I have a '96 Ranger that I bought with 33k miles on it. It now has 166k miles. So far the only maintenance I've done to it is regular oil/filter changes, two rebuilt calipers, a rotor/wheel bearing, a timing belt, a serpintine belt, and a transmission. (I know, right.)

Over the years my ol' Reliable has developed an exhaust leak. It's gradually gotten louder.

Recently it has also started running rough, skipping, losing power, and backfiring.

I realize that I have really neglected the lil' truck but I'm not sure where to start.

I replaced the fuel filter. I'm looking to replace the spark plugs, the wires, and the coil like yesterday.

My main question is - could the exhaust leak be causing the loss of power, skipping, and backfiring?

 

Do I have body odor or something?

Ok, I changed the plugs and cables. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. With a long extention and a universal adapter getting the plugs out was actually pretty easy. I didn't remove the intake manifold as one guy suggested in another thread because there was just enough space with the extention to reach the plugs in the back dead on. Hardest part was getting the new boots seated on the new plugs.

The old plugs were in real bad shape. No surprise there.

The motor sounds great (except for the exhaust leak). At idle speed it just purrs along as always.

Road test - runs good and then starts hesitating. The hesitation is intermittent. Sometimes it get really bad at cruising speeds (55 mph or so) let off the gas it goes away.

So now I'm thinking... bad gas? Seems like anything else would cause a warning light.

Also, the guys at Autozone said that a leak in the exhaust manifold could be causing faulty readings in the sensor, making it give bad info to the 'puter. In which case though I would assume I would get a "check engine" light - and I don't.

I would have thought misfiring would give me a "check engine" too, but I figured changing the plugs wouldn't hurt anyway.

I could really use some suggestions here. Anybody?

 

The little 2.3 is reliant on backpressure from an exhaust system. While trying to deciding on a muffler, I unbolted my exhaust after the cat on my 2.3 and developed the hesistation you describe. I'd fix the exhaust first. Might try some kind of gas treatment that removes water, too, but I doubt that is the problem.

 

Thanks Tiggie. That's kinda what I was thinking, but I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something simple I could work on myself first.

Thanks again.

 

I did a "tune up" on a '95 2wd a couple years back for a guy, pulled the 4 popper and installed a 5.0 with AOD tranny... Really fun ride!!!!

 

Yeah, 96 up a lot more fun with exhaust being finicky. The OBD-II details with 2 O2 sensors. Should not matter THAT much after the final O2 though. Or so I thought. Find the leak point. Drove an '88 2.3 with no cat and a cheapo turbo muffler with no issues there.

 

I got a 87 ranger with a 2.3, qand the fuel pumps dont kick in when the key is turned on. I checked the fuses, relays, cut off switch, oil sendiny unit,temp sending unit, changed the pump out in the tank, getting power to the pump but it doesnt kick on. What else can i check?