Bought Daughter a 2010 Ranger, She Paid it Off, Blew Engine, I Replaced Engine.......

[410Fortune]

Some crazy plumbing on that engine for sure, in the ranger some of the water hoses come all the way around the engine…

 

[BKennedy]

Engine looks great. The pan, timing and valve covers have been leaking and came off way too easy, but its nice and clean inside. Timing chain and guides look good. Oil pan had hardly anything in it, with a little gunk probably from sitting for two years. I put it mostly back together with a few bolts to keep it clean and dry.

Yes, it's upside down

This is a neat little engine. External crank sensor, water and power steering pumps, timing chain instead of a belt, etc.. If it didn't have so much plumbing and wiring, it would be easy to work on. I can see why they are prone to leaks. The aluminum timing cover is sealed on the top by the plastic valve cover, on the bottom by the aluminum oil pan. The oil pan bolts to the transmission simular to the 4.0 engines, which are prone to leaking. Few hundred heat cycles with different types of material equals leaks.

I'll clean up this mess and see if I feel like starting the tear down to get the Ranger engine out.

 

[Josh P]

That looks almost brand new

 

[BKennedy]

Warning!
If you have a 2.3 and have a reason to remove the timing cover, you first have to remove the crank pully. You need to mark it in some way so you can put it back exactly as it was. It has the crank sensor cam attached to the back of the pully. There is no notch in the end of the crank, it's smooth. I marked mine by lining up three bolt holes with a straight edge and a Sharpie. If it's removed, do not turn the crank. From what I've read, if you don't have it aligned and start it, you will break stuff.

 

[BKennedy]

Got everything unhooked, unplugged, unbolted, etc., off the top half of the engine that I could see. I marked most of the plugs that are near other plugs. I also marked all the bolt sets and how many there should be for each accessory. It came apart surprisingly well with no issues, except one broken vacuum line. A/C and power steering pump have long flex lines so they could be moved out of the way intact. Even got the motor mount nuts out.

There is a thick wire loom that goes to the starter that has to come off, some other misc wiring, maybe some plumbing, and the exhaust. I think it will be easier to leave the exhaust manifold in place and unbolt it at the exhaust flange. I hosed the flange down with PB Blaster and called it a day. The worst part is everything is covered with gunk from the oil leaks. Going to have a lot of cleaning to do when the dead engines out.

There is a lot of room around and in front of the engine, without pulling the radiator. If I had a helper, I think I would have had the engine out today. Need to wait until Saturday for my helper.

Before

After

 

[410Fortune]

Nice work! This country runs on four-cylinder rangers

 

[Josh P]

Nice work! This country runs on four-cylinder rangers

Dunkin wants you to think otherwise.

 

[JoshT]

Did that Ranger have both electric and engine driven fans?

 

[BKennedy]

Did that Ranger have both electric and engine driven fans?

The ranger has a fan clutch and fan on a pully mounted to the timing cover. The Focus engine had an electric fan. The Ranger seems to be a mixture of old and new technology. When I get them side by side the differences will be easier to see. The engine is simply mounted but covered with plumbing that would be internal on most engines. Its very narrow and tall. The engine mounts are 1/3 of the way up the sides.

A few more things I have found out.
The starter has to be removed to access the flex plate nuts to separate the transmission from the engine. Its much easier to remove the starter and wiring, and access the driver side of the engine if you remove the inner fender. The passenger side doesn't have anything needing access, and the top of the inner fender is covered with accessories.
There are a bunch of goofy vacuum line connectors that get brittle and break, and that require some type of special removal tool. They are just like the fuel line "quick" disconnects of this generation Fords. The vacuum lines pull off the connectors, making them unnecessary. You can also toss a broken connector and plug the vacuum line directly onto the fittings in most cases. A friend of mine said you can repair the broken connectors by using a narrow zip-tie in place of the clip.
The Focus oil dip stick is a cable type and on top of the valve cover, the Ranger is a long traditional solid stick that goes into the pan on the passenger side.
The intake uses three or four different length bolts in hard to access locations, which makes is a pain to reinstall.
The valve cover bolts are captured, every single one. Makes it a lot easier to remove/install.
If you don't have a pair of hose clamp pliers, get one. I bought a cheap pair off Amazon and it paid for itself in saved time and aggravation in the first ten minutes. A pair with a curved end would be better than the straight pliers I bought.
Almost every bolt is an 8, 10 or 13mm.
This engine is considered not rebuildable, while the 3.0 and 4.0 are rebuildable.

Thank God for mini-impact, and cordless impact guns. It makes the job go so much faster.

Edit for Josh: It does have electric and engine driven fans. I have no idea why, but that's goofy.

 

[410Fortune]

My Milwaukee 12v tools make life easy save sooooo much time. I will break all the bolts loose by hand and then zip them in our out with the 12v ratchet or mini impact.

