Ranger owner needs help

[Eric Kropp]

Mine used to do that "idle up and down" trick and fall on it's face a lot when starting out. And yes hills just make thing worse. By rebuilding the carb and changing the "map" (manifold absolute pressure) sensor, most all of that left. Also check and make sure your Idle-air adjustment is good. Mine was stumbling enough to irritate me and I kept adjusting the Idle-air out more and eventually realized that I was going about it backwards. Mine needed about 1 to 1-1/4 turnes out. I would consider checking the float level, though it sounds to me like you are at an RPM level that should be below the float levels time to be playing a part. I recently took my engine out and put a gasket kit on it with the exception of the head gaskets and re-installed it with the rebuilt carb and it runs better now then it has in the 18 years I've had the truck.

Eric

 

[enginepaul]

I'd look very hard for a vacuum leak because that would cause your problems. Look at the "tree" behind the carb for bad or loose hoses; test each line individually with a vacuum tester for best results.

 

[Eric Kropp]

For quite some time I had the same problem with my Ranger. It got a whole lot better when a smog guy worked on the EGR System. Then several years later I took the engine out and put a complete gasket kit (except head gaskets) on because of oil leakage. When I re-installed the engine I rebuilt the carburetor and made sure all the vacuum lines were "solid". The other thing I did in the process of installing all the new gaskets was to completely clean the whole EGR system, meaning all the passages that go throught the intake manifold, through the heads and into the exhaust manifolds. These were really plugged up on mine, and I presume most 2.8's are this way. Another thing to consider is the MAP sensor on the right inner fender. If these are bad they will cause all kinds of "bonking" and jerky acceleration and deceleration. I also found that the Idle-Air adjustment screws have a lot to do with hesitation off of idle. Make sure you have not backed them out too much. Mine are about 1 to 1-1/4 turn. All the stuff you are describing sounds just like mine used to be. All of that stuff went away when I put the gasket kit on my engine and took my time installing the engine making sure everything was as right as possible.

Hope this helps

Eric<><

 

[Forcus]

I think the first thing to do is to get out of the parts swapping mentality and get in to the parts testing frame of mind. I don't blame you - most people are swappers - it takes time and some knowledge to be a tester. The carb replacement, for example, was likely unnecessary and may have introduced other variables (no guarantee that the rebuild was a great one, or that adjustments were spot on, etc). If you don't have smog, you can rip off all of the extraneous plumbing (such as I am doing) and use an aftermarket carb setup (like a Holley or Weber) or backdate to an older setup (Mustang II, Capri, etc). But since you have smog, your options are:
- Diagnose your current system
- Update to a newer, FI setup on the stock engine
- Update to a newer, FI engine
Personally, it depends on what you are doing, and your fear of fuel injection. I personally do not like feedback carbs as you get all of the complexity of fuel injection with none of the benefits (off camber fuel delivery, reliability, consistency in different driving conditions, etc). But if it's your daily driver, I doubt you want to make it a science project either.

If it was going to be a 90% off roader / 10% street driver, FI all the way. If it was going to be a clean, reliable, stock daily driver, diagnose the stock system.

 

[Old Red Ranger]

I am having the same problem as of late, I am going to replace the plugs, air & fuel filters, and do a carb adjustment today, I will let you know how it turns out. I am thinking it may also have something to do with the dist. cap or coil, but haven't checked them yet

 

[Old Red Ranger]

Did the aforementioned work yesterday and so far it seams to run MUCH better. I only had it running for a minute or to last night after doing the mini tune up, it never got up to normal operating temp, so, hard to say if the problem is fixed or not. The kid I bought the truck from had a set of bosch platinum plugs in it, didn't know that til last night when I removed them. I replaced them with the proper Motorcraft plugs, put a new fram air filter on, and patched 4 cracked or broken hard emissions lines. Also replaced the 1/4" ID vac hose coming from the front base of the carb to the air control valve on top of the air cleaner cover as it was split, soaked with oil/gas and leaking at the carb end. When I removed the fuel filter a large black clump of trash fell out, I suspect this was my major problem, but I'm sure all the other items helped out a lot. I'm about to go out in the garage and fix that stripped bolt hole in the bellhousing and put my new starter on. After that I'll test drive it for a few miles and let you know if the problem is actually fixed. Good luck with yours

- J

 

[F84R]

I had my friends dad adjust the carb after I replaced the sensor on the egr valve and I cleaned that out real good and I am happy to say I am getting 16.5mpg.

I did a compression test today in class and the readings look pretty good. cylinder leakage test looks pretty good too. I think I am in good shape.

 

[F84R]

Ok I am looking into the fuel injection swap. but I have a few questions about that as well. First of all will I be able to pass emissions if I do convert?