What did you do to your Ranger today? (Part Deux!)

[Rick W]

@Rick W

You’re welcome.

Thank you!

 

[holyford86]

Got my replacement cab moved into my garage today and started messing with it a bit. I found lots of small holes here and there but its still better than the cab on my supercharged truck by a long shot. It'll give me something to work on during the fall and into the winter. Going to try to fix every spot I can find in the hopes I never have to do this again.

 

[Rick W]

Update on the Road Ranger tuneup. I ran the tank down to 8 gallons, and I put 8 ounces of “Cataclean” in the tank. The cute little brunette is about 35 miles away, and I ran it up there and back one or two gears lower than I usually drive, per the instructions. The instructions want you to get it hot and keep the engine at a higher RPM to create maximum flow through the catalytic converter. Too early to see if that was an issue or help.

By accident, but then I duplicated it, a couple times I was driving with the gas pedal right at the point where it’s not accelerating, but it’s not decelerating, just feeding gas for as fast as the truck was going. Although there wasn’t a significant change in power, I did have the sense that one cylinder may be coming in for a little while and then going out for a little while. I already have all new plugs and wires.

With all the things I’ve tried and the advice I’ve received from TRS, I finally came around to a dreaded thought: fuel injectors.

View attachment 133684

I had that reaction because every time I ever fooled with fuel injectors on what I used to drive, it always started in high three $$$ digits. I had an equally positive reaction when I looked online and realized I could buy a set of six for $35. Ordered. Woo hoo!!

View attachment 133686

Question: is checking the injectors as simple as connecting and disconnecting the electrical on them one by one to see if it makes a difference in the engine, like you pull spark plug wires? I’ve had to pay to fix them before, but I never diagnosed them.

So here’s the current plan. I’m going to fiddle with the fuel injection wiring and see if that makes any difference, if maybe I have a bad connection somewhere.

The compression test kit came in, so I’m going to try that.


View attachment 133685

If that doesn’t reveal anything, I’m going to put the injectors in. Is there any way to test if they’re good so I can save the good ones as spare parts?

If that doesn’t get the results, I’m going to temporarily cut out my cat and see if I have just fouled that.

I don’t mind the extra work considering the mileage on this thing (320) and that I’d like to keep it for a long time. It’s a hoot and I get a lot of attention every time I drive it.

I also bought a used Santana CD to ease the process

View attachment 133693

If anybody has any wisdom/comments on a cylinder going in and out (or anything else), please comment.

Update on the update. I put the $30+ Cataclean in the tank, 1 ounce per gallon, and I ran it back-and-forth at a lower gear and a very high RPM to the cute little brunette’s house the other day as stated earlier. Other than that, it’s been sitting a couple days. I still had a few gallons of the mix in the tank.

This afternoon, I was heading back to the cute little brunette, so I figured it would be a good time to run it at a high RPM and run the rest of the mix through.

When I started it up and left out, I almost crapped my pants. It was only running on three or four cylinders I had to rev it really high to get it to go down the road at 20 miles an hour, and it just about stalled in third gear. Never got above 30 miles an hour. I figured or hoped it would blow out in a mile.

At a mile and a half, running in the right lane of a four lane with my flashers on, I said this is ridiculous and started to plan my turnaround to head home again and swap vehicles. As I executed the U-turn, expecting it to be near dead, I stomped the gas and it jumped forward. So I turned around again heading for the cute little brunette.

It’s sputtered and hesitated like crazy, but you could tell it was getting better. It’s 3 or 4 miles to the interstate, and then like 30 miles up the interstate, and then a couple miles to her house. By the time I got to the interstate, it was running OK, not great, and I ran it up the interstate at 70 in fourth gear. You guys probably heard it from up there.

When I pulled off the interstate, it was running pretty good. I met the cute little brunette and said to myself don’t let it ruin your evening.

When I left her house, it was almost purring like a kitten. I stopped at the corner and filled it up. There was a very noticeable 10 or 20% increase in the power. It also was performing very smoothly, most notably when I engaged that stage three clutch at near zero idle.

