Welcome Sir! What a clean machine!
Regarding the oil consumption, is it burning or leaking, or both? Also tell us how many miles on her she's got and what if any service & maintenance are you planning to perform? BTW, The transfer case takes ATF. It's an easy service.
I won this truck in an auction on bringatrailer.com. The seller was insistent that the truck only had 17xxx miles. Here is the page for the backstory:
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1989-ford-ranger-3/
I drove from Helena MT to Jackson Hole with my wife to pick up the truck this past weekend. Keep in mind, this is a +/-300 mile, one-way trip. The truck was as advertised, extremely clean, good quality paint job, clean interior, etc. Before I handed over the check to the seller, I took the truck for a 20 mile test drive. On the way back to pay for the truck, I decided to stop and fill up with gas. At this point, I decided to check the oil (truck was parked on a slope when I first saw it). It turned out to be 1.5 quarts low. No sign of leakage whatsoever, and just a very faint black ring around the exhaust pipe. The oil was dark but did not smell of fuel.
After paying for the truck, my wife and I took off for home. For those of you not familiar with the area, Jackson Hole is at roughly 6200' elevation, and Teton Pass is at 8432'. My trip home required me to go over Teton Pass. The Ranger pulled the pass with ZERO issues in 3rd gear. The truck had plenty of oomph, which makes me believe that maybe, just maybe the 17k mileage claim was correct.
We continue on our way and stop in a little town about 90 miles into the trip home to have some lunch. I decide to check the fluids after lunch, and the oil was down 2 quarts this time. My lovely wife said that she could see occasional puffs of black smoke from the exhaust while I was driving. Hmmmmm.....
So we continue on our way and stop about midway home. This time I was only down about a quart in oil. I stopped at NAPA and bought a 5-quart bottle of Rotella 15w40 to top off the thirsty engine.
By the time I got home, 300 miles and 6 hours from the start of the trip, the truck had consumed 6 quarts total. My guess is the rings are horribly carboned in place. The funny thing is, I can get no smoke from the exhaust at idle or even giving it a few seconds of high revs. There is absolutely no oil leaking from the engine, and the tailpipe still only has a faint black smudge on the tip.
My plan is to rebuild or replace the engine with another 2.3 L that isn't so thirsty. I have been looking for one of these era Rangers for years, and I have no intention of letting a little oil consumption deter me from my dream truck.
Any thoughts or input? I also want to swap in AC to make this old boy the ultimate DD.
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