Hi, am a single female missionary in Belize... so I might need more explanations than usual to figure things out on my truck... hope you can have a little patience!!!

First off, it is a '99 Ranger V-6, 4.0 with 120,756 miles on it.

In the last year and a half I put on 20,000 miles almost all off road, dusty, muddy, horrendously rough roads...

I just replaced the fuel pump with the sending unit, as well as two oxygen sensors.

Issues:

Rough, high idle - never seems to idle down. I changed the IAC last September, but that didn't seem to solve the problem.

LOW gas mileage... and gas is over 5.10 a gallon here!!!!

On acceleration from a stop or at low speeds - there is a light "grinding" noise. Not sure if it is in the transmission or what, but I can only think to describe it that way... The mechanic said it was the fan clutch?????

Put in a refurbished alternator in December, battery is a year old... but if I leave the door open for two minutes with the engine off, it will refuse to start. So we have to push start it. Have cleaned the battery terminals.

Fuel gauge worked a little after changing the pump and sending unit, but isn't again. It will go up some, and then go right back down, sometime to empty, sometimes to a quarter.

Temp gauge doesn't work.

It has several "thumping noises" so the mechanic suggested changing the left and right bearings with arms, and the lower bearings. Anything I need to know about that?

There are other issues... but those are the biggest at the moment!
Any suggestions on how to best keep this thing running well under my road conditions?

Thanks in advance!

 

Can’t help but here is a bump up !

good Luck,