i am geting ready to buy a 88 ranger, my buddie had one of these and he said that the heads on the truck arent the best and can just suck a valve out of no where.. the truck i am getin ready to buy has 200.000 miles on it and i was just wondering if the motor is any good i mean it runs great right now but is it just going to take a **** in a mounth?

 

To help make sure how good it is you could run a compression check and a pressure check on the cooling system and check for relatively clean oil on the dip stick. The biggest things the 2.9 heads are known for are cracks. If they're the original heads, they're sensitive to the engine getting close to overheating and reacting to it by cracking. You should be able to detect the crack if it's there, either when it's running or by doing one of the above tests. Not all of these heads crack though. My 90 supercab has over 229,000 on it and still going. Maybe the heads on the truck you're looking at have been replaced a while back. Or maybe they're some of the good ones.

 

i guess there good ones because they have never been replaced, the guy im buying the truck off of has had it since 89 and its an 88 and it have deff been taking care of.. very clean little bit of oil on bottom of motor but doesnt leak anything perfect truck for the beach..

 

The 2.9 is bad for cracked heads if you let it over heat. At 200,000 miles I wouldn't worry about it much now, it's paid it's due's. Just watch so you don't let it run hot. With that said, the 2.9 is a good engine and you can get a lot of miles from them. The aftermarket sells a better set of heads for the 2.9, I don't remember which company it was, I read about them in one of my off/road magazines a while back. However, with 200,000 miles, I would just drive it as it would have to be a good motor at this point and watch your gauges. I don't want to make it sound like it should be a big concern as there's thousands of 2.9's running a round with no problems. It's just something that can happen with a 2.9 if it's run hot, it can crack a head. This can happen with a lot of engins, so I would let it stop me from buying one. Actually I've owned a 2.9 without any problems. It's hard to answer your question without scaring you at the same time.