I just bought a 1992 Ford Ranger with a 2.3L one week ago. Is there anything I should know about my 2.3L before it catches me by suprise? Thanks for all the help.

It is a great engine if you take care of it. The areas of probs that I can think of are

temp sensor (for temp gague) but this will not hurt performance and only costs about 5 buck if you wnat to replace it

some people have a bad idle. The 2.3 has a slightly rough idle to begin with, but most people only have probs if the modify the intake.

That is all I can think of, over all my 2.3 has had no major probs in the past 3 year i have owned it.

I haven't had any real problems with my truck, but I will give you a run down of my maintenance list of things I have had to and that you usually have to change on your Vehicle.

I have never gone through the following but will have to eventually:

Altenator

Oil Pump
Oil Pickup Tube
Oil Pickup Screen
Oil Pan Gasket--all four of these require jacking the motor up and/or out.
Expect this truck to last you a good 250,000 miles from start to finish before anything drastic happens, like a rebuild or a oil pump totally failing. Some have happen before, but more have happened after. They are a very reliable engine.


I have gone through the following:

Starter
Ring Gear
Clutch
Clutch Slave Cylinder Leaking.(You will have this problem if not already)
Check your line going from the clutch resevoir to the slave cylinder, make sure it's not on top of the from and under the firewall otherwise on a rough bump you will severe it.
Three Plugs on the top of the tranny that will leak after time. Will have to replace them with Freeze Plugs and Silicone.
Tires - duh
Oil and Filters -duh
Oil Sending Unit

Realy the only problem i have is it is hella slow! course I usually drive a 350, 351, 454, 330 Triton, or one of two 302's at work. Even our towmotors will light up the tires.

My only complaint about the 2.3 is the fuel sending unit. Your gas gauge will read E when it is full. Mine(97) just started doing it. I just fixed my wife's(96). Then her cousin's has been doing it (95). You'd think they'd recall it:confused:

Any little bit of advice helps tremendously. Thanks for the help guys, its much appreciated.

just my advice for what it is worth on n e new used car. i would change all the fluids, filters, plugs, wires, all of the servicable parts that you can, usually it should only cost a couple hundred bucks or less for everything if you do it yourself, that way you can start a fresh maintenacne cycle and know where the car stands mechanically. other things. i would say get a fuel system cleaning , the one where they hook up the snap on machine to the fuel rails, it helps a lot, gets rid of pinging with 87 octane. added a few mpg to my engine. also, i would use synthetic oil and a bosch filter, i say bosch casue it filters the same and is made almost the same as the mobile one but with half the price, i uised valvoline syntec 10w-30 for awhile and have recently switch to casrtol syntec 5w-30, i like tha castrol a little better now. trany fluid, i would recmoend changeing it tofull synthetic seems to have helped my shifting and got rid of a bad 1-2 grind.