My dad bought this 89 ranger 2.9 5 speed from a co worker a couple years back with a bad head gasket. we drove it for a year with the gasket bad and had to change the oil very regular and do regular engine flushes to get rid of the coolant oil mix. in the end it would start ticking everyday for some amount of time and we parked it. 6 or so months later i put a head gasket on it and it's all good...except the ticking will not go away. is there any suggestions to get rid of the tick? or quieten it down i'm sure its in the valve train.

Another problem i had was before when we were driving it the oil pressure switch failed and lost a bunch of oil it didn't leak around the treads but out of the top of the switch...this was in late 2008 about this time of year or later. Remember i said it sat for 6 or more months and today the switch failed again. so while mom was broken down i had to come up with something and put a manual gauge on it that i had in the garage...is the pressure switch a common problem? why would 2 fail in that little time.

So the truck is a 2.9 with roughly 98,000 miles 5 speed...and from the manual gauge i put on it i know that it has around 30psi oil pressure....

btw is there anywhere i could blow air through to help unclog parts that may be clogged.

 

What did the top end look like for in the way of type & amount of deposits, when you replaced the head gaskets????

Are you using the specified viscosity oil????

At what temp was the above oil psi taken????

 

the topend looked great once we cleaned away the oil water mix.

i'm running mobile 1 10w-30 it's what we run in almost everything.

i couldn't say for sure what temp...it was right after i fixed it so the engine was warm but it was with brand new oil.


any other questions let me know.

 

OK, good feedback.
Don't know what part of the country your in, but you might want to consider a 5W-30, or 5W-20 for winter in this engine, especially if you live where you have sub zero winter temps.

This engine has been back specified in 01, on TSB by Ford, to use 5W-20.

Mobil-1 is a good lube, but a poster on MotorWeek recently suddenly developed a tic in his 94 Mazda, that had used M-1 for most of it's life.

He said the tic was stopped almost immediately when he switched to Valvolene High Mileage Synthetic!!!!????

He used the Valvolene for a number of OCI's & the engine remained quiet, then on a lark he changed back to M-1 & the tic returned immeiately!!!!?????

THEN, he drained that out & put in the Mobil-1 High Mileage recipe & it was quiet.... for a little while & the tic returned, but wasn't as loud.
I convinced him to leave it in & see if it's ad pack detergents & dispersants would do their thing & sure enough they seemed to have done so, as in a few days he said the light tic has stopped again.

SO, if you prefer M-1 products, maybe consider trying their High Mileage recipe, in say 5W-30, or 5W-20 & see how it goes.

Dual rated Diesel/Gasoline motor oils have kicked up detergent/dispersant ad packs, so maybe they would be a recipe for consideration.

OR, you could try the Valvolene Synthetic High Mileage recipe that he had luck with.

OR, if none of the above work, maybe consider an Auto-Rx treatment. http://www.auto-rx.com.
It's expensive & can only be ordered on line, but a lot of folks seem to have had good luck with it solving deposit problems in engines, tranny & power steering systems.

I've never had any need to use it in any of my engines & I don't like to add top treatments, but I've not read any postings on the net about it causing any mischief.

Some folks have said it didn't work for them, others said it did, so who knows, there are so many variables out there!!!????

For sure it won't fix a mechanical problem, but it is chemically capable of working with the engine oils ad pack to slowly get after & remove deposits.

It's a combination of Esters, that slowly get after & soften deposits, so the oils detergents & dispersants can put them into suspension & move them to the oil filter, or to be held in suspension & drained out on the scheduled oil change.

It takes it a while to do it's thing, as it softenes the deposits for removal slowly, like they were formed, so there is less chance of things being removed too quickly & causing mischief as with a sovent flush product.
So if your of the mind to try a top treatment, this may be one of the safer ones to try.

A whole bunch of thoughts for consideration, let us know how it goes.

 

before when we had the oil water mix we flushed the engine with either trans fluid or kerosene every oil change. Mobile 1 is a good oil and we have just started using it on this truck.. but i will try the high mile stuff and see if that changes it i might also try something in the 5 weight area...Synthetic oils are good but valvolene is junk in my opinion. and most synthetics are quiet good but we run dino in all our stuff....i buy mobile because it's cheap good oil at 11 dollars for 5 quarts.

btw i live in east tennessee

any thoughts as to why at a 30 psi oil pressure i would have 2 oil switches kill?

 

Oil/ water mix, VERY bad for bearings........how much water was in the oil between changes? how long?
My 2.9s also blew the tops of the oil pressure guage sender units, so not unheard of. Very messy, but not unheard of.

 

Well the oil & water/coolant mix may have plugged up the oil pump intake screen & or maybe clogged up the oil pumps pressure regulator????

Dang, this poor engine has had all kinds of stuff run through it!!!!
Maybe it's insulator material was stressed cracked by one of the flush solvents????

SeaFoam Engine Tune is inexpensive & has a dose of isopropyl alcohol in it & thats good for removing water. So you might consider a can of that in the crankcase & doing some light duty driving, for say 50 miles or so, before changing the oil. The SeaFoam might also get after deposits that could be causing the tic.

If you think the bottom end & block are heavily sludged up, think twice about a whole can of SeaFom, as thats sorta a shock treatment, like the kerosene!!!!

You don't want to break any large chunks or wad of deposits loose & clog something important up!!!!

If you think the oil filter may already be loaded up, change it before the SeaFoam engine tune dose.

 

after it blew the plug yesterday i put the new oil in...the mobile 10 30...i went out early this morning when it was pretty cold out around 8 am and started it.. and it ticked for a little bit maybe 5 minutes but it stopped and i haven't noticed it all day...


what could i do to clean the bottom end out better like the screen without dropping the pan? i'm hoping the good new oil did the trick. i think dad put some cheap super tech walmart brand oil in it when we did the head gaskets.

i've run everything through engines before with no ill effects and i've always noticed good cleaning properties with everything from diesel to kero to trans fluid.

we never let the oil water mix get out of hand... it was just needing regular oil changes like 3 months of commuting driving then it went to 2 then 1 and once it got to needing changed every few weeks we parked it for about 6 months. and just recently fixed the head gaskets....

i was trying to find a way to "back flush the engine but i wasnt sure if there was actually a way but i will def do some seafoam...haven't ever used it but i've been hearing good things about it.

 

The M-1 has a good detergent/dispersant ad pack in it, so give it some time & it might tidy things up enough.

If you come to decide to use the SeaFoam in the crankcase, do it just before you do an oil & filter change & don't do any hard fast high speed driving.

Water isn't soluble in the tranny fluid, kerosene & diesel flushes you've done before.

It might remove some old oil & a slight amount of soft gel sludge, but won't get after baked on varnsh, or hard baked on carbon deposits, and with a flush you risk stirring up loose mischief & clogging something important up.

Just let the M-1 detergents do their thing & see how it goes.

When you had the heads off to replace the gaskets, did you rod out the oil returns in the engine block???? if so, how did they look, deposit wise????