New member with new (to me) '92 Ranger--got maintinance to do

[rdsrds123]

Hello everyone, love my new Ranger 2.3, only has 92k miles, but needs some work. It has the A$LD, I mean A4LD transmission. I have questions about this, first: Is the 14 bolt trans? Do 4WD Rangers have a deeper transmission oil pan, and will it fit on my Ranger? Will I need a new fluid pick up tube? I'm going to put on a medium duty trans cooler from Rock Auto parts. Extra to the Ranger, I have heard that sub-cooling a trans is not good, either. Any comments on this? I have pre-ignition issues, too. I am going to start figuring this one out by cleaning the MAF, when the snow melts in Baltimore. Should be soon. Any comments folks? Thanks so much!roger

 

[RonD]

Welcome to TRS

I can't speak to the transmission questions.

Engine pinging, if it started off slowly and is steadily getting worse, could be the EGR system getting plugged up.
Exhaust gas helps cool the cylinders under load, as strange as that sounds.
Pinging(knocking) is from the fuel/air mix self-igniting just before spark plug fires, the noise you hear is the two explosion wave fronts colliding.
Low Octane fuel self-ignites at a low temp than higher Octane(this is what Octane means, it is a heat rating for self -ignition).
So in engine design they can calculate the compression temperature on cold and warm engine then set fuel mix(richer mix cools cylinders), EGR parameters and spark timing to allow an engine to run on regular gas(low octane).

The computer runs the engine parameters based on EGR flow being "normal", it has no way to "know" what EGR flow is.

Not sure if the 1992 2.3l had a Knock sensor, this was used for a few years, when computer detected knocking via this sensor, it would retard the spark timing to stop the pinging.

You could also have dirty injectors, this leans out the fuel mix a bit which could cause the pinging, can of Seafoam in the gas tank once a year will clear that up.

 

[Road Angels]

ping

Unless you bought it from some one you know, the truck could have alot more miles than you think since the odometer flips back to zero at 99,999.9 miles mine says it only has 7,500 miles but has 307,500 miles so it may be carbon build up mine pings if I dont at least use mid grade, So as Ron says if its not the egr after checking it out, it maybe carbon on the pistons and combustion chambers, sea foam may help but if its like mine it wont carbon hard as rocks, but it wont hurt any thing either, i put it in my wifes car every year 2004 marquis