found a truck for sale on craigslist, '92 ranger with the 2.3l he replaced the timing belt, and besides the obvious he may have aligned the gears wrong, what do you tink could cause it not to start? could the fuel shut off valve been tripped?

 

ok, so i went and looked at the ranger, and i bought it for $600. he was able to start it, and it ran... HORRIBLY for about 15 seconds, then bogged out. while it was running, it sounded to me like a dead cylinder , and when he couldnt kep it running after 15 seconds no matter how much gas he gave it, it occured to me, that it might be losing fuel pressure. Im taking a huge gues here and want to say an injector isnt working and is causing this problem... any other thoughts?

 

anything?

 

Two things to start with to help figure it out. First is to ask the previous owner how well the truck ran before he changed the belt and why did he change it? There could be another issue besides the timing belt. Next you need to make sure the timing belt and all timing marks are correctly alligned. The 4 cylinder engines are the most finiky when it comes to timing. Everything has to be in exactly the right place or it will run like what you have described, if it will run or start at all. To help get the timing marks all lined up you may need to buy a repair manual that covers that year of engine. Maybe a Chilton or Haynes or even a Ford service manual. If you don't have one yet take a look at the Chilton or Haynes books before you buy one to see which one is easier to work with and which one explanes the process more completely. Sometimes these books aren't written very well and aren't easy to understand and don't seem to be complete when explaning a process. Maybe someone else on here can suggest the book that covers this process better than the other one. Let us know how it goes.

 

Also, one injector will cause a mis, but will not cause the vehicle to bog down.

 

thank you! i have taken into consideration that the timing may not be right, but while i was looking at it, i put the crank at TC and looked at where the camshaft was, nd it looked good. however im thinking maybe the fuel pressure regulator may be messed up. He hanged the belt cause it broke. and hes checked to see if all cylinders had spark (but im not to sure about that) and he says he did a fuel pressure test, but he doesnt remember what reading he got, also did a compression test and said everything was fine. in his words, the truck "ran great!" before the belt issue