1983 2.3L fuel/air issue (i think)

[FEARTH38EARD]

Hello anyone who may be able to help.. I have a 83 ranger, 2.3l with the 1bbl carb, 3 spd. auto. I think i am having issues with the carb. When cold starting i have to keep my foot on the gas a little to keep it reving higher until it is warm enough that the butterfly stays open (it hates being choked). If i do not do this it will die shortly after firing up, and then will not start unless i manually open the butterfly, and then start. After its good and warm it will fire right up. Also, i am getting what i consider to be horrible gas milage (around 13 or 14) around town. Part of this could be all the reving that has to be done upon cold starting... When i take the air box off of the carb i can hear a lot of air sucking into the intake of the carb while idleing... Dont know if this is normal, or a vacuum leak? This is my first carbureted vehicle and i dont know anything about them. Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thanks.

 

[FEARTH38EARD]

also, it has a serious lack of power... i know its just a 2.3 but i think it should have more pep than it does... maybe do a compression check? would a dead cylinder make it starve for air?

 

[Mark_88]

Welcome to TRS~!

If the truck otherwise runs fine after it warms up you do not have a vacuum leak. The carbs do make quite a bit of noise drawing air into them and it is usually dampened by the breather.

Your fuel economy may be hitting the skids due to engine wear and a compression test would be a good place to start as well as a leak-down test.

Other sources of poor fuel economy are many and include tire pressure, general tuneup required (plugs and wires), dirty air filter, improperly tuned carb, and carrying excess weight in the truck. The prolonged warmup can make a huge difference though, and if you put in a block heater it will cut down the warm up time to almost nothing...and that way you can eliminate the choke altogether.

My truck never used to need choke even on the coldest days. After my rebuild a few years ago it has had problems with cold starts...the in-hose block heater eliminated those problems for now. Just changing the head on mine due to, what I hope, a cracked head and leaky valve seals (or both).

You can figure these out yourself and most are easy to do without too much mechanical experience. Keep us posted with the compression test results if you have time...always nice to have feedback!

 

[b23]

Simply put, carburetors are a really fun PITA!

To me it simply sounds like it needs to be tuned. The carbs I worked on have adjustable chokes, low and high fuel trims which can all play a part in your problem here. There are a few things you can do to test if the carb is leaking, I would take the carb off, ensure the butterflies are closed all the way, and introduce some smoke underneath the plates. If you see smoke leaking out from somewhere other than the butterflies, you have a vacuum leak! I would even bolt the carb to something and introduce pressure to the smoke to push it out of the vacuum leak, though that may be hard to do for someone with the tools. My first carbed car had two dual barrel Weber carbs so I had to get pretty creative in my testing methods...

Alternately if you dont want to do that, you can take some carb cleaner or starter fluid and spray it around the base of the carb once the engine reaches a relatively stable idle. If there is a vacuum leak, instead of taking in clean air from above the butterflies, it will take in the carb cleaner from the base where you sprayed, and the idle will jump. This is a relatively easy, if somewhat unreliable, way to tell if there is a vacuum leak. If you do this make sure to spray at about a 45 degree angle down, to ensure any overspray goes down instead of up into the carb intake path.

 

[FEARTH38EARD]

Gents-

thank you for the advice! Sunday is my only day off this week, and i am hoping to find some time that day to do the compression test, and also some tinkering to check for vacuum leaks...

Mark,

for the most part, after it is good and warm it runs pretty good. It idles a little rough, but not horrible. Another thing that might be worth mentioning is that the previous owner had taken the air pump out of the equation. its still there, just not hook up to a belt or the air breather. Dont know if this could be causing issues as well? Im pretty sure i can rule out any ignition problems as i just replaced the plugs, wires, cap and rotar, coil, and ignition control module. But, we will see after the compression check is done. if that proves to provide bad news, there is a guy locally selling a rebuilt block, bored 30 over for $350. to me this sounds like a good deal. and if that ends up happening i will have to decide what all i want to do with the head, and intake manifold. I have followed a lot of your stuff on here Mark, as far as other options with manifolds and carbs for these engines, and any suggestions there would be apreciated. thanks again! compression results to come.

