Whining motor at idle and acceleration, what could it be?
 

I have a 93 ford ranger, 2.3L. It whines while driving and idling and sounds like the power steering pump is whining but the steering wheel isn't moving. It idles rough occasionally too.

Welcome to the forum

Turn the steering wheel and see if noise changes, if so you are correct it is power steering pump noise

When engine is Stone COLD, remove fan belt from crank pulley
Start engine, you can run the COLD engine with no water pump or alternator for only for 2 minutes, NO MORE

Now listen for the noise, rev engine and see if you hear it, it will be very quiet in engine bay with no fan

If no noise then shut off engine
It will be an accessory pulley noise, spin each pulley manually to see if you can detect a problem

???
 

Alright, I will give that a shot. It doesn't seem to affect power or performance that I can tell. It is intermittent as well. I've tried to located the sound and it sounds like the timing belt could be squealing. I just recently bought this truck it's a 5 speed 2.3L. It's got 113,500 miles on it. I just changed the oil, shocks, plugs and plug wires and new tires. I was also wondering if the timing belt could need replaced, or timing adjusted or if that was even necessary on this model and if its something that would be intermittent.

2.3l SOHC Lima engine does use a timing belt tensioner pulley, and yes it could make a noise if it was failing

Take off fan belt and see if noise is still there

Ford's spec on this Timing belt is 70k miles, 100k is fine in my opinion, this is a non-interference engine, so only down side of timing belt breaking is you need to be towed to a place you can put a new one on, no engine damage can occur from a broken timing belt