project Fumbler's Gone To America - Surgery Success

[Fumbler]

Spring has decided to arrive and that makes me happy. Here's a summary of my Bermuda Triangle of automotive ownership and financial misguidedness:

Ranger

An engine was ordered (at great expense) and it's been dropped off at the tame mechanic and part time derbyist. As you can see, the truck is among other shitty car friends. By the time this is done I basically have to keep it for ever. Whoops.

Camry

I drove down to Kentucky for work. It's about 9 hours of driving, roughly 700 miles. I was making 2000 miles per gallon... Of oil. Yep, it loses a quart of oil every 500 miles. So basically, every time I fill up with petrol, I have to also fill up with oil.

So I jacked the front end up and the subframe looks very oily indeed. It looks like the sump gasket has finally let go big time. But, in the spirit of being thorough (and because changing a sump gasket is kinda if annoying on these) I'm also going to check the VVT solenoids and spark plug seals. 

[danthecapriman]

Good to see the Ranger will be getting sorted👍

I got one of these not long back. Closest thing I could find to yours😄

[Fumbler]

So the mechanic sent me an update and we're all rather confused how the engine ran as well as it did. The problems found:

• Damage to all 4 cylinders
• The HGF that condemned it
• Oil absolutely everywhere 
• Nearly every head bolt loose
• Pickup tube cracked
• Crank position sensor broken off the block (absolutely no fault codes on that at all)
• Pilot bearing failed
• Most of the fan shroud was missing 
• New-last-year clutch slave cylinder fallen to bits
• Block full of chunks of stop leak and crud instead of coolant
• Gearbox input shaft seal leaking.

I also have some pictures to help make sense of this mess

 

Meanwhile, here is the shiny* new engine, with all the accessories

What a mess of wires. I just love 1990s American engine management.

[danthecapriman]

Someone got their money’s worth out of the old engine then!  

What did your replacement engine come out of? There’s quite a few slightly different variations of that engine depending on original fit. Some were turbo fitted too😄

 

[Fumbler]

Just now, danthecapriman said:

Someone got their money’s worth out of the old engine then!  

What did your replacement engine come out of? There’s quite a few slightly different variations of that engine depending on original fit. Some were turbo fitted too😄

 

It's a remanufactured engine for my model year. Put basically, a rebuilder has gone through all the areas of the engine subject to wear and any known defects are remedied. I think I went over this in the past but to keep this 'cheap' and simple, my only practical choice was to buy the same engine, and get one that has been rebuilt, since doing this job is expensive enough and getting one of these engines from a scrapyard is a large gamble.

[M'coli]

22 hours ago, Fumbler said:

So the mechanic sent me an update and we're all rather confused how the engine ran as well as it did. The problems found:

• Damage to all 4 cylinders
• The HGF that condemned it
• Oil absolutely everywhere 
• Nearly every head bolt loose
• Pickup tube cracked
• Crank position sensor broken off the block (absolutely no fault codes on that at all)
• Pilot bearing failed
• Most of the fan shroud was missing 
• New-last-year clutch slave cylinder fallen to bits
• Block full of chunks of stop leak and crud instead of coolant
• Gearbox input shaft seal leaking.

I also have some pictures to help make sense of this mess

 

Meanwhile, here is the shiny* new engine, with all the accessories

What a mess of wires. I just love 1990s American engine management.

Hang on, am I correct in thinking that's a pinto???

[danthecapriman]

39 minutes ago, M'coli said:

Hang on, am I correct in thinking that's a pinto???

It’s the Ford Lima engine. Named after the plant in Ohio that built it.

They look very similar to the European Pinto and were based loosely around the Pinto’s basic design but they are completely different engines. No parts are shared. I think the block on the Lima is a bit higher than the Pinto too.

Versions of the Lima engine went into all sorts of smaller Ford products like the later Pinto’s, 80’s LTD’s and Mustangs, Ranger pickups etc etc. The 80’s Thunderbird had a turbo charged version available too.
Like the European Pinto, it’s a solid basic little engine.

[M'coli]

That makes sense!  That's also why there's no dizzy drive bit to the block, EDIS  is in command. 

[danthecapriman]

4 minutes ago, M'coli said:

That makes sense!  That's also why there's no dizzy drive bit to the block, is in command. 

I think the only American market car that used the European Pinto engine was the Mercury (Ford) Capri. All the others would use the Lima engine in one of its forms. 
The Mercury Capri available in the US was the same-ish as the European Ford Capri and were German built which is why the European Pinto made it over to the states. 
Apparently, the Lima engines also got used in some South American Ford Taunus TC models (TC - Taunus/Cortina) but obviously they never came over here.

