My 2001 Ranger Edge 4x4 Supercab

[4pointslow]

Worked a double shift yesterday so not much energy to do anything.
I replaced the fuel filter, it took for ever to get the "quick release fitting hoses" off the old filter.
The old filter was pretty rusty looking so It appeared to be on there for a while.

While I was under there I removed the old rear brake line the had rusted out and was already replaced.
I noticed the new line was rubbing the frame so I secured it in about 4 places and most were original places.
If left the way I found it the frame would have wore through the brake line and there goes all the fluid.
Or it may have vibrated until it cracked. I hate to be critical of others work but brakes are important and peoples lives are riding on them.

I put some wire loom on the spark plugs going to the passenger side. It appears that the cruise control cable rubs the ignition wires.
I noticed when I was removing the old wires that the cable had wore into the insulation a little.
After driving on the new wires for a day there was some rub marks on them so now there is wire loom on them.
I will have to keep an eye on them to make sure no damage happens to the new wires, they are Motorcraft wires and I don't need them failing prematurely.

I replaced the passenger upper ball joint because it had a torn boot. The passenger side lower is brand new.
Moog makes really good front end parts, some which are even better than OEM.
The part number was CK8710T. It is really half the upper control arm and this design even has a replaceable ball joint in the end of it.
It was the most expensive one listed for the passenger side that was still only half the control arm. I did not want to go with the one piece unit.
If I looked it up correctly the replacement ball joint part number is Moog K8738 (for just the removable ball joint)

 

[4pointslow]

On my first ride to work the other day I noticed a red light flickering when I mashed the pedal down and put the engine under heavy load.
It went out very quickly as I let off the pedal to see what it was. When I arrived at work I shut the truck off and turned the key on to see which red light that was.
It turned out to be the battery light.

Already having a new serpentine belt to install, I replaced it and just drove it again. The light started flickering again.
On the alternator there is a big wire for charging, another connector with a couple wires in it, and a one wire connector.
My 2004 battery light will go on every few months, I wiggle the single wire on that truck and it goes out, so I removed and reinstalled the single wire connector on this Ranger. I will road test it again later to see if the light still flickers.

Anyone else ever had a flickering battery light on their Ranger, that only happened under heavy acceleration?

 

[boominXplorer]

I burned up 2 stock alts with an overdrive pulley installed before going to back to a stock pulley. Both times I hit top end of 2nd gear wot and battery light came on and stayed on. Alternator swap fixed it both times. My trucks shift point is close to 6k and I guess it was too much spinning rpm for the alt. The sohc 4.0 and 5.0 share the same alt but I'm near positive the 5.0 crank pulley is larger.

 

[CDW6212R]

On my first ride to work the other day I noticed a red light flickering when I mashed the pedal down and put the engine under heavy load.
It went out very quickly as I let off the pedal to see what it was. When I arrived at work I shut the truck off and turned the key on to see which red light that was.
It turned out to be the battery light.

Already having a new serpentine belt to install, I replaced it and just drove it again. The light started flickering again.
On the alternator there is a big wire for charging, another connector with a couple wires in it, and a one wire connector.
My 2004 battery light will go on every few months, I wiggle the single wire on that truck and it goes out, so I removed and reinstalled the single wire connector on this Ranger. I will road test it again later to see if the light still flickers.

Anyone else ever had a flickering battery light on their Ranger, that only happened under heavy acceleration?

Interesting, and if rpm is the cause I wonder if the clutch pulley from a DOHC would work okay. I saw one for a Marauder years ago, and wondered what that was. I wonder what the rpm it's made for, how it operates etc. The one I saw was $50-$60 I think, years ago on eBay.

 

[4pointslow]

Last week I wiggled the wires and unplugged the connector and plugged it back in.
Next road test showed it is still happening.
I will have to look into it further. Truck starts fine every time and even after sitting for a week.
I have not even put a volt meter on it yet to check the charging voltage but I will in the future.

