
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(If this should be in another forum-section, pleaser let me know.)
TLDR; HELP!!! I can't get it out of 4wd, can't get it into R and I have a video to prove it below.
Longer version.
Bought a -89 Ranger of a buddy yesterday. It has a few issues here and there, but being a car that has lived it's whole life in Sweden and is rust-free, I bought it as a fixer upper. Now, the issues it had up to a few hour ago are things like fubard fan-clutch, broken tempsensor and a bad generator/voltage-regulator was something I could live with for a while, but now something new just happened...
I went driving for a bit this morning w/o any issues, and when I came back home I decided to do some work on the truck. It had an old tape-recorder in it, so I started out with popping in a cd with a AUX input and got some Spotify going while I continued the day.
I cleaned out the past 5 years of dirt and dog-hair from the interior, cleaned the windows inside and out and took care of the vinyl.
I went to start her up to move it a bit closer to the barn when I realised I had drained the battery with all that speed-metal that was blasting out of the speaker.... Thankfully I have a spare battery on a charger for these kind of situations (you live, you learn) so I popped on some jumpercables and fired her up.
At this point I see that the 4wd is engaged and the 4 Lo is blinking. I push the button to turn it off. Nothing.
I put it into N and push the button. Nothing.
I drive a few meters forward and push. Yeah, you get the drill.
It's basically stuck in 4wd.
To make matters worse, I can't shift into R. The gears are just grinding, badly.
And well, to add insult to injury, there are some not-to-pleasant clunking/snapping sounds from the driveshafts and/or transfercase in the front.
List of underlying problems that maybe causes the issue:
Low voltage - The generator (and most likely battery) will need to get checked at. O emptied the battery woth the domelight and a stereo in 20 mins. Can low voltage make it so that the shift motor doesn't work correctly? IIRC the battery reads somewhere around 12.4V with the engine running. On an european car I would say that anything below 13.5 is kinda bad. I do hear clicks from behind when pushing the buttons in the dash.
Something got disconnected - I pulled the stereo again and made sure that the connector on the back of the switchpanel was secure. It actually was popped out a few mm.
One of the front wheels has a smaller diameter - One wheel is 235/15, the other is 245/15. The buddy had a flat a few weeks back. Im thinking this can be an issue with driveshafts turning slightly dirrerent and it creates a lockup that the shiftermotor cant pull apart.
I filmed a short video on how it behaves when I am in different gears and pushing the buttons.
Sorry for the Swedish accent, but hey, Im Swedish so.
Any ideas on where to start?
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="
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