hello had my 1988 ford ranger awhile now and it started blowing black smoke and when im in idle it cuts off. a few weeks ago i put some gas from a can i had in the garage so i could get to work after a hurricane since then nothing but black smoke. i changed the fuel filter and changed the spark plugs thinking it would fix it. also saw a post on the internet about the same thing could anyone give me some good advice.

terry

 

Don't know if it's the same thing, but a friend had an 88 that all of a sudden had lots of black smoke at idle and ran really rough. Pressing the accelerator made the engine die. No check engine light, and he changed out a lot of stuff to try to "shotgun" the problem, including o2 sensor, TPS, filters, plugs, etc. He finally talked to a mechanic who suggested trying a fuel pressure regulator. That fixed the problem. Seems the regulator failed and was dumping too much fuel into the engine.

 

Check the vacuum line to the FPR for gas after running it for a few minutes, gas = bad. If you don't find anything there try pulling the codes.