1988 4x4 ranger first pick-up project

[JoeLeFou]

I finally got my license! yay I can drive alone now to the problem I have yet to determine, I tried to get the ranger back home but not even out in the street I stall( obviously am a noob) and doesn't want to start all lights go out but 3 on the dash that stay on even with the key out of the ignition. I had to disconnect the negative from the batterie so that I could restart and go park it back. now I'm lost on what/where to look for the problem which I'm partly guessing might be the ignition switch

 

[Terrys87]

Take your steering cover off and see if the Ignition Switch is seperating . they are a known issue

 

[Josh B]

If you haven't already I would put new bulbs in everything I could reach, if you haven't already.
If they are not all working you could be missing the most important warnings

 

[JoeLeFou]

Take your steering cover off and see if the Ignition Switch is seperating . they are a known issue

thank you, will check that for sure

If you haven't already I would put new bulbs in everything I could reach, if you haven't already.
If they are not all working you could be missing the most important warnings

already done pretty much one of the first thing I did, all the lights in the dash changed to led lights, same for DRL and sidemarkers

 

[JoeLeFou]

Turns out the issue was the negative connection from the battery to the body/motor ground and a wire in the loom that was barely connected. Now that this is fixed another problem came up the fuel pump is about to die right when it’s getting to freezing temperature. Almost feels like a game of “whats gonna break next!?” Can’t wait for winter to get regular or just stop lol

 

[JoeLeFou]

disassembly didn't pass the Catspection

Opportunity finally came to drive it back home but god was it a painful ride, idles just fine rev's up just fine when not driving but after like 10 minutes of driving it sputters feels and sounds like it's running on 4 cylinders and black smoke out the exhaust, changed the idle air control valve and manifold air pressure sensor still the same problem.

so I started to tear the intake manifold cleaned the throttle body seemed good accel cable sticks tho so that's one thing, noticed that all the plugs for the injectors are one way or another broken so that could not really help with my problem. Also injectors can somewhat turn freely, not really sure if that's normal or not..

I can't figure out what I really want to do with it thought I want to either 4bt swap it with a 4"+lift , 2.3L keep current setup(prob the easiest swap lift the 2.9 out put the 2.3 in) or 7.3powerstroke with shortened dually axle and slam it to the ground. I wanna do them all, that's tough.
found a 2.3L from a 87 ranger in a scrap yard so that'll probably be my first option.

 

[scotts90ranger]

If it takes a few minutes of running then has black smoke that's screaming O2 sensor to me

 

[JoeLeFou]

If it takes a few minutes of running then has black smoke that's screaming O2 sensor to me

No black smoke until I do like 2 km and stops if I park for a min or 2 or if I hit the rpm’s it’ll run like normal.

Today I changed the TFI cleaned the intake manifold looked if the distributor was bad, it’s very clean barely have 100km on it. Everything is back together so I’ll go ahead and drive it around the block