What did you do to your Ranger today? (Part Deux!)

[2drxploder]

drove it to the jobsite (about 75 miles round trip), trying to get some miles on it b4 dyno-tune. check engine light popped on 3 code:, egr insufficient flow, bank 1 and 2 lean. it smells rich tho, and im getting about 9 miles to the gallon. could egr cause a lean reading or vice-versa?

 

[racsan]

Changed the oil, getting ready to put new ball joints in. With the speedometer now correct I know its getting 17-19 mpg. Not awful but not great, think it did a bit better with the 225/70’s than the 235/75’s that are on it now.

 

[Bgunner]

Last Saturday I swapped over the winter tires to the the summer set and wouldn't my luck be on my side and now they are forecasting 5-10 inches of snow now. I swear my luck is some of the worst out there. At least the GF is at the house over this time with a 4WD vehicle so I'm not stuck off of the hill when the stuff hits the fan this time. I still need to wash the truck and summer rims since the fronts are now on the rears with brake dust covering them, and a few finger prints sticking out like a sore thumb.

60°-65°-71°- 53°- SNOW!!! Anyone else want to live in the Berkshires? !@#$%^& weather here is just weird.

 

[lil_Blue_Ford]

So far nothing special with any of them, the red one has been my transportation for the week and the only side note was using the tailgate for a workbench yesterday to work on my lawn tractor. Tomorrow and this weekend it gets put back to work again.

The only related thing going on besides accumulating more parts for the trucks was an idle thought about converting the red one to coilovers in the front. The one spring mount is pretty rusty and I haven’t been able to find a replacement in stock that isn’t stupid money so the next thought was well, what about build my own mounts and throw coilovers on the front. Unfortunately I know very little about coilovers and most of what I found involves ricers or conversions on torsion bar Rangers, which got me thinking about that with the green Ranger (like I need to add more to that project, lol), but doesn’t have anything really to do with a TTB truck....

 

[Naddanme]

I got my new hubs in.

 

[2drxploder]

Did some reading on the interwebs, my symptoms are leading me to a vacuum leak, im going to try propane to find it. Seems safer than starting fluid or some other spray..

 

[Dirtman]

Smoke is even safer...

 

[2drxploder]

Yes, but I don't have smoke machine. Any suggestions?

 

[Dirtman]

Go get yourself a cigar, cover up the throttle body, light your stogie and puff it into the brake booster line. Or for around 30 bucks you can make a smoke machine from a paint can, a tiki torch wick, a propane regulator and some resistance wire. I'll try to find a DIY video, mine works great.

 

[Rowdy Fitzgerald]

Or, if you’re suspecting it to be a vacuum line, start it up, pull the lines one by one then cover that vacuum port with a finger then rev the engine. Any improvement in acceleration will indicate that, that vacuum line has a leak.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I've never done the smoke machine testing... but I have used propane since the early 80's.

Old habits are hard to break... and it works really well.

 

[2drxploder]

I'm a lil nervous about introducing flammable gas near engine. Just remembered we have a smoke blower at work for hard to find sewer gas smells, im taking it home after work and see if I can try to get it to work for me, if not I'll pull out the propane torch, actually mine is MAP gas torch I assume it would work the same?

 

[Dirtman]

I've never done the smoke machine testing... but I have used propane since the early 80's.

Old habits are hard to break... and it works really well.

It does work. Sometimes not on pinhole leaks and does not work on the evap system though.

 

[Dirtman]

I'm a lil nervous about introducing flammable gas near engine. Just remembered we have a smoke blower at work for hard to find sewer gas smells, im taking it home after work and see if I can try to get it to work for me, if not I'll pull out the propane torch, actually mine is MAP gas torch I assume it would work the same?

Map, propane... same difference for the intended purpose.

 

[2drxploder]

smoke test was a big ol fail! the smoke candles must have drawn moisture in our shop at work, only the fuses would ignite. moving onto propane, i saw no change in idle around any vacuum lines, base of injectors, intake gaskets, intake tube sensors, or anywhere else. also tried wd-40 at my brothers suggestion, no changes here other than a messy engine bay. put the scanner back on it now showing random misfire, in addition to egr, bank1, and bank2 lean. attempted data logging to view fuel trim, long term fuel trim bank 1 and 2 had a reading of 1.20-1.25