Fired up my Ranger the other day.

[4bangen]

Life has got quite busy this past few years, and my hobbies have suffered. The Ranger being one of the main casualties. She's hurt in some way, and instead of digging in and figuring out what is wrong, she just sat. Sat so long infact that my battery went flat. Well as most of us, I now have some unexpected free time. So over the weekend I got her started up, and started tinkering. She's not down on power, and she is running fine. But there's a lot of smoke under throttle, and the catch can breather is puking oil vapor when I rev.
This weekend I'm going to do an oil change, change the PCV valve, run a camera into the spark plug holes to look at the pistons and cyl walls, and check the turbo seals. If nothing pops out at me I'm going to pull the turbo off, run it n/a and see if it's still smoking. I'm hoping it's in the turbo and not the motor. But either way, I'm going to get her back on the road. since I got rid of my daily driver mustang I've been wanting to get back into something fun.
here's a short clip to give ya'll some tractor sounds to fill your day.

[Grimpala]

Looks slow!

[4bangen]

Looks slow!

it is.

[Gasser64]

You know what I hate? When you fire up and old truck like that, and shit has somehow broken with the mother fucker just sitting there. Not in use. Just sitting there for 3 or 4 months caused shit to stop working. What the fuck. It should at least have to go bad through normal wear and tear. Not just go bad for no reason other than sitting here.

Ok rant over. Fired up the 87 silverado the other day and noticed that the passenger side power window had magically died since a few months ago, and one of the headlights had also quit. Both worked the last time I drove it. The headlight was a bulb and I haven't made it to the window motor yet.

[shumpertdavid]

passenger side power window had magically died since a few months ago

Possibly dirty contacts in the window switch itself. push in on the flat part of the switch then rock them up and down to try to brush/clean the contacts. If either the driver or passenger side switch has a contact issue it takes the function away because of how they are wired.

[shumpertdavid]

What cam is in that, I like the idle. Look for a ring land to be broken / part of the top of the piston to be gone. The excessive oil breather huffing would lead me to believe it's a bottom end issue. I don't want to be debbie downer but sadly that's about the only way you'll get excessive blow by. I'd also venture to say really excessive valve guide wear could possibly allow some boost pressure to push through into the crank case but I can't see it be sufficient enough to create smoke from huffing out of the breather. I've broken enough pistons in my mustang to know the unfortunate signs and filling my quart capacity crank case breather to the point of spewing oil was the most obvious indicator.

[4bangen]

What cam is in that, I like the idle. Look for a ring land to be broken / part of the top of the piston to be gone. The excessive oil breather huffing would lead me to believe it's a bottom end issue. I don't want to be debbie downer but sadly that's about the only way you'll get excessive blow by. I'd also venture to say really excessive valve guide wear could possibly allow some boost pressure to push through into the crank case but I can't see it be sufficient enough to create smoke from huffing out of the breather. I've broken enough pistons in my mustang to know the unfortunate signs and filling my quart capacity crank case breather to the point of spewing oil was the most obvious indicator.

Ya I don't want to hear it, but you may have a point.

it's got an A237 roller cam in it. I'm going to really get into it this weekend. Seeing as there's literally nothing else I can do with my time off. lol

[Gasser64]

Possibly dirty contacts in the window switch itself. push in on the flat part of the switch then rock them up and down to try to brush/clean the contacts. If either the driver or passenger side switch has a contact issue it takes the function away because of how they are wired.

Don't wanna threadjack, but I want to talk to you about this lol

I hate them old switches. I've never been able to find any that last. They all seem to give out in one way or another, in about 2 years. The problem could be that you can't buy original GM switches. Not sure. Either way I'm thinking about replacing them with something much better made.

Also, do you think that the rubber door track could ever be fucked enough to cause the passenger window to stall out? Seems like they would just sort of harden in place. Not close off and make the window not work. Who knows though

[shumpertdavid]

The window guides usually get loose and worn over time, I can't imagine they'd caise the window to hang up. If anything they'll be loose and rattle.

[ram57ta]

Needs more blown LS3

[4bangen]

Needs more blown LS3

But that would make is just another cookie cutter LS beater. If I ever yanked the 2.3l out of it, I'd do something unusual like an ecoboost 3.5 or a Barra. I'll never be the fastest guy in town, but I can settle for confusing people when I pop the hood.

[Grimpala]

Don't wanna threadjack, but I want to talk to you about this lol

I hate them old switches. I've never been able to find any that last. They all seem to give out in one way or another, in about 2 years. The problem could be that you can't buy original GM switches. Not sure. Either way I'm thinking about replacing them with something much better made.

Also, do you think that the rubber door track could ever be fucked enough to cause the passenger window to stall out? Seems like they would just sort of harden in place. Not close off and make the window not work. Who knows though

There is a lube designed specifically for window guides.

[4bangen]

After spending some time on it this weekend, I've come to the conclusion that #1 is hosed.
It's still smoking out of the crank case, and tail pipe. After putting fresh plugs, a pcv valve, and fresh oil in it, it's actually smoking worse. I'm going to pull the head this week and see if I'm lucky enough that its just a head gasket. But it's got me thinking its a piston or ring. Good news is I have a spare motor still. It's a lot less motor than this one was, but I really want the truck running again. All it needs is a new aux shaft and distributor gear ($300). But also I've got a friend in Odessa that wants to trade a fresh short block for a few RC airplanes. So I'll probably go get that on Sunday. Either way, I'm tired of not driving my truck so it will be fixed soon.


here's the other engine sporting my new Holset and flipped bob's log header.

[shumpertdavid]

Have you run a compression test to see if one cylinder is lower than the others? A leak down test would be more ideal but a compression test at the very least wouldn't hurt. I still agree it's piston/ring trouble.

[4EyedTurd]

Have you run a compression test to see if one cylinder is lower than the others? A leak down test would be more ideal but a compression test at the very least wouldn't hurt. I still agree it's piston/ring trouble.

I was gonna say the same thing