[Fumbler]

OK. Yet again there are no sexy pictures to look at, just boring text. So, work on the Ranger has been completed and I'll be collecting it mid next month. The new engine is in, it also now has new front brake lines and new anything else which was found broken or worn out. It's been road tested and given the mechanic mark of approval. The bad* news is the rest of the drivetrain is a bit shit.

I'll start with the transmission. When I bought the truck and looked it over, I noticed the output shaft was damp and it was coming from the seal area. It wasn't leaking awful bad and I had it replaced when the drive shaft carrier bearing blew up. After all, the drive shaft had to be removed anyway. I thought that was the end of it but no, the input shaft seal is also leaking, again not badly, but the bellhousing was rather wet. Fortunately the clutch was unaffected by this. It's also noisy in gear, which I knew about, but it should be easier to pick out now the clutch slave has been replaced. The simplest and cheapest solution would be to change the transmission, which is something I could likely do myself. Solution: just drive it until it breaks. It might break tomorrow, or it might break in 30 years.

Next problem is the back axle. Ever since I started driving the truck, there's been this horrible metallic whine when cornering. Last summer I replaced the axle seals and the outer bearings since they were leaking. At that time, I also found the axle shafts were badly corroded where they ride on the bearings. I thought "gee, this is my smoking gun!" and I started looking at replacement axle shafts. Well I was wrong; while they won't be helping things, my mechanic says the main cause are the bearings holding the diff carrier in place, which are likely causing noise because the rollers have corrosion on them, much like the old axle bearings. Whenever the truck corners, more load is put on the bearings on one side and then they start singing. What we suspect is the truck had been stood for a long period of time before it was resurrected for high school duty, maybe as a result of the overheating. Regardless of what happened, moisture had condensed in the rear end and ate up some bearing rollers. As is the case with other popular pickup trucks, it's just cheaper and easier to put a used axle in than to dismantle the original one and change bearings. It also needs shock absorbers, but I can do that in a weekend. So, just like the transmission, I've been told to drive the truck until it grenades.

The other major issue is with the fuel tank leak. I wanted it fixed since I thought it was the filler neck, however it's actually worse! Who'd have thought. The leak is actually coming from the fuel pump once the tank is full. By the 1990s practically everyone was using plastic tanks. Chrysler, who were the first to use plastic tanks, also used entirely plastic pumps so nothing too critical would corrode and fall apart.  For whatever reason, Ford and GM continued using metal lock rings and flanges to hold the fuel pumps in place. This is what mine should look like:

You drop the pump into the hole, then hammer the lock ring into a metal flange which is embedded in the plastic tank. Since these pumps are recessed into the top of the tank, the recess fills with muck and salt, making everything rust into oblivion. This is a real kick in the balls because the lock rings will fall apart, the pumps can fall into the tank and get lost, but more importantly, the embedded flanges dissolve and rust jack so the pump hole is no longer round. It's just a sorry situation all around. Having replaced a dead fuel pump on a rusted out Buick LeSabre, it's a real pain in the arse, especially when the tabs on the flange have also disappeared. The fix is to use a repair kit as seen in this video:

The best course of action here is to take the bed off and access the pump from the top. I'll still likely have to drop the tank to replace the tank straps, however the job is made a lot easier when you can access the fuel lines and disconnect them before putting them under any stress. The fuel pump will be replaced at the same time because this repair kind of permanently seals the pump in place and messing with the original pump is just inviting it to fail. 

If there is anything 'good' out of this whole sorry affair, it's that I'm getting my truck back and I'm excited to drive the shit out of it. My other half is too, and he keeps telling me he misses our drives around the state in the purple Ranger. The other semi-good outcome is all this work cost me a lot less than I anticipated, so that makes me happy. Naturally, had I known what I was getting myself into when I looked at the truck, I'd have walked away and bought something else. You live and learn.

 

So this means I have two stable vehicles now, right? I wish. After seeing how much oil was outside the engine I replaced the sump gasket with a friend while I was down in Kentucky, reasonably confident this was the reason behind the massive oil loss. One tank of petrol later and the results were pretty conclusive: it wasn't. The engine appears to be eating a quart of oil every 400 miles. Given how black the remaining oil had become, it's pretty clear there's a lot of blowby and the oil's probably just leaking past the piston rings. Oh dear, my WBOD also needs an engine. Happily* though, so long as I keep it topped up with oil, it runs and drives just fine, barring the clapped out rear suspension. It also makes 28MPG (US) on the highway which is fantastic. I'm currently debating cutting my losses and moving on, or throwing more money at it. I have two spare engines for it if I go down that road. Time will tell but at least I have the time to ponder what I should do. And, at the end of the day, it did get me out of a sticky spot when the truck blew up last winter. I guess I can't complain too much.