Project #11 - new daily driver '94 Ranger

[Shran]

As if I did not have enough projects already! My buddy saw this little gem on Facebook and sent it to me and naturally I couldn't help myself. It was advertised as "super clean, but needs engine, has a hole in piston and loses compression." Specs - it's a '94, must be an early one as it has a 5 digit odometer. 4.0, A4LD, electronic 4x4, PW/PL, just about every option. 3.27 gears are a bummer and the A4LD is a bummer but I can live with that - this thing is CLEAN and I mean that, you could eat off the interior. Zero rust anywhere. Core support, spring hangers, gas tank straps, etc...everywhere that rusts out on these... is rust free. That is really surprising considering that it spent its entire life here in western SD but the odometer says somewhere around x64000 - if I was a betting man I would put money on this truck actually having 64,000 miles on it.

I got it pretty cheap because of the engine issue. Two shops looked at it for the previous owner and one just told her it had a "bad engine" and the other said that it has a "hole in the piston" - their words... anyway it starts hard and blows steam out of the oil filler. Upon inspecting things further, I noticed that both heads are very clean looking and there is something oily leaking out around the head gasket in one spot on both sides - additionally I found some paperwork from a machine shop in the truck that had a bunch of head specs on it - so where I am going with this is, I wonder if it had some issues recently, someone replaced both heads with new or rebuilt and messed up the install somehow? I guess I will find out when I tear into it, this "hole in the piston" deal is just nonsense, it actually runs pretty well other than the hard starts & steam.

This is pretty close to my dream truck so my plan is to keep it and drive it. I will probably regear it with 3.73's or 4.10's. More than likely will put different wheels on it - I have a nice set of Mickey Thompson Classic II's - maybe 30" or 31" tires. Topper & side steps are coming off right away. I have all the parts to M5OD & manual t-case swap it if the time comes but for now I will live with it as is.

More pics to come.

 

[rusty ol ranger]

Sounds like its leaking compression and dumping coolant.

Looks like a sharp truck though well worth fixing even if it needs a motor

 

[Shran]

That was my thought too. I have a brand new set of 93TM heads on the shelf plus bolts and a gasket kit... if it comes down to that. I am hoping that I'll find that the heads are in good shape and someone just messed up the head gasket install somehow.

Worst case, I have a good 4.0 from another truck, but I would like to save this one. A low mileage engine like this could have another 300k left in it.

 

[RobbieD]

Nice score!

Killer condition and lot of nice accessories, too.

it's a '94, must be an early one as it has a 5 digit odometer.

I've always thought that as the '94s were building out, Ford was emptying the parts bins for soon-to-be-obsolete parts.

From what I found, six digit odometers had been required in New York state (maybe others too).

My '94, which has a 6-digit odometer, was built for the Atlanta zone, and it's an extremely late build of 11/94.

 

[Shran]

In addition to the 5 digit odometer I believe that this truck doesn't have four wheel ABS - I will have to double check later but I don't recall seeing an ABS pump or any of that junk under the hood. It does have the later steering wheel center piece though, and the seat fabric you'd expect for a '94.

My '94 Explorer must have been built a lot later, it does have a 6 digit odometer, four wheel ABS, and the later steering wheel & seat fabric.

I think damn near every year was a weird year in the Ford world, nothing ever stayed the same for more than a year or two.

 

[RobbieD]

Neither of my '94 Explorers have the six digit odometer; 9/93 and 3/94 builds.

I think that the 1994 year model Ranger/Explorer is one of the most dependable and trouble-free. It's like they had things really figured out, and then the 95s' change to OBD2 started a whole new learning curve.

 

[Shran]

I started tearing down the engine on Saturday and am pretty convinced that it is indeed poor quality repair work. Indication #1 was new gaskets here and there but the surfaces were cleaned poorly... and some were not replaced at all. Some of the valve cover bolts were cross threaded, others were only in halfway and they used crappy cork gaskets with blue RTV smeared everywhere.