 

[4pointslow]

This weekend in between rain and extreme heat I managed to get an Idler pulley installed.
The original one had some bearing noise, looked pretty rusty, and didn't spin too smoothly.
Got an original part and it was made in Canada so I am thinking it will be a good quality part.

I also checked for play in the U-joints since I felt a slight vibration around 85.
Jacked up and put it on stands but no play in the joints. May be in the transfercase, this thing does have 278,000 miles on the odometer.
I need to get to the rear of the engine and see if the Vin is there and if it matches the truck.
This truck was very well maintained but I do see signs of others working on it. Not too noticeable.
One thing I saw this weekend was a non original exhaust hanger for the muffler, maybe engine vibrations are traveling through that.
I will have to put it in neutral and see if the vibration is engine speed or vehicle speed related. The frequency is definitely very high like driveshaft speed.

 

[vroomzoomboom]

Got an original part and it was made in Canada so I am thinking it will be a good quality part.

your in excellent hands, as long as these two didnt build it

 

[4pointslow]

I took tomorrow off from work to get some work done on my Ranger and recharge my mental state of mind.
Since it was nice out when I got home after 4.00pm, I went out to the garage and got a head start.
Decided to use the Simons Auto sports thermostat housing after removing the old one.
Getting to it was a pain and I don't want to have to do this in winter time if I used the Austek unit and it failed.
So I am going with the tried and true.
Also went with Motorcraft Hoses and Water pump. I am lucky my Motorcraft pumps are made in Germany.
Someone had replaced the water pump with an aftermarket, I don't trust it since I had some bad experiences in the past with a water pump shaft breaking.

 

[4pointslow]

When installing the aluminum thermostat housing I decided to change the thermostat too.
In my 1998 4 door Explorer I have been using a 180 degree thermostat and it has worked well.
Lower temps mean lower pressures, and with my 1998 4 door I had a plastic thermostat blow out in 5 months so I tried the 180 degree thermostat and a Motorcraft plastic thermostat housing(before SimonsAutossports came out with aluminum) and it has been holding up for years.

I went with this MotoRad thermostat, it has a failsafe feature that locks the thermostat open if the coolant gets too hot.
Neat concept, but kind of wonder how well that helps since the engine has to overheat first anyway?
They had the thermostat in 180 degree which is what I wanted so I went with it.

I even splurged and bought Motorcraft radiator cap. (last picture)

 

[4pointslow]

I replaced the drivers side lower ball joint, the passenger side was brand new when I bought the truck.
Moog makes really great suspension parts, this ball joint has a grease fitting unlike the OEM stuff.
One thing I have to note is that I was really surprised to find no boot in the ball joint box.
This newer design has a dust boot built into the ball joint. You might be able to see it in the second picture below.
Moog even put a red rubber plug in the grease fitting hole to keep it clean until you install the fitting.

 

[4pointslow]

The way the upper control arm was designed on these Rangers (and Explorers), you have to replace the whole upper control arm to replace the ball joint.
Moog makes a replacement upper control arm with removable ball joint.
This is what I went with on the drivers side.
This upper balljoint has a grease boot with it.

 

[4pointslow]

Moog makes replacement anti swaybar link pins that are metal instead of plastic, and the long bolt is thicker in diameter which means it is stronger.
The ones that I took off were probably not that old as there was very little rust in the plastic tube part. Usually the long bolt rusts away into a thin taper or breaks when it gets too thin. The plastic tube hides this rust and damage and if a linkpin breaks on a turn when you least expect it, you may have to go home and change your underpants.
Note:
Only one per box so you need two boxes to do both sides.

 

[4pointslow]

Found this knock sensor to have a damaged wire at the connector.
I just happened to have one in my garage from some experiments I was doing.
Replaced it while I had the thermostat housing out, shoved my hand and a ratchet under the intake manifold to get to the bolt that attaches it to the block.

