AlphaTX
Member
- Joined
- September 17, 2013
- Messages
- 33
- Reaction score
- 1
- City, State
- Dallas, TX
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 91 Ford Ranger XLT
So Here's the deal. My father In-Law brought over his 91 Ford Ranger 3.0 XLT for a simple idle issue.
While looking in to it, I found a host of issues that I have resolved with the help of these forums and the interwebs.
However, many posts I reviewed did not often end with resolutions or feed back of a solution.
This is one of several posts I'm making to log my problems and fixes on this truck in hopes to return the help I've received.
Issue:
Old nasty, cracky, breaking, leaking factory air intake tube from MAF housing to Throttle Body.
Discontinued, obsolete part. In other words, "you're not going to find a replacement".
I even tried searching via the part number and get nadda. Forget junk yards, sure you might find one in better shape but fat chance of it being much newer and lasting any good length of time.
Forget trying to find aftermarket replacements... What you'll get is page after page of people trying to put in Cold Air systems, replacing the air box and all sorts of other malarkey for these li'l old motors. Not to mention, any decent kit will run over $100 (some K&N kits are over $200)!!! For an air intake!? Seriously!?
Solution:
Mind you, these dimensions are for the 91 3.0, your throttle body and/or MAF sizes may vary slightly.
All I really needed to do was cruise the "Performance" isle of my local auto parts store (happened to be Autozone at that moment) and pieced together my replacement tube. Here are the details.
1. Spectre Black 3" Air Duct Hose #422454 8741 ($20)
This comes with 2 rubber boots for mating up to another hose or components. I only needed to use the one boot that was preinstalled. The duct itself actually fit perfectly over the throttle body housing with no need for the boot. I tightened it down with a spare clamp appropriate for 3" tubing. Also, while the rubber boot "screws" on to the expandable duct tubing, I used a clamp on that end as well, to ensure the rubber didn't warp and kept a good seal around the tube.
2. Spectre Vacuum/Sensor Intake Tube #722448 87071 ($10)
This was just a simple 3" plastic (chromed) tube about 4" long. It has three holes pre-grommeted and plugged with three included nipples for attaching hoses. I installed this on the above air duct at the MAF housing end. The included adapter was perfect for the CrankCase hose coming off the oil fill tube. I threw on some smaller clamps just to ensure the hose didn't slip off too easily.
3. Spectre Coupler/Reducer #710431 8752 ($7)
This particular part number was for the Red coupler, I'd preferred the black one (I don't give a crap about the colors), but Red was all they had on the shelf. At other stores/chains with a bit larger inventory, you can usually find red/black/blue. This was a coupler with clamps that is 3" on one side, and 2 1/2" on the other. It was a perfect fit to mat up the above 3" sensor tube with the 2 1/2 MAF housing.
After tightening the clamps for all of the connections, I routed the flexible/expandable duct hose over the fan shroud like factory and used some big thick HVAC zip ties to hold it in place... I could just see my father in-law moving it off the shroud and over the fan and then WHAM! $20 shredded to pieces.
All-in-all $42 for a sealed functioning intake tube. The factory was oval for hood clearance, whereas this one is fully round, but I found that the hood doesn't press down on it very much, and the tube doesn't have any issues giving some. Being that it is a flexible tube vs solid ones, it gives easily; otherwise, I would probably have a clearance problem. Which could be alleviated with a justification for a 1" body lift.
As a side effect from who knows how long with the tube leaking (cause the MAF to give improper readings).... There were two other casualties.
A. I replaced the Idle Air Control valve (purchase from rockauto.com). These range from $30-80 depending on manufacturer and vendor. I got what seemed like the last one in stock made by Delphi, #CV10136 for $46. The original had a piece of the original plastic intake tubing stuck in it. Sure I could have cleaned it out, again, but I figure it was time to go new.
B. O2 sensor.. After removing the electrical tape someone used to solve the Check Engine Light issue... I found that the CEL was on. Oriellys was the only shop in town with an OBD-I scanner. After a painfull scanning process, we finally got the codes, and without surprise, the o2 circuit was one of them. Running for soo long with bad MAF info and what must have been scary lean, I just replaced it. The 91 3.0 only has one sensor at the y where the V exhausts converge, right before the first CAT. The part was only about $50 at oriellys (Bosch), but make sure you check them... Their computer had the numbers/descriptions wrong, it also said I needed 2 sensors. The one they gave me had a 5" pig tail, but I needed 11". The computer said they gave me the right part number, but they had to pop open some boxes to find the one with the 11" (more like 14 in reality) pigtail. The computer showed that part number as having a 7"... Jeez... but, we got the right one, and it came with little zip ties for taking up excess.