#2, I don't think they cleaned dirt or grease off of anything before reassembly, it was pretty grimy
#3, lower intake/valley ends where a blob of silicone resides did have a blob of silicone but it was clearly not working, there was not enough and oil leaking out the back.
#4, some head bolts were incredibly tight and some were almost just snug

The heads are new... or recent reman. I really did not see any signs of a blown head gasket so the condensation, snot and steam are confusing and are leading me to suspect that either (a) the head bolts were not torqued very well allowing coolant to pass through or (b) the heads were done VERY recently and there was some leftover coolant somewhere. The cylinder walls have some coolant stains so regardless it did have some sort of issue at some point. None of the plugs looked steam cleaned, in fact they were carbon fowled somewhat if anything.

There also does not appear to be any great deal of oil contamination - oil was not overfull or milky, but as I said there was a fair bit of snot on the oil cap and quite a bit in the upper intake.

All that in mind, I am fairly certain that it had an injector stuck open. It smoked really bad when running and inside my shop smelled like a really rich fuel mixture, not the sweet coolant smell. Spark plugs as I mentioned were black... every cylinder on the heads were coated with a thin layer of carbon, one was much worse than the rest. To add to that, it totally lost fuel pressure while sitting overnight. My Explorer did the same thing... so I sent these injectors off yesterday to get cleaned.

1-2-3 plugs - they look lighter on camera

4-5-6 plugs - #4 is black and so is that part of the head

Cylinder walls all look like this

This is where I'm at right now, I figured I would put a new timing cover gasket on it since I have such bad luck with those and would end up doing it eventually anyway. Easier right now since I'm in there. I will probably pull the passenger exhaust manifold off and do the oil filter adapter o-rings as well, it is way easier with the manifold out of the way and it looks like there is a slow leak there.

 

[Shran]

Timing cover is reinstalled, water pump is back on, everything there is so nice and clean.

Last night I went out and replaced the oil filter adapter seals. As I suspected the smallest one was crispy and broken like they usually are.

This morning I picked up the heads from the machine shop. They said that no cracks were detected, valves sealed perfectly, everything looked great with the exception of being warped. One was much worse than the other so they resurfaced them both. Pretty strange considering the fact that they look new - machine shop agreed that it was pretty weird, whoever remanufactured this set of heads did not do a very good job or somehow they warped after being installed in a very short period of time.

I'll get the heads back on tonight and hopefully reassembled up to the lower intake. Waiting on getting my injectors back from Mr. Injector and some other parts from RockAuto so that I can finish up the rest.

 

[gaz]

@Shran ,
Ask the shoppe how much head they milled. 0.005" or 0.010" can get by but may still need an adjustment (milling) to the lower intake manifold.

Also, milling the heads will raise the compression. If they were milled or have been milled anywhere near 0.030" your engine will benefit from spark plugs 1 or 2 heat ranges lower as a - 0.035" mill will get you at least a whole point of compression.

 

[Shran]

@Shran ,
Ask the shoppe how much head they milled. 0.005" or 0.010" can get by but may still need an adjustment (milling) to the lower intake manifold.

Also, milling the heads will raise the compression. If they were milled or have been milled anywhere near 0.030" your engine will benefit from spark plugs 1 or 2 heat ranges lower as a - 0.035" mill will get you at least a whole point of compression.

I forgot to ask that, I called back just now and he said 0.007”. Not much.

 

[ericbphoto]

Nice truck. I like the color and graphics. Hope to repairs go well.

 

[Shran]

Lots of progress last night. This is where I stopped, also put a new fuel filter, trans pan with drain plug and filter in.

Also found this little fella between the trans and heat shield on the passenger side. It’s not even mine, AND it’s a frickin 10mm… I found it, y’all can stop looking

 

[RobbieD]

Craftsman?

 

[Shran]

Craftsman?

yep!

 

[ericbphoto]

yep!

Pretty sure that’s mine.