ForOffRoadDriving's 94 Ranger Build

[stegomon]

holy freekin crap man....you froze my computer 3 times!!! very indepth looks awsome!!!!

 

[Mechanickid]

seems like alot of $$ to dump into a 3.0 2wd ranger.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

yeah youre right mechanic kid, its a lot of money for a 2wd, but i plan on DDing this thing until the wheels dont roll anymore, which i figure will be 10-15 years. ive got about $9k into it, but even at that price you cant buy a brand new 94 ranger with 0 miles on it. last night i built a transmission adapter plate for my floor jack after realizing the one that i bought wasnt going to work due to the fact that the andgle-adjustment feature made it too tall to fit under the frame rail while my truck is on jack stands. http://www.sjdiscounttools.com/sun7702.html
ill have pictures of the jack adapter and the transmission back in the truck hopefully on monday.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

to clear up the cat issue alittle, i had 2 catalytic converters, 1 was from the blue ranger and 1 was from my purple parts truck. i welded new flanges on both cats, but decided to gut the rustiest one just so i would have a "free flowing" cat, INCASE i ever needed a true test pipe to eliminate a converter problem. i was originally going to make a thru pipe to eliminate it all together, but with the 3-bolt oval flanges on the y-pipe it looked like it would be easier to gut 1 cat then to make a custom flange and smash up a 3 or 3-1/2" pipe to fit in the oval flange and then adapt it down to the 2" pipe the rest of the exhaust is running.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

well we fired it up and everything went well, except for a misfire on 1 cylinder.... or so i thought. I suspected the fuel injectors because they were original and had 180K+ miles on them so out they came and in went 6 new ones. heres some pics of that job

i also noticed a oil leak between the engine and trans so i put some tracerline oil die in my oil and bought the uv glasses and flashlight to help me pin point my leak. the oil was coming from the rear main seal, so at the same time i was doing the injectors i pulled the trans back off and replaced the seal. once i put everything back together i once again fired it up, only to be disappointed by the same problems again, a leaking rear main seal and a misfire. I went to work the next day and told everyone what was up and how bummed out i was and a co worker said he'd bring over his OTC genisys scanner and see what we could figure out. it took about an hour of touble shooting ( checked for spark, checked compression (150lbs on all 6), checked injector resistance (16.2) and used a noid light to check the injector harness (lots of flashing)), when Brian suggested we check my firing order and see if all the wires were in the correct order and sure enough i had two mixed up, so i was actually missing on 2 cylinders but since the were 180 degrees off from one another i didnt experience a violent shaking. i set the base timing last night and she runs like a raped ape! tonight im going to remove the trans again and pop the rear main seal out AGAIN and see if i can find the root of the problem. more pictures to come........

 

[out cast]

so your gonna do my explorer next right? nice job bro. truck looks good, get some nice paint on it and you'll have a lifelong rig.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

well it still leaks! the third time wasnt a charm so its back to the drawing board. what the heck could be causing this leak?

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

heres the pictures of the rear main i originally installed when i rebuilt it. its alittle tore up from the seal puller but i saw no indication of where it was leaking from.

here is seal #2 installed in the engine, flush with the back of the block

here i have the trans on a creeper waiting to be put it. I had a couple of friends come over to help me, but we were unsucessful, so i need to come up with a better way of taking this thing in and out.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

Here's some pictures of whats been holding this build up.

After the first 2 times going in and out with it i decided it would be much easier to remove the drivers seat to gain access to the transmission tunnel plate. By removing this I allow myself much more wiggle room and the shifter shaft doesnt gouge my undercoating as easily.

Ive got pulling the trans down to about an hour long procedure now since i built myself a trans plate for my floor jack and some alignment pins for the bellhousing.

I did manage to get a few things to go right for me though, as i got my autometer temp gauge hooked up to its own sensor not so that it reads the correct temperature now.

Last night i decided to make the brace for my second battery tray since ive been putting it off since january. Heres what i came up with so far

 

[Beef52751]

sweet build!!! did you figure out the rear main problem yet???
Beef

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

not yet. im still thinking its a problem with something else in the system because i dont see how i can keep leaking out of this seal unless my entire shaft is worn under spec? because other than that small groove, which i made sure not to put the seal back over, the crank is the same size all the way down into the block. does anyone know what the standard size for the end of the 3.0l crank is? journal sizes are easy to find, but i havent been able to come up with a size for the end of the crank.

 

[Kyle M.]

Do you have your PCV hooked up? Try and run it with the oil fill cap off, maybe you are building up crank case pressure and blowing oil out of the seal.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

thats what i was thinking that i was something easy like that. im going to disconnect the pcv and plug the intake feed with a vaccum cap and see what that does for me.

 

[Kyle M.]

That won't help, the PCV relieves pressure and if it isn't working you will get build up. If you remove it it is will take the vacuum off the the crankcase where it should be. Just leave it all alone and take your fill cap off and run it to test it.

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

it has a brand new valve in it so im thinking possibly a plugged hard vaccum line? i replaced all the rubber sections as i came across them, but i didnt check the plastic sections for blockage.