The 2010 4 cyl ranger I have uses electric fan
I was surprised to see that my first thought is I wonder if this setup could keep v8 cool… it’s a bolt in factory radiator and e fan

 

[BKennedy]

I wonder if I could retrofit the electric fan into this one? Maybe someday I'll look into that.

 

[410Fortune]

The pcm controls the fan so would have to make a stand alone controller or do some programming or pcm swap

Good job so far! Welcome to
My world. Before last summer I had never swapped a 2.3 or a 3.0 and guess what
Now I’ve already done a few and had some serious life lessons from the school of hard knocks

Like I had the oil pan and oil pump out of a fresh 3.0 engine three times in one week… trying to solve a leak. Finally realized the engine Builder (Taurus 3.0 crate engine) going into 99 ranger) didn’t install a rear main seal… man that was fun… 3re time the oil pan came off so did the trans…

Finally looked at the old 3.0 sitting on the stand across the shop and realized there was supposed to be a seal in that big trench around the crank lol lol

I am very good at changing a 3.0
Oil pump now… in the truck and yes 4wd

 

[BKennedy]

Got the old engine out today. Took about six hours of cursing and general bad mouthing the engineer who designed this monstrosity. Who runs a hard water line from the front, then around the back of a engine to get back to the front?

We had to pull the engine mounts off to drop the motor low enough to get to the top trans bolts. Not the soft mounts, but the solid cast part that the soft mounts bolt onto. To access the lower motor mount bolts, the coil springs would have to be removed. I have no idea how the transmission shop rebuilt the trans in one day. The intake has a vacuum tree on the back of it, up high and about an inch from the firewall. It prevents the engine from being tilted to access the top bolts, and blocks them from above.

I think every part in the engine compartment goes to another vehicle. Maybe, it was a engineering exercise to not have to manufacture any new parts. Maybe, they were just screwing with the service techs. "Hey, Joe, if we run this line all the way over to the other side of the engine bay, we won't have to design a new part, we can just use a part for a 1978 E350 van." "If we put half the transmission bolts front to back, and the other half back to front, and use 12 bolts to hold a 300 pound engine, it will really mess with the service guys." "Let's put the plumbing and most of the wiring in the most inaccessible locations we can come up with."

Anyways, it's out. I didn't take any pictures. I'll take some with the engines side by side before I start switching parts. I'm tired...

 

[Josh P]

I think there's two sets of engineers. One set that designs it correctly, then the second set the engineers the cost down. I also think they intentionally design things to eff over the poor customer who is going to suffer from working on it.

 

[410Fortune]

Top bellhousing
Bolts usually accessed From underneath, we use long extensions and approach from around the tailhousing area of the trans.

That front to back stuff sucks
Yes the engine was designed to go east west under the hood, putting it into ranger had always come second to putting it into the car… the ranger was designed for the big 4.0 v6 and then worked backwards from there.
The 2.3 and 3.0 are a pita!!!

Good job!!

 

[BKennedy]

Here are some pictures of the engines side by side. I think the Ranger engine was leaking from everywhere. The Focus engines plumbing and intake are off.

 

I think the water pump, thermostat housing and the power steering pump are the same. The water pump in the Focus engine looks pristine, so it will get a new O-ring and stay. Just about everything else has to come off.

Here's a problem I just noticed. The crank pullys are different. I was planning on using the pully off the Focus because it's timed correctly. However, it's 1/4" wider than the Ranger pully and the timing ring is much wider. It won't fit in the recess on the Ranger timing cover, and won't clear the sensor location.

Can I use the Ranger pully and time it the same as the Focus pully? The gap in the timing on the Focus ring is straight down. Does that mean I can install the Ranger pully the same way and not kill the engine? The Focus ring has a white mark which I assume marks TDC on one of the teeth, but there is nothing on the Ranger teeth.

 

[BKennedy]

410Fortune PM'd me the answer. He said to get the Focus engine #1 cylinder to TDC, then swap the pullys in the same orientation.

I'm going to get both engines to tdc, and compare just because.

Thanks 410.

 

[BKennedy]

I know I keep writing Focus, but the engine is out of a 2008 Fusion. The Focus didn't have a 2.3.

 

[Josh P]

I know I keep writing Focus, but the engine is out of a 2008 Fusion. The Focus didn't have a 2.3.

We know what you mean, carry on! I've been following this swap.

 

[BKennedy]

I'm having a issue I'm trying to figure out. The FUSION engine has a different timing gear on the left side, which I think is a VVT setup. The Ranger engine doesn't. Everything else looks identical. I'm working on finding info on a fix and hoping I can still salvage this swap. I'm hoping I can order a Ranger timing gear and chain and swap them in, or best case scenario, swap the gear with the Ranger one. If I mess with the timing, I think I'll have to reset the time, which seems complicated. This is becoming much more involved than I thought.

Ranger

Fusion