Let me start this off by saying I'm not very mechanically knowledgeable, so any help or advice is much appreciated. I have a 2006 2.3L ford ranger that became undrivable last night, and I'd like to know if I can fix it at home with my dad or if I have to take it to the shop. what happened was I backed out of my parking spot, and put it in drive. when pressed (lightly) on the gas the truck didn't move. The engine light, battery light, and oil light lit up all at once making my dashboard a sad Christmas tree. I put it in neutral and revved it twice to see if maybe it would somehow fix itself (probably made it worse lol). White smoke poured out of my exhaust pipe. No leaks under the car or under the hood from what we could see, and the oil level and color looked normal. If anyone has any ideas, or anything at all please lmk.

 

Welcome to the forum

Manual or automatic?

If those dash lights came on it meant the engine stalled or fan belt broke, so did you have to restart engine?
If not then your fan belt broke
Replace it first

If you can start engine then do this test for blown head gasket
Remove the cap on the Degas Tank, white plastic tank, often called overflow tank
In this picture it is on the left with greenish fluid inside: https://d2ivfcfbdvj3sm.cloudfront.ne...n-QhOc6uyOqESg

Add water to tank if its low, about 1/2 way up, tap water is fine
Start engine
Watch the water/coolant in the tank
Add more water if it drops down below 1/2
Let engine idle for 1 to 2 min, if tank starts to show lots of bubbles or over flows then shut off the engine, you DO have a blown head gasket or cracked head

head gaskets don't just blow, and heads don't just crack, the engine MUST have been overheated for the head gasket to be crushed or the head metal to expand too much and crack
People do put "head gasket fix" into coolant to temporarily stop the symptoms and then sell the vehicle, so buyer beware, lol, no way to tell if that was done by visual inspection

 

Thank you for your advice! Ill do the Degas Tank water test soon, and look at the fan belt then update on this thread. I have an automatic transmission. The truck was also relatively cold (about 20-30 min sitting). I inherited this truck, and ive had it for 2 years plus so the problem is new. Any other ideas always appreciated!