 

[4pointslow]

So this Ranger has a heated PCV valve.
Some heated PCV systems use electric but this one uses coolant.
They send coolant to a little tube that wraps around the PCV valve and on this truck they also send it to the vacuum fitting that goes into the intake manifold.
This means that there are little hoses that can leak. These are not like regular radiator hoses that can be bought at most part stores, good luck finding replacements when they go bad.
My plan is to replace the vacuum fitting and the metal heater hose junction, with ones that do not have these coolant pipes on them and delete the
PCV heating system altogether. That is if I can find what I need to do it.
Maybe I will try to adapt an electrically heated PCV valve later on down the road.

Here is a picture of the vacuum fitting that goes into the intake manifold.

 

[Dono]

Why would the pcv valve need to be heated? I would have thought the crank case gasses would keep it plenty warm.
I like the design of those moog parts, my bj's are leaking grease and the boots are cracked, but are still tight. I also have the one piece arm on the passenger side without a camber adjustment cam on the mount and am on the edge of spec on alignment on that side. If I'm going to add the cam adjustment bolts, I'm replacing the whole arm. Thanks for the info!

 

[4pointslow]

The PCV system often has condensation in it, I guess in colder climates it can freeze causing sticking of the PCV valve itself.
Also when the vapors stay warm/hot they probably stay vapors and that might be better for emissions.
If you think about it, the coolant design is kind of flawed in that it wont work until the coolant gets warm.
They did at least get coolant from the heater core hoses which get warmed up quicker than other area's.

You can kind of see why they went to electrically heated ones on newer vehicles. LOL.

 

[CDW6212R]

Nice, and you'll like the Failsafe T'Stat. I have it in my 99 SOHC, and I got it hot twice. Once was due to the fan circuit breaker being tripped(washed engine once), and it hit 270*. I lost less than 2 liters of coolant, filled it and got the fan running, drove on. The T'Stat kept it running cold until I got it changed. With it out, later I got the four tangs to let go, and in theory it's reusable. But I already had a new one in it, so the old one became a spare.

 

[4pointslow]

You read my mind. LOL
I was wondering if anyone had released one after it locked.
Unlocking one to reuse it had crossed my mind, I wonder if anyone unlocked and reinstalled and can confirm that it still worked.
If a replacement was on hand I would probably use a new one too.

 

[CDW6212R]

Actually now that I recall, I did reuse it later, after the 2nd one went. I didn't have the truck running long after that, the trans went shortly after. But the coolant temps were the same each time, I had a Scan Gauge monitoring it constantly for years. Both were 180 rated, and temps were in the 185 range 95% of the time.

The first time with the fan not running, was around September, then because I didn't replace enough anti-freeze, in January we hit close to zero. I hadn't thought of it before starting the truck that morning, and didn't notice the coolant temperature until I was five miles along. The coolant had frozen, I kept going and I was lucky to make it to work. It didn't blow a head gasket, that was the big thing, nor the radiator. After an hour at work I removed the cap and added maybe 16oz of water. Later that day I replaced the T-Stat with the older one that I had "restored", and reset the anti-freeze percentage to handle zero temps. It lacked about half a gallon to get it there.

So I don't know if the FailSafe thermostats are unhurt every time they see very high temps. But the one that got to 270 for a short time, seemed fine after a month of driving.

 

[4pointslow]

It has been 100 degrees F with high humidity here for quite a while, Finally the temps came down to high of 80 and no humidity today.
There even was this amazing breeze and it is dropping down to about 60 tonight. Tomorrow is supposed to be just as nice then its back to crazy heat again.
Just came off working double shifts this week too, I was real glad to have Wednesday off.

Today I replaced the rear axle seals. There was a slight bit of leakage on the drivers side. The brakes seemed to be new so I didn't want them to get ruined.
I used Ford axle seals. They were really good quality, even had a band of sealant around the outside of the metal backing so you could just unwrap them and drive them in.
When I went to clean the rear diff cover I found it was so rusty that it had two tiny pin holes after cleaning some flakey spots off.
Advance Auto had one in stock for about $20.00, I should play the lottery.
Job is done and I even had time to install an amp and sub woofer.