While looking in to it, I found a host of issues that I have resolved with the help of these forums and the interwebs.
However, many posts I reviewed did not often end with resolutions or feed back of a solution.
This is one of several posts I'm making to log my problems and fixes on this truck in hopes to return the help I've received.
Issue:
Old nasty, cracky, breaking, leaking factory air intake tube from MAF housing to Throttle Body.
Discontinued, obsolete part. In other words, "you're not going to find a replacement".
I even tried searching via the part number and get nadda. Forget junk yards, sure you might find one in better shape but fat chance of it being much newer and lasting any good length of time.
Forget trying to find aftermarket replacements... What you'll get is page after page of people trying to put in Cold Air systems, replacing the air box and all sorts of other malarkey for these li'l old motors. Not to mention, any decent kit will run over $100 (some K&N kits are over $200)!!! For an air intake!? Seriously!?
Solution:
Mind you, these dimensions are for the 91 3.0, your throttle body and/or MAF sizes may vary slightly.
All I really needed to do was cruise the "Performance" isle of my local auto parts store (happened to be Autozone at that moment) and pieced together my replacement tube. Here are the details.
1. Spectre Black 3" Air Duct Hose #422454 8741 ($20)
This comes with 2 rubber boots for mating up to another hose or components. I only needed to use the one boot that was preinstalled. The duct itself actually fit perfectly over the throttle body housing with no need for the boot. I tightened it down with a spare clamp appropriate for 3" tubing. Also, while the rubber boot "screws" on to the expandable duct tubing, I used a clamp on that end as well, to ensure the rubber didn't warp and kept a good seal around the tube.
2. Spectre Vacuum/Sensor Intake Tube #722448 87071 ($10)
This was just a simple 3" plastic (chromed) tube about 4" long. It has three holes pre-grommeted and plugged with three included nipples for attaching hoses. I installed this on the above air duct at the MAF housing end. The included adapter was perfect for the CrankCase hose coming off the oil fill tube. I threw on some smaller clamps just to ensure the hose didn't slip off too easily.
3. Spectre Coupler/Reducer #710431 8752 ($7)
This particular part number was for the Red coupler, I'd preferred the black one (I don't give a crap about the colors), but Red was all they had on the shelf. At other stores/chains with a bit larger inventory, you can usually find red/black/blue. This was a coupler with clamps that is 3" on one side, and 2 1/2" on the other. It was a perfect fit to mat up the above 3" sensor tube with the 2 1/2 MAF housing.
After tightening the clamps for all of the connections, I routed the flexible/expandable duct hose over the fan shroud like factory and used some big thick HVAC zip ties to hold it in place... I could just see my father in-law moving it off the shroud and over the fan and then WHAM! $20 shredded to pieces.
All-in-all $42 for a sealed functioning intake tube. The factory was oval for hood clearance, whereas this one is fully round, but I found that the hood doesn't press down on it very much, and the tube doesn't have any issues giving some. Being that it is a flexible tube vs solid ones, it gives easily; otherwise, I would probably have a clearance problem. Which could be alleviated with a justification for a 1" body lift.
As a side effect from who knows how long with the tube leaking (cause the MAF to give improper readings).... There were two other casualties.
A. I replaced the Idle Air Control valve (purchase from rockauto.com). These range from $30-80 depending on manufacturer and vendor. I got what seemed like the last one in stock made by Delphi, #CV10136 for $46. The original had a piece of the original plastic intake tubing stuck in it. Sure I could have cleaned it out, again, but I figure it was time to go new.
B. O2 sensor.. After removing the electrical tape someone used to solve the Check Engine Light issue... I found that the CEL was on. Oriellys was the only shop in town with an OBD-I scanner. After a painfull scanning process, we finally got the codes, and without surprise, the o2 circuit was one of them. Running for soo long with bad MAF info and what must have been scary lean, I just replaced it. The 91 3.0 only has one sensor at the y where the V exhausts converge, right before the first CAT. The part was only about $50 at oriellys (Bosch), but make sure you check them... Their computer had the numbers/descriptions wrong, it also said I needed 2 sensors. The one they gave me had a 5" pig tail, but I needed 11". The computer said they gave me the right part number, but they had to pop open some boxes to find the one with the 11" (more like 14 in reality) pigtail. The computer showed that part number as having a 7"... Jeez... but, we got the right one, and it came with little zip ties for taking up excess.
