Ever since the weather has gotten colder, we've been having issues with my girlfriend's ranger. It has a little over 190,000. So to be honest, Ive been expecting to have some problems with it sooner or later. Specs: 1994 Ranger, 4.0, AT 4x4

Problem #1: On cold start-up, if you step on the gas heavily to pull out without letting it warm up it will stall out, but not if you lightly step on the gas. Any Ideas? Throttle Position Sensor?

Problem #2: The temperature guage will bounce around. From cold to hot to normal back to hot and so on and so forth. But the truck never smells like its running hot. Bad gauge? Bad Thermostat? (It was changed about 1-1/2 years ago) A friend had mentioned about replacing the Radiator cap with a brand new one, is that just BS or does that make sense?

Problem #3 (and probably worst of all): I changed the oil last Saturday and was not pleased with what I saw. Milk chocolatey brown oil came out. It wasnt over-due for an oil change but that was the same one we drove back from Oklahoma with. I changed the oil (Pennzoil High-Mileage 5W-30) and added Restore Engine Re-storer. The same friend told me that this may be a bad Head Gasket. And if thats the case he said to try running some kind of stop leak in the Anti-Freeze.

Any ideas or info would be appreciated, Im just trying get some other opinions. Thanks guys!

 

1. my truck does the same thing the motor is old let it warm up no real problem there. just give it a min to get warmed up.

2. Check the wire on the temp senor make sure its clean. if it is, then replace the temp sensor. they are cheap.

3. change the oil sooner next time and fill your coolant over flow tank and check the level on the rad if low fill it. then next oil change check the level again.

 

1. Thats what I thought, just wasnt sure

2. Location?

3. That was my plan, also switching to a thicker oil, maybe 10W-30

 

Temp sending unit is a couple inches behind the thermostat housing. My wire was completely frozen on it, could not ge it off until I broke it off. Went to Pull a Part and snipped off a good one from another truck and butt spliced it in. When I changed my temp sending unit (about 5.00) I had to take off the alternator and the pulleys because I could not get my hand in the tight space to start the new one in the hole. This did not fix my problem as I still have the gauge fluctuating. I put an aftermarket gauge on just to make sure and it fluctuates also. Are you sure your head gasket is not going, sounds like it is contaminating your oil and making it milky. If not, look around the timing chain cover and see for leaks, hopefully it is not leaking into your oil from the gasket. Mine was leaking but I caught it before it got worse. While I was in there I changed the timing chain and water pump.

 

id put money on some sort of head gasket issue, milk shake is BAD...it will coat and leave a film on all the bearings inside the motor... maybe time to do a compression test and leak down.