Hello all, I normally hang in the Dentside forum, but my brother has a 91 Ranger that is driving me nuts!!! It has a bout a bajillion miles on it and is beat to hell but up till recently has run great with very little maintenance over the last 10 years. Within the last month or so it has developed some problems. Original problem was the clutch switch, so I replaced it and we thought we had it solved, it ran good for a few days then we had some colder wet weather and when he tried starting it, it would crank but not fire. Continued doing this for a few days so I brought it over to my shop, checked compression, changed plugs, wires, cap and rotor. Fired right up and ran smoother, so I assumed we had fixed the problem. Next morning it was cooler and damp and when he went to start it, acted like the clutch switch again, no crank. He has tried it over the last week every morning and it will either crank, no start or not crank at all. I have checked battery terminals, and wiggled jiggled every connection under the hood that I can find, to no avail. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the 2 issues its got, other than most of the time later in the day, it will fire right up, and run good........most of the time. Like I said previously, its a beater so he doesn't want to sink a bunch of money into it but I'm thinking its something simple that Im just missing. The CEL does not come on when its running so I doubt there are any codes so I have not checked for any. Perhaps a bad relay somewhere??? Im up to my *** in alligators right now and don't have a lot of time to keep screwing with it but would like to get it running for him, he's driving about 80 miles a day to work and his 77 F250 is beating him up on gas.....LOL Any suggestions would be appreciated. TIA

 

There may be more than one problem. Takes air, fuel, spark & compression to make em run. SO, next time it gets into one of its no start/no run fits, use your inductive timing light & fuel pressure gauge to determine whats going missing.
On the intermittent no crank, with the vintage of this puppy, battery cables & their connections on both ends belong on the suspect list. So when it won't crank, turn the head lights on to see if they'll light up bright. If not, perform under load voltage drop tests on the cable runs & across their contact lugs/clamps to see if you may have unseen corrosion, broken strands to the cable end contacts, or loose, corroded/rusty connections across their B+/B- contact points, causing Under Load voltage drop.
On the crank but no run, fuel pump power relay & maybe computer power relay, if the dash warning lamps don't light up for their self check before cranking the engine, or the fuel pump if you can't hear it run for a couple of seconds at KOEO to build fuel pressure for the start, before cranking the engine.
Also pull the fuel rail mounted fuel pressure regulator vacuum hose to see if its wet inside with fuel, if so, the diaphragm is leaking, so replace the fpr.
Anyway, on the no run, the timing light on the coil spark output lead will quickly & safely determine if spark is going missing & the fuel pressure gauge can determine if fuel pressure is suspect.
If fuel pressure & spark are ok, check to see if you have 12 volts B+ to the fuel injectors at KOEO when it won't run.
I agree, scan it for trouble code clues & post All code Numbers.
Some thoughts for consideration, let us know what you find.

 

I think we have figured it out. It seems that the clutch switch was not returning to its home down by the floorboard. Also, the clutch pedal was not coming all the way back up like it should. After some redneck engineering, he has been driving it daily again. I used a light spring to pull the clutch pedal back up to the top. I'm sure shortly we will be putting a new master and slave cyl. and possibly a new clutch in it to fix the problem correctly. But, for now, its keeping the wheels turning on this poor little truck. LOL It's one that just refuses to die.

 

OK, way to hang in there on your trouble shoot & engineer a temporary fix.