 

[Mark_88]

$350 for a rebuilt block is not a bad deal at all. It would cost you that much to have one rebuilt (including buying the block to rebuild).

I don't think the air pump would be causing a problem unless you have an open vacuum line due to the pump being activated (valve opened to allow air to blow into the cat). This usually only happens at higher idle so it's probably not a factor.

As for intakes and carb swaps, there are a few options that would work. I'm not familiar with the one bbl intake other than looking at them in junkyards and moving on to find a 2 bbl but I'm pretty sure they are limiting your power somewhat. I did put one on about ten years ago and my truck actually ran pretty good...except I couldn't get it to idle properly so I dumped that when I found a good intake from a 78 Mustang II (as you've probably read a few times...lol).

It really depends on how much you want to spend on that upgrade because you can buy intakes that will open up your engine quite a bit. If you are economizing and want to keep costs down then you might find one in a junkyard if you have that option in your area. I'd suggest the 78 Mustang II intake or similar. They can take most of the upgrade carbs either directly (Holly 350 and Motorcraft 5200). The Weber carbs are actually similar and may bolt right on also but I don't really have any experience other than what I've read on here.

You might want to check out Flaminranger, Cody93, and Gunfudan posts as they've all recently upgraded and posted some great info on here. Flaminranger, as you may have also read (Duane) recently lost his truck to an accident, but his information is still available.

Actually, there was quite a bit of activity on here in the last year about these upgrades and most seemed to have been done with good results (I guess we don't read about the not so good results).

Anyway, the results of the test will tell you what you need to know about the health of the current engine. They are not power houses by any means, but can be built to give satisfactory results and good solid reliability.

On another note, I mentioned the head swap and I just completed that. Seems to be running good but I will have to road test it and put on a few miles to see if it has actually accomplished my goal...reduced oil consumption. It's a good idea not to push these engines too much when they are older...and keeping the cooling system in top shape goes a long way to avoid the infamous cracked head.

 

[FEARTH38EARD]

great info Mark, really apreciated!

 

[FEARTH38EARD]

on sunday when i do my compression test i also want to remove my air pump. its not hooked up to any belts, and i believe it is seized anyway. the port on the air breather that accepts the hose from the air pump is capped. what else needs to be capped off in order to remove it? Just in case anyone is wondering Utah emmission laws dont require the air pump to be hooked up on vehicles from 1983 and up... so im not doing it "for off road use only" lol. it will still be completely legal in my state. But its just sitting there adding weight and looking ugly and taking up space.. Ive noticed alot of you that have the early carbed rangers dont have air pumps, and cant find a whole lot of info on what needs to be done to get rid of it.. as always any advice will be much apreciated, you guys are awsome!

 

[Mark_88]

Just the bracket to be removed and you can cap the inlet to the cat with a 1/2" copper pipe cap...fits perfectly...you may want to cut the pipe off nearest the cat to clean up that area anyway...

I recently was pulled over by the Ministry of Transport and they fined me $350 for not having the air pump hooked up. I would have offered to buy yours but I ended up putting in an electric air pump...I can still find the actual pumps around but the bracket is hard to find...mine actually snapped when the pump siezed...

But the bracket and vent pipe should be all that is holding you back on that one...and you could probably cut back the vac lines since they cross over or behind the VC and just seem to get in the way...or end up as smoldering blobs on the exhaust or EGR pipes.

 

[FEARTH38EARD]

sounds easy enough! thanks once again Mark. cant wait to get some time off of work to really start playing around with my ranger, but on the bright side, all the extra hours im puting in this week will provide some extra cash to take to the junk yards in search of an intake manifold (and if im super lucky a nice 2bbl carb already attached), and some 93-95 headers.. or if the compression test is bad possibly that block i was telling you about. but i hope that isnt the case.. we shall see. how are things going with that fresh head Mark?

 

[Mark_88]

Thanks for asking~!

