Idk wtf? All kinds of weirdo happenings....

[rusty ol ranger]

87 Ranger 2.9/5sp.

After the broken coil wire incident all was well till about a week ago....

I noticed a missfire, bad when cold, under load only when warm. I noticed the plug to the inertia switch was hotter then hell. Unplugged it, jumped past it, and oddly, the missing went away.

About 2 days after that the gasket between my cat and Y pipe blew out, well, 1/2 of it. Truck was still operating normal, just loudly.

Now, yesterday i went to fire it up and it ran about 10 min in my driveway and quit when i went to back it out. No fuel pump. Wtf? (Brand new pump)

Unplug jumper wire, plug in inertia switch, fires back up for ~15 seconds then goes into a low low idle and dies.

After that i heard the relay click out with the key still on...ok...bad relay. Replaced, no go. Noticed the brown wire was loose, plugged back in, have fuel pump and all seems to be well.

Now today, the damn thing is absolutly nutless. Like, can barely get 55 nutless, and sometimes will still go into a real low idle when you stop (but not stall), i get a midrange RPM missfire and it seems to lose power quickly after initial take off, but it feels weak all the way around.

It runs smooth otherwise, just, it seems to be responding slower then a 2.3 truck (no offense).

I thought plugged cat, i hear it rattle if i whack it with my hand, but surely to god with the amount of exhaust leaking out right ahead of itt would be fine?

I havent done the basic tune up stuff yet, but it doesnt act that way to me....

Ideas?

 

[fastpakr]

Do you have a vacuum and fuel pressure tester?

 

[rusty ol ranger]

No.

 

[Denisefwd93]

Rattle cat = bad cat

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Im just wondering if thats what blew the gasket outta the y pipe. Obviously the gasket was shot but...

 

[fastpakr]

Get a vacuum tester from your local chain auto parts store through their tool rental program. You can find instructions for using it to test the converter online.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[Denisefwd93]

If the flange is upstream of the cat obviously the pressure blew it out

Im just wondering if thats what blew the gasket outta the y pipe. Obviously the gasket was shot but...

 

[Dirtman]

A man who loves engines from days past and you have no vacuum gauge!?! Ball busting over... It definitely sounds like you've got serious exhaust issues. You can have exhaust flow but still have a blocked cat or muffler. A vacuum gauge can tell you this for certain. it can tell you if you have too much back pressure. Even on fancy pants modern engines a vacuum gauge is indispensable in my opinion.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Yes the flange is upstream of the cat, but its also a 31 yr old gasket in there....but i guess even with it 1/2 blown out still a good bit goes thru it, since its a 2 into 1 Y.

Ill get a vac gauge. This morning i was able to coax whatever speed i wanted from it, but if you hit a hill, itd lose 10mph, and felt very flaccid on take off. The cat is not glowing either.

But either way, ill get the vaccum gauge. See what happens.

I should add, i did a hokey exhaust repair to that gasket yesterday. Since i leave at 2 am and i dont wanna piss the neigbors off. I wrapped prolly, half a roll of aluminum foil around the flange (yes i know, just trying to get by till the F250 gets fixed), either way. It was very thick around the hole and blew out about 80ft after my driveway under light accleration.

I repaired a header flange on an old 351 in a similar way once and it held till i punched it to pass.

Would this be indicitive of an exhaust blockage?

 

[rusty ol ranger]

So, i dont think its the cat, even with the gasket 1/2 gone im still getting some exhaust from the tailpipe.

Since it happened rather suddenly, and the motor seems to be in overall good health, i dont *think* its compression.

So that leaves me with fuel and ignition.

I know a exhaust leak can kill your low end, i wonder if thats whats going on? It only seems super doggy when cruiseing and after 3rd gear. 1st and 2nd still seem "ok".

 

[fastpakr]

Test, don't guess.

 

[Denisefwd93]

Over the years I've had nightmares with cat converters all I can say is don't discount it, you may be surprised, they just don't last forever, I had one that was new only had about a thousand miles on it most of its time was sitting in the backyard with the car it was installed on, it rattled & broke turned sideways and blocked the pipe.

 

[Craig0320]

Rattle cat = bad cat

Rattle cat?

 

[chris78]

I don't see how it could be blockage, never seen anything like that. Even if it was sitting for a year and mice built a nest in the muffler, you'd blow those suckers clean out of there before the gasket. The engine would probably just die if it couldn't. I think its just what happens, when you have an old vehicle, things start to break down all at once.

I'd rule out all the 'thinks'. They sell those cheap cpu diagnostic readers at autozone, I'd start by pulling codes. Its the easiest thing to do, if you got no codes then look at the stuff the tester don't tell you.

I just changed out my y cat gasket, its a job, but doable. surely the same as yours, i have an 86 b2 with 2.9l. I just took out the 3 bolts with a nuckle and a long breaker bar, and pushed the whole exhaust sys from that point back out of the way. I had just enough room to get a gasket in there. Napa usually carries those on hand btw.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Im gonna get the gasket changed. Its just the whole issue is right now its all i got to drive, untill the shop gets my 97 done, so i cant put it up for any length of time to get anything fixed.

Ive been meanin to get an OBD 1 reader, guess nows a good time...

Once the other truck if fixed, and i can red tag this one for a while ill diagnose it.