I ran it home in fifth gear at 75 without a hitch. It absolutely is running infinitely better, and sounds much smoother. I still hear a little gergle and a tiny popping at lower RPMs, but it totally smooths out as the RPMs pick up. The first round of seafoam really didn’t make a difference, but this cataclean has made a tremendous difference. Worth every nickel. Highly recommend it!

But a question: I may still have a slight miss. How does the coil pack work underneath the spark plug wires? Is it like six individual little coils or what? Is that something I could fiddle with or change out? How?

I’m still planning on doing the injectors, but that may be abandoned if it runs even better before they come in.

Didn’t crap my pants, now I’m saying holy crap!

 

[scotts90ranger]

Update on the update. I put the $30+ Cataclean in the tank, 1 ounce per gallon, and I ran it back-and-forth at a lower gear and a very high RPM to the cute little brunette’s house the other day as stated earlier. Other than that, it’s been sitting a couple days. I still had a few gallons of the mix in the tank.

This afternoon, I was heading back to the cute little brunette, so I figured it would be a good time to run it at a high RPM and run the rest of the mix through.

When I started it up and left out, I almost crapped my pants. It was only running on three or four cylinders I had to rev it really high to get it to go down the road at 20 miles an hour, and it just about stalled in third gear. Never got above 30 miles an hour. I figured or hoped it would blow out in a mile.

At a mile and a half, running in the right lane of a four lane with my flashers on, I said this is ridiculous and started to plan my turnaround to head home again and swap vehicles. As I executed the U-turn, expecting it to be near dead, I stomped the gas and it jumped forward. So I turned around again heading for the cute little brunette.

It’s sputtered and hesitated like crazy, but you could tell it was getting better. It’s 3 or 4 miles to the interstate, and then like 30 miles up the interstate, and then a couple miles to her house. By the time I got to the interstate, it was running OK, not great, and I ran it up the interstate at 70 in fourth gear. You guys probably heard it from up there.

When I pulled off the interstate, it was running pretty good. I met the cute little brunette and said to myself don’t let it ruin your evening.

When I left her house, it was almost purring like a kitten. I stopped at the corner and filled it up. There was a very noticeable 10 or 20% increase in the power. It also was performing very smoothly, most notably when I engaged that stage three clutch at near zero idle.

I ran it home in fifth gear at 75 without a hitch. It absolutely is running infinitely better, and sounds much smoother. I still hear a little gergle and a tiny popping at lower RPMs, but it totally smooths out as the RPMs pick up. The first round of seafoam really didn’t make a difference, but this cataclean has made a tremendous difference. Worth every nickel. Highly recommend it!

But a question: I may still have a slight miss. How does the coil pack work underneath the spark plug wires? Is it like six individual little coils or what? Is that something I could fiddle with or change out? How?

I’m still planning on doing the injectors, but that may be abandoned if it runs even better before they come in.

Didn’t crap my pants, now I’m saying holy crap!

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me unless your cat melted into a wad and eliminated itself...

The coil pack is 3 coils with paired cylinders

I actually did some things to Rangers today! I put a charger on the '90 so it would start and spent like an hour trying to flush out the heater core on the '97, it was gross, took 3 buckets of water with a drill pump to get the sludge out back flushing it, chunks came out too conveniently... it got bad enough that the coolant temp gauge stopped going up and I've gotten a code for too low of coolant temp to go into closed loop fuel control twice... (on the Lima's in the '95-01 the temp sensor is in the heater circuit). I'm not too hopeful yet, I do have a heater core but absolutely not looking forward to changing it...

 

[ekrampitzjr]

I actually did some things to Rangers today! I put a charger on the '90 so it would start and spent like an hour trying to flush out the heater core on the '97, it was gross, took 3 buckets of water with a drill pump to get the sludge out back flushing it, chunks came out too conveniently... it got bad enough that the coolant temp gauge stopped going up and I've gotten a code for too low of coolant temp to go into closed loop fuel control twice... (on the Lima's in the '95-01 the temp sensor is in the heater circuit). I'm not too hopeful yet, I do have a heater core but absolutely not looking forward to changing it...

I thought about trying to flush the heater core in mine a while back, but when I've changed the coolant, the old stuff was still so clean that I could see the bottom of the bucket it was in. No rust or other contamination visible. That's a benefit of long-life coolant as Ford began using years ago. So I figured I'd better leave well enough alone with the heater core and not bother flushing it.

