hello,
I have a friend who has an 87 Ford Ranger 2.3 Lt. 4x4. He tells me that the truck has had some problems not wanting to idle vary well at all and it loses power going down the road. He has noticed that the Exhaust manifold will glow red with the engine at operating tempereture. to me that is a sign that the engine is running a little lean. I think he said it is infact running lean, but I'm not sure. Any Ideas?

lonerangerlong

 

ouh! may be cat is bad... ore oxy sensor... I had clogged cat in my aerostar, I got so many fuel:air ratio related codes.... finally cut cat away and now I'm happy

 

Yeah, sounds like a clogged act. I saw a clooged cat on a dodge p/u once and the cat was glowing cherry red.

 

with bad cat oxy sensor may fail with overheating

 

He's not talking about a glowing cat, he's talking about a glowing manifold. I would agree, you are probably running lean. Run full diagnostics on the fuel system. Are there any codes? A bad O2 sensor will typically cause a rich condition. Does your vehicle use MAP or MAF? If either of those isn't working properly a lean condition may result.

 

Since your 87 is not equipped with a check engine light, the only way to know if theres any trouble codes is to pull them.

If you have a vacuum gauge follow the directions that came with it to check for a clogged cat. Very simple little test.

Have you looked at the cat? Is it glowing?

 

Rich conditions cause glowing hot cats and manifolds. Lean conditions cause glowing hot pistons and valves. Something is causing your fuel management system to be fouled up. If you pull the codes you will more than likely get o2 sensor codes, but the o2's are not the problem, it is the fuel imbalance that is causing the sensor to read wrong.

Check the vacuum hose going to the fuel regulator on the fuel rail. See if there is gasoline in the hose. If so, the regulator is bad. Check all vacuum hoses. A large air leak will upset the fuel balance. A place to start looking. A leaking injector(s) could also be the cause. jd

 

Being an 87, I would say the cat is also clogged causing an exhaust restriction.

 

It would be easy enough to find out, just pull the cat off, put a test tube in or just leave it open for a test run and see if it makes a difference. I don't sugest you leave it catless as it's illegal.

 

A rich condition should not make it run hotter, as that is actually a strategy used to cool down the engine. On the contrary, to make a manifold or cat glow requires incomplete combustion, so that there is an abundance of both fuel and oxygen. If you simply add more fuel, there won't be any air to go with it, and it will quench itself. If you run lean, it will heat up somewhat, to a point, and then it will start misfiring. Far enough off the lean end, and you get incomplete combustion that can prevent the fuel from igniting. Far enough of the rich end you can get similar behavior, but at that point, the engine should have such a noticeable stumble, that there would be no doubt that your engine is either extremely rich or extremely lean.

So actually, you should probably be checking for sources of incomplete combustion. Or you may have a serious timing issue. It is normal for the fuel/air mix to still be burning and expanding as is passes through the manifold, but if your timing has jumped a tooth, or is not set properly, this may happen more than normal, or if you are using too high an octane, it may not be burning as much as it should while still inside the cylinders.

 

Shoot, if you don't care to preserve it, pull the muffler get a 4' 1-1/2" or so steel pipe with a sawtooth shape cut into one end & bore out the thing. Of course a really good flashlight might reveal rear cat's clogs if it could get that bad. Local counter guys have told my dad to punch a hole in the side to allow the engine to limp. My version allows more flow. On this era of autos, I kind of wonder if the days of the Ford trucks cats glowing is no more even in failure. As Wendell said, you'd need a replacement ASAP. Doesn't have to be OEM.

Hmm, not to argue with Bear River. Listening closely to every morsel of rich v lean.

 

I just think it's an easy way to eliminate one possible cause. I'm just looking for something more common than for the engine to all of the sudden go to such a lean or rich condition. Anything is possible, but useally it's a more simple cause when such problems occure. I'm no expert, however I did sleep at a holiday inn express lastnight.

 

So, what was the problem-how did this workout????

 

We sure would like to know what happened? Hop you and yours had a nice holiday!!