I recently got this little truck at a steal or so I thought. It’s a 2002 plain Jane ranger 4cyl 5speed. When I first bought it it immediately had to have the starter replaced, I changed the oil, new spark plugs and wires and air filter. It sat for a few days while I was waiting on my tags to come in the mail, and once they came I started driving it a little. I noticed it was smoking terribly bad so I went back home gave it a once over and there was no oil in the truck and I could smell gas really bad when I took off the oil cap. I assumed bad injector so I pulled the plugs, and number 4 was solid black. I replaced the injectors, changed the oil again, drove it less than 20 miles, no oil again. Today I pulled the head off, and during tear down found my air box had a significant amount of antifreeze in it. The head doesn’t appear cracked nor the block, 3 of 4 pistons have normal carbon build up but #4 is clean like it’s been burning antifreeze. So my question is where did my oil go? Why is my antifreeze not ridiculously low and how did it get in my air box. Any help or suggestions is appreciated

 

Weeding out the obvious here, have you verified that the oil pan and drain plug are not leaking at all? Also might be worth checking around the oil pump for leaks. That wouldn't explain everything but it is worth starting with the simple things.

 

Yeah, I’ve checked and rechecked for leaks, and there is nothing more than a few spots at the edge of the timing cover. I failed to mention before that this truck has 132k on it and the head has already been off previously. I’m just perplexed, there is no water in the oil and no oil in the coolant, so it’s being burned off. Another thing is that it never seemed to lose a bunch of power, it would feel sluggish or like it was loading up with fuel but never died, just smoked like crazy

 

It must be leaking,

There is no way you could burn 4 qts of oil in 20 miles without serious smoke, if the engine would even run.

 

There was serious smoke, but at the time I attributed that to possible excess fuel in the catalytic converter. After a few minutes of driving I realized there couldn’t be that much fuel in the exhaust and went home, that’s when I found there was no oil. I’ve been a technician for 14 years, and this little truck has me puzzled. I know the head has been removed before, and now I’m wondering if they didn’t reuse the old gasket and just put Indian Head Sealer on it 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

There was serious smoke involved, but I attributed that to excess fuel in the converter. After driving for a little while the smoke didn’t subside and I took it back home and found there was no oil. I’ve been a tech for 14 years and this little truck has me puzzled.

 

I just rebuilt my 2007 ranger 2.3L with 130,000 miles on it. Both front and back seals on the crankshaft were leaking oil. All the piston oil rings were seized to the piston, all the head valves seals were bad but it still had oil. If you are have serious white smoke and no oil leaks than the engine is burning off the oil. I would pull the engine and rebuild it, get the head rebuilt and you will have a good truck.

 

So, I seen your other thread and decided to go all in. I checked the prices from rockauto and it only adds a little to my overall price. I’ve worked on several of these engines in the Mazda line and never seen anything like what mine was doing aside from a CX-7 that had a turbo crap out and was eating oil like crazy. I assume that with the age and relatively low mileage it spent a lot of time just sitting, combine that with cheap oil and you end up with a rolling smoke bomb. Did you ever find the torque specs for the rod, main and head bolts?

 

Main Cap bolts 32ft/lb and then rotate 180 deg
Rod bolts 21ft/lb then rotate 90 deg
Head bolts I did 20ft/lb - 33ft/lb - rotate 90 deg - rotate another 90 deg

I reused my main and rod bolts but not the head bolts.

IMHO replace the EGR valve while you have the head off because if it goes bad you will have no fun trying to replace it.