Ive searched 4.0 threads and didn't find what i was looking for.
well last Wednesday i changed my oil and i put 10w-40 in it and changed the filter. started it and everything was good. then we changed the oil in the G6 and rotated the tires. ate dinner, then we took my truck to the advanced to give them the used oil it ran fine then, we got back, then about an out later i go to leave and it sounds like my truck is a diesel. it started rattling once the rpms go down to idle, and it stays rattling until i give it gas. it only does it at idle. i put some STP oil treatment in and it didnt seem to make a difference. so tonight i changed the oil again and put 20W-50 in and changed the filter and it still is rattling, its never done this before. i would like to know if its serious at all, then any ideas of what could be causing it.
thanks guys and girls!!
btw its a 1998 4.0 auto.

 

Welcome to the club. It is common on 4.0L OHV engines. My ranger did that since about 60k miles. Tons of them do it, and ford says it is completely acceptable. Sounds like someone dropped some marbles in a cup of oil and is shaking them around like crazy, right? Yup, get use to it. I started noticing it occasionally in other rangers after mine started doing it.
Sometimes it gets quieter as the oil gets dirtier, lol.

 

By the way I sold that ranger with 145k miles, still running strong. Indeed nothing is wrong with it. Just tell people you have a super silent prototype diesel in there.

 

lol i feel so honored haha! well is there anyway to fix it other then buying a f250 4x4 crew-cab long bed diesel? lol

 

No. I went to a bunch of dealers and they all told me the same thing.
I forget exactly what it is though, it has been a while...

 

yea mine does it too. i dont really care

 

This same thing happened to me a few weeks ago, it is still rattling. What it means is that you took too long draining the oil. The rattling should usually go away after a while.
Next time you change your oil do it quickly, dont let the oil drip from the pan, plug it after it stops flowing. Also pre-fill your filter with oil before you install it. That should prevent the marbling noise.

 

It is not caused by lack of the way you changed your oil, sorry. You may be thinking of a completely different noise that you hear on the first start after an oil change. A half second of so without oil pressure.

It seems like one possible cause I have heard was slight play in the piston wrist pins?
Either way I was assured by many people that it was nothing to worry about. I have heard it on a lot of high mileage 4.0L rangers, and mine did it for 85k miles that I drove it with no sign of trouble.

 

yea, i took it to a family friend that used to work for a ford dealership shop and he said its nothing serious, he said it could be a number of things but it wouldn't be worth it to look for it. so im not going to worry about it. when someones asks whats that sound coming from my truck is, ill say its a diesel. lol

 

No, it is brought on by the way you change your oil. There is nothing wrong with the noise. It is caused by the shord piston skirts and the placement on the wrist pins. The noise you hear is piston slap. I dont know why the way you change your oil matters but it does, that is what I read over and over on other forums. It makes sense because I always changed my mobil 1 oil quicky and had no noise, but when I let the pan drain for twenty minutes when I switched to Royal Purple the noise appeared.

This same problem plagued the triton v10 too. Ford tsb was to use a lighter weight synthetic and a mobil one synthetic oil filter since it flows more oil.

So No, it is not caused by the way you change your oil, it is just brought on by the way you change your oil. It is not harmful.

 

I think I have this problem too when idleing. Its been doing it for the past year or so through a couple of oil changes. It sounds exactly like marbles bouncing around in there or a diesel type engine. I've currently got 74k on it. It probably started around 68 or so.

Recently I came home and my dad noticed in the driveway. His exact words where "your truck sounds horrible, whats wrong with that thing now? it sounds like there isn't any oil in it." It was really loud as it just had an oil change the day before. Then I proceeded to tell him yes its fine and just had a full service and inspection so nothing should be wrong with it. He then told me that i should have sold it when i had the chance and switched to a Toyota lol

 

Man I must be one of the few, I don't have that And mines got 164,000 miles on it.

 

yeah i got almost 150,000 and my truck sounds fine

 

It has nothing to do with how, who, or what changes your oil.

 

*scratches head*

20w50 in a 4.0 ohv? Is that what the engine calls for? I'm always used to 10w or 5w in our engines.. new for me I suppose!

 

no it doesn't call for it, when we changed it the first time we put in 10w40 then it started rattling so we changed it again and we put in 20w50, but now the rattling is much quieter then before, idk if its the weight of the oil or it just get quieter over time by it self.