The rebuilt head is installed and I test drove it for a couple of hours. The maiden voyage was a bit rough due to some adjustments needed with timing (distributor). I also fixed the accelerator bracket by drilling out the second hole and securing it better than it was. This caused a slight bit of slack on the cable at the pedal (more on this in a second) that had to be tightened up.

I still haven't pulled the #2 plug to see if it is still fouling (indicating a worse problem with rings) but will do that today. Over all, there is a big improvement in performance. I can now climb slight to steep hills without down shifting and maintain a good highway speed with power to spare when needed.

I had hooked up the EGR and PCV the way they were originally and had problems with that so had to stop them up again and reroute the hoses to my catch can for now.

Back to the cable...you might want to check to see if there is play in the gas pedal because this is actually quite common on Rangers. The cable gets stretched and you don't get full throttle out of it...meaning it seems to have no power at all. Adding zip ties around the end of the cable inside the cab takes out that slack and seems to give your motor new life...

Check that out because your lack of power may be as simple as that. There was an article in the Tech Library (great resource, btw) and plenty of people have used this with good to excellent results.

Might want to pick up another cable some day or carry a spare with you. Nothing like having a great running truck and being stuck on the side of the road because you simply cannot tap into the trucks power. Been there, done that...now I carry a spare!

EDIT: Just checked #2 plug...so far not soaked in oil...

 

[FEARTH38EARD]

wow! i have spent a lot of time in the tech library and have never read that article on the throttle cable mod... i am very excited to check this out in the morning! i feel like a broken record (thanking you every other sentance), but once again thank you Mark! you have provided me with a ton of helpful info. i wanted to try the zip ties before work tonight but didnt have any at home, and didnt have time to run to the store before work, but just lifting up on the gas peddle i might have as much as half of it that is not in use. this could be a huge factor in my lack of power! I am not even going to go to bed when i get off of work in the morning, just straight to the garage with my ranger! lol.

I am glad to hear of the success so far with the rebuilt head! And come to think of it now, when i replaced the plugs on my ranger a couple weeks ago (i had never seen plugs in that bad of shape) there was one or two that had oil on them, but mostly just black burnt buildup. So, its possible i have some issues going on with my head... if so, hopefully just a leak in the VC gasket.. But, like i have mentioned i have been working alot and havnt had time to really tear in to her yet. I will keep you posted on my findings tomorrow on the compression test, the throttle cable mod, the air pump removal, and anything else i find time for. Once again congrats on the success so far on the rebuilt head!

 

[kimcrwbr1]

Did you change the PCV, I allways just change it with tuneups they can cause all kinds of wierd symptoms. The old shake it if it rattles its good doesnt work nor can you clean one, just replace it with plugs or even better with oil changes. If you have excess blowby almost surely the PCV is bad alot of guys will put in a pcv for a V-8 to count for the excess blow by from rings and or valve guide seals. After you do the compression leakdown be sure and write down the numbers, I allways test it three times on a cold engine 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4 1-2-3-4. If your not within 10% between high and low numbers try a decarb. Get a can of seafoam and bring your engine up to normal temp and at a high idle pour half a can of seafoam in the carb and immediately shut it down. Wait half an hour and then start it and run it around 3000 rpm until the smoke show stops. Then after it fully cools down the next day or so do the compression leakdown again and compare numbers. The more the carbon buildup the more it will smoke make sure all windows and doors are closed in the houst and hopefully a breeze is blowing.

 

[FEARTH38EARD]

No, i havnt ever changed the PCV... thanks for the heads up! I'll be quite honest, i dont know where the PCV is, but i will do some research and find it and replace it... with the seafoam i dump half a can down the intake of the carb? never done it before... i will try this pending the results of the compression test. i cant do a real leak down test, dont have a compressor or the leak down test tool..

 

[kimcrwbr1]

Yea for the seafoam rev the engine to about 2000 rpm and pour it in the carb at a rate to almost stall the motor and immediately shut it down. Put the other half in the fuel tank from the sounds of it a carb rebuild is not a bad idea.