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'94 3.0 v6 manual starting issues related to fuel pump?


hfpros

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Washington
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1994
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Ford Ranger XL
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Manual
Starting about 3 weeks ago I started having issues with my ranger starting.

-First encounter
I drove from work to gas station to grab a soda (~1mile), returned to my ranger and it would not start. Cranks fast, no sputtering/turn over. I thought maybe the fuel pump wasn't getting fuel (getting close to E on the gauge and parked slightly uphill). I gave it 1-2 minutes then it fired right up. I pulled over to the gas pump and put about 5 gallons in it. Would not start again. Checked oil, good. Did a quick visual inspection and everything seemed okay, no fluids underneath leaking or anything. A kind stranger and I tried and tried to get it started until the battery died from cranking. Tried hooking up the jumper cables and used some starting fluid and it sputtered enough to disengage the starter then died. Our last ditch was to push it and drop the clutch and behold! she came to life.

When I got home I headed straight to Google university and found a Youtube video explaining that the problem could be a ground issue in the fuse box that connects to the fuel pump relay. His fix was to shove a wire in the ground plug, put the relay back in (with the new wire sandwiched between the ground pin on the relay and the pins inside the plug), and ground out the new wire. I did as such because I felt confident that I was having the same issue and boom worked like an absolute charm.. or so I thought(dun dun dunnn)

About a week after I did the "fix" I started having the same issue. I have been able to get it to crank over by taking out the fuel pump relay, re-seating the wire, putting back in the relay then giving the fuse box a couple of taps with my hand. A few goes of this and it fires right up, some times I've been able to just pop the hood, bump the fuse box, and boom fires first go. Other times I have to try 3-6 times before it'll fire.

I have noticed that when it happens it usually is after I have driven a short distance, shut off the engine, then tried to fire it back up within ~ 1 hour of shut off. Not sure if this is a coincidence or if it's related but thought it was worth throwing out there.
I did originally (before putting the makeshift ground fix in there) try a new fuel pump relay to no avail so put the old one back and returned the new one.

Is this really a grounding issue? If so why did it work perfect for a week then all of a sudden quit working?
Is my fuel pump going bad?
Is there some other obscure issue that may be causing this?

Pictures
 


RonD

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Welcome to the forum

1994 Ranger 3.0l still had a distributor that used a TFI spark module
The TFI module had a known issue of not working when they were warm, wait a few minutes and they worked

A fuel pump relay wouldn't care if it was cold or warm, but lets test that
Computer activates the fuel pump relay by grounding it, and it does this for 2 seconds each time key is turned on
You can hear the fuel pump running for those 2 seconds, HUMMMM from behind cab, turn radio down and test if you can hear fuel pump running by turning key on and off as much as needed so you know what it sounds like

Now that you know what to listen for see if fuel pump stops working when engine/system is warm

And in 1994 you can ground fuel pump relay much easier at the OBD1 connector in engine bay
Computer should be in drivers side of engine bay between firewall and inner fender
There will be a wiring harness running up from that to the Fuse box, on that harness is the OBD1 connector
It may have a cover on it that says EEC Test, and can be attached to outside of fuse box

Go here: https://therangerstation.com/tech_library/OBD_I.shtml

OBD1 connector looks like that, Fuel Pump slot is marked in the drawing, that IS the GROUND for the fuel pump relay
So if you ground that slot fuel pump relay should close with key on, and fuel pump should come on full time, not just for 2 second

The fact that you could spray fuel manually into the intake and engine STILL did NOT start, to me means Spark issue not a fuel issue
If engine started and then died then it would be a fuel issue not a spark issue


TFI module on the 3.0l engines was not on the distributor like most 1994 and earlier Rangers
Because of the heat issues Ford mounted it with a separate heat sink, usually on rad support
It looks like this: https://therangerstation.com/tech_library/images/remote_tfi1.jpg

They can still become heat sensitive, just less of an issue on the 3.0l Rangers
 
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