I have read a handful of posts of people with the Diesel Rangers. I was wondering if they are still here on the forums. My brother has a 1983 2.2L Diesel and I have a 1987 2.3L turbo Diesel. I havent seen anything on the internet about the 2.2L. Does anyone have any info and Also I was wondering where people get their replacement parts and maybe some performance tips too.

Kristof

 

Ihave a 1985 ranger diesel with a 2.3 turbo diesel. I find it hard to find parts but I just had my injector pump replaced $1200.00.
I usally find parts a the dealer. please letme knowif you find a web site

 

i would please also like to know i need a head for 2.3 one is broke down so he is driving the other what kind of fuel millage do you get with yours any info would be a great help



mike l e-mail michael3807(No Email Addresses In Posts!)

 

I get about 30 MPG in my 2.3L. My brother gets the same in his 1983 2.2L nonturbo. His truck also seems to have more power at the bottom end than mine. Wow $1200 just for the injection pump?? That is more then I paid for my truck.

Kristof

 

I'm a newly registered member, but I have a long history with diesels, including the 2.2 naturally aspirated Perkins design diesel which Mazda reportedly built under a license agreement with Perkins and sold in many countries. To the best of my knowledge, the only US road vehicles these appeared in as OEM engines were Mazda B2200 pickups, Ford Ranger pickups and Ford Bronco II's. I have been told several times by people who's judgment I trust that they have also seen this exact same motor in certain diesel fork lifts. But I've never seen one, so that's just hearsay.

As you may know, these were only rated at 58 horsepower, but they seem to be especially strong horses as compared to a variety of motor vehicles claiming similar or slightly higher peak power ratings. As an example, I used my first Mazda B2200 diesel with this same engine found in Ford Rangers to tow my Demco Kar Kaddy which weighs about 700 pounds empty from South Dakota to Atlanta, Ga., where I loaded a 1990 VW Vanagon gasser which I towed to Baltimore, NJ., then back to South Dakota. This required passing through the mountains and resulted in a towed weight of about 4500 pounds! I know that's more than this 2800 empty weight truck was supposed to tow, but it wasn't pushed around badly, perhaps partly because I had a lot of machine weight in the pickup's box. For the trip from Baltimore to South Dakota heavily loaded, plowing much more wind than a stock truck since the tall Vanagon was raised even higher by the tow dolly, I averaged 20.5 mpg. On the flats, I could run it in 5th gear which is an overdrive without visible smoking. On the worst mountain inclines, I was often forced to downshift to 3th and a couple times all the way down to 2nd, but those Interstate sections all had extra low speed passing lanes where I ran. When heavily loading these engines, it's wise to drive with an eye on the exhaust outlet visible in the left mirror. Run just below visible black smoking and you'll get excellent horsepower-hours per gallon. Overfuel them by applying too much throttle and you 1) waste fuel, 2) foul the air, 3) foul your engine oil prematurely from carbon loading, all with VERY LITTLE increase in power at that rpm. If you need more power, add more air. In a naturally aspirated diesel, your only option while driving to do that is to downshift. Driven foolishly, I'm sure it would be possible to get much worse results, but that's not the fault of the engine. Modern computer controled diesel fueling systems won't allow idiot drives to overfuel as badly as these mechanically controlled systems allow. So the aware driver is more greatly benefited when driving one of these than they would be in a vehicle which by design won't allow typical idiot stick driving with "pedal to the metal" lack of diesel engine performance characteristics driving.

How durable are these engines? I believe they are the only candidate engines found in light vehicles which are likely to last longer than Mercedes diesels. These 2.2 naturally aspirated diesels have NO Timing Belt and NO Timing Chain. They are 100% gear drive, just as you'd expect in a big industrial grade diesel or high cost marine diesel. But then, given its Perkins design origins, that makes sense. So you can generally forget about that common trouble source, unlike the 2.3 turbo diesels which are completely different. Also, they were designed with BOTH full-flow and bypass oil filters. If you read about the benefits from running bypass oil filters, you'll appreciate what an excellent benefit this is in terms of engine life expectancy. I have read that in Europe, some of these have gone about half a million miles before being rebuilt.

About two years ago, with just over a quarter million miles on my first one, I decided to have new rod and main bearings installed in it since that only requires pulling the pan and caps. The mechanic who performed this work for me said he was amazed at how little wear those bearings show. He said their appearance is about like what he'd expect to see in a normal gas engine with 20K miles on it! I only did the exchange because I know that Mack suggests changing rod and main bearings at about 400,000 just to keep those engines running well, even though they typically won't need other internal engine maintenance to continue for many more miles. Obviously, I didn't NEED to replace those rod and main bearings. I have the old set sitting in a box which I've shown to several people and they really appear to have little wear.

Anyway, this post gives you some alternative vehicles for you to use as parts donors rather than be limited exclusively to Ford Rangers. Ford configured several areas differently than did Mazda. Mazda used the typical Japanese alternator which shares the same shaft to drive a vacuum pump at the rear of the alternator. Those are wonderfully efficient and compact, but somewhat more expensive to rebuild and their presence makes switching to a higher output alternator more difficult. By contrast, Ford used a standard alternator with a separate belt driven vacuum pump. Lower efficiency, but easy to change to a higher output unit and cheap rebuilds are available.

These are INCREDIBLY durable vehicles if they are not abused or subjected to northern road salt.
John

 

 

are you still active here? i have a ton of questions.

 

ok question: how difficult would it be to put a 2.2l ranger diesel into a 2000 ranger?