I have a 1995 Ford Ranger 4 cylinder and the other day on my way home all of a sudden sounded like a lawnmower, it was very sluggish and would take twice as long to get moving,it also smelled like gas and I used a quarter of a tank in about 24 miles. Someone said it could be the ignition coils, but I wanted to see if anyone else had any ideas before I forked out the cash to replace both coils. Any advice would be greatly appreciated....

 

check the basics, fuel pressure,cylinder compression, spark.see if a vaccum line is broken or not on. maybe the catalytic converter is plugged? i had that happen once, caused a burnt valve and it ran poorly afterwards & power was down, did make some noises that wernt normal.

 

Thanks, I will look into those things and see if it helps.

 

Check the FPR.

 

critter pointed where I would go, but was much more succinct. Remove the vacuum line to the fuel pressure regulator. If you find fuel there, you have a ruptured diaphragm, and need to replace the regulator. Regulators can stick intermittently also, so just be aware of that. You can borrow or buy a fuel pressure gauge to measure the regulated and unregulated pressure in the system. With the vacuum line removed, the pressure is unregulated, and will spike. With the vacuum line attached, fuel pressure should lower from the unregulated number. If that does not happen, you likely need a new regulator.
tom

 

Is the check Engine light on? If so, either read the codes yourself or have an auto parts store that does it for free and post the codes here. With that info we can give you more help.