lbs_ft

So here's the details. My little brother has a 1997 Ford Ranger, manual 3 liter, nothing fancy and he drives it maturely.

Today he was leaving school and stalled out when backing out of his parking spot. He says he turned it back on and left the lot, and it was at this time that he noticed that his oil pressure gauge was at 0, and his 'Check Gauge' and 'Check Engine' lights were on.

He pulled over and checked his oil level - it was good and there wasn't any oil leaking, so he assumed his sending unit was probably shot. He turned it back on, listened for any upper-end noises to tell if the pump was shot, and upon hearing nothing out of the ordinary, he resumed driving. He got about a mile up the road before the engine started squealing, so he pulled into a lot and cut it off.

This is when I showed up. Plenty of oil in the pan, nothing obviously fucked up in the bay, but I don't know anything about these trucks. I asked him to crank the engine over, and when he did it cranked over the starter was obviously under a serious amount of pressure, much more than normal, and it was slow and loud on the one crank we gave it before I told him to leave it alone.

So that's where we stand. I'm doing some research online, but if anyone can help me out here, it'd be greatly appreciated. I'll update this thread and answer as many question as I can, just trying to fix this as quickly and as simply as possible.

Thanks in advance

Dough_Boy.

It's probably the oil pump. Does it have a lot of miles on it?

lbs_ft

In excess of 130k I believe... I was thinking that it was the pump, but he said it was running fine and there wasn't any upper-end ticking or clicking to give away oil deprivation.

I was thinking that the squeal was from a belt trying to run around a seized pulley, and that the starter was having trouble because of a seized pulley as well. Does that make sense?

nftuatn

Oil pump died and the motor is semi locking up...probably has a spun bearing by now....my advice ...put a motor in it

lbs_ft

damn damn damn damn damn

Dough_Boy.

That's possible. But it doesn't explain the oil gauge. It could be a pulley locking up and the sender or gauge happened to go at the same time. Take the belt off and see if any of the pulleys are picked up.

lbs_ft

Yeah, my dad's having it towed back to the house. I'm gonna pull all the belts to check all the pulleys, and try and crank the motor over with a breaker bar. If it's too hard to turn, it's definitely seized.

lbs_ft

So here's an update.

I spent my entire evening last night crawling around the engine bay of this truck, and I'm 99% sure I found the problem.

Basically, Ford fucked us over. They switched from a distributor to coil packs, I suppose due to efficiency or cost or whatever, but they didn't want to redesign the motor, which they drop in Rangers and Explorers. So they went with coil packs, but kept the shaft, which holds the CPS at the top and which powers the oil pump at the bottom.

Here's a picture for reference:


Plug for the CPS at the left with the actual CPS inside that casing, the gearing is spun by the motor, and the bottom of the shaft is a hex socket which powers the oil pump. That other piece is just for holding the part so it doesn't spin when you install it.

This thing is wedged halfway down the back of the engine between the block and firewall. So I wound up on top of the intake plenum in the most uncomfortable position ever, and pulled this assembly out. Upon comparing the old and new part, the section with the gear teeth was missing from the part I just pulled, and the cotter pin had sheared off. I crawled back up on top of the engine and peered back into this hole (on the back of the block between the firewall and engine with my face smeared against the bottom of the hood with a flashlight in my mouth) and you can guess what I saw at the bottom of said hole.

An hour and a half later, I managed to fish the gears out with a coat hangar. It was like God wanted to punish me personally and he used Operation as his influence.

So seeing as the teeth had dropped, I can assume that the shaft was no longer being spun, so the CPS was fucking up and - of course - the oil pump was not pumping.

So tonight I have to set the motor at TDC with the #1 piston on the ignition stroke, then install the new Crank Synchronizer (which is a retarded name for a part) and we should be good to go. I'll update this thread afterwards and let you know the results.