 

[Rick W]

That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me unless your cat melted into a wad and eliminated itself...

The coil pack is 3 coils with paired cylinders

I actually did some things to Rangers today! I put a charger on the '90 so it would start and spent like an hour trying to flush out the heater core on the '97, it was gross, took 3 buckets of water with a drill pump to get the sludge out back flushing it, chunks came out too conveniently... it got bad enough that the coolant temp gauge stopped going up and I've gotten a code for too low of coolant temp to go into closed loop fuel control twice... (on the Lima's in the '95-01 the temp sensor is in the heater circuit). I'm not too hopeful yet, I do have a heater core but absolutely not looking forward to changing it...

Understood, I can’t explain it all, but that’s the results I’m having. The guy before me maintained it very well, but I’ve got a feeling I had 320,000 miles of varnish buildup and little gunk everywhere after the gas tank, so when I put in this superduper stuff, it all came loose but blocked up the injectors until I ran it a few miles. Still running like a top this morning. In hindsight, I’m thinking the soot came from the one spark plug that came loose for some reason. Who knows?

 

[Rick W]

I thought about trying to flush the heater core in mine a while back, but when I've changed the coolant, the old stuff was still so clean that I could see the bottom of the bucket it was in. No rust or other contamination visible. That's a benefit of long-life coolant as Ford began using years ago. So I figured I'd better leave well enough alone with the heater core and not bother flushing it.

People are going scream again when I say this one…

I learned it working in the plants when I was younger, and in engineering school, but if there’s a really gunked up cooling system, we would mix a moderate acid solution and flush it.

Basically, you flush it out as well as you can. Then mix a fairly strong acid water mix with hydrochloric acid or my preference, muriatic acid. Pour that in, circulate it around and let it sit an hour or two.

SAFETY: “Do as you auta, add acid to wauta!!” Never pour water into the acid. Always pour acid into the water, very slowly, very carefully, with gloves, safety glasses, face shield, etc. If you pour the water into the acid, it could borderline explode from the reaction,, and cover you with acid. Not a good thing

Let me interject, that the acid doesn’t work like you see in the cartoons, where they dip in a spoon for five seconds, and the spoon disappears. Anything organic will be affected fairly quickly, but it would take a long time to affect the aluminum and copper and the solder joints, etc..

Then you drain that out as completely as you can. Then fill the system with water and circulate it for a while, and then dump that out. Then mix a little bit of grocery store white vinegar with water and rinse it out one more time.

Most of the acid will come out when you drain it from the initial flush. The water flush will remove more of it, so there will be very little left when you do the vinegar flush. The vinegar will neutralize any remaining acid, and if there’s residual vinegar, it won’t hurt anything.

Then mix up your antifreeze like usual and run it through. If you have a leak after that, it didn’t come from the acid. The acid just cleaned the gunk off and found it for you instead of you finding it on the highway in the middle of the night

My two cents, hope it helps

 

[jayton13]

Today's Update:

Re-patched my tailgate paint job where my ranger was missing a chunk of paint due to a "Commercial Vehicle" sticker from hell that pulled all the paint off down to the metal except for the letters that said "Commercial Vehicle". I had previously painted that over but the clear coat hadn't cured before I accidentally hit it with some bed liner overspray on Friday and then I wiped it with acetone. It was a mess.

Next was replacing the following:
Headlights (plus aiming them)
Fog Lights (one was busted but I replaced both)
Corner lights (went from clear to amber)
Door trim moulding (both sides)
Mounting passenger grab handle
Cleaning/prepping my tool box for mounting tomorrow

A few before/after photos:

 

[scotts90ranger]

This morning was chilly and the coolant temp gauge actually moved and worked some so flushing the heater core definitely helped... it was a rusty mess in there so it's likely still plugged pretty good. When I get a wild hair I'll put in the Prestone cooling system flush I picked up last week and run with that for a week to see if it gets things cleaned out more. I still didn't really have any heater output so I know it's restricted...

 

[sgtsandman]

I removed the HT DMR radio from the 2011 and installed a mobile version. That way, I can put the HT back in to the search and rescue vest and leave it there. The hardware part of the install is all done. I still need to build the channel list and program the radio.