First off, I am new here and I would like to thank all of the knowledgeable Ranger owners that post on this forum. It is a valuable resource to the public, as I am not a mechanic and not equipped with the tools of the trade. Here is my story. I was gifted a 2003 Ford ranger XLT Supercab 4 door with the 3.0 motor, after the passing of my Brother -in- Law. It was one of his trucks. It truck had about 85,000 miles on it when I received it. I drove it around for about a 1000 miles before it developed that chirping noise that had been associated with the camshaft synchronizer going out.. The noise appeared after the truck was good and warm and the oil was good and warmed up and probably at its thinnest viscosity.. I found the information regarding the camshaft synchronizer on this forum. I had the part replaced with a Ford OEM part, a fresh oil change using Motorcraft 5w20 synthetic blend and fresh oil filter. The noise went away, but only for about 1500 miles. I immediately ceased driving the truck. Being frustrated with the noise coming back in such a short amount of time and distance I began to researching to see if I could find any correlation between the thinning out of the 5w20 oil once it reaches being hot and the failure of the camshaft synchronizer. I found a post by an individual on a forum that was discussing the thinner oils used in today's engines, their different viscosity and lubrication properties. I ran across a post by one guy that had to do with the Ford Ranger. His post is in the following sentence in quotation marks, as I did not want to plagiarize him. " Whether it's accurate or not, it's been my observation that the majority of those that have had cam sync problems have been those that use the thinner oils along with the stock 197* thermostat. Is there a cause-and-effect in the that higher heat of the 197* T-stat is making an already thin oil even thinner and starving the cam sync of oil? I don't know, but I've put a 180* T-stat in my Ranger and I run 10W-30 in the winter and 10W-40 in the summer and I've had 150,000 trouble free miles. We'll see if it continues...." So after reading his comments I tried an experiment. I did not change the thermostat in the truck, but I did change the oil to Motorcraft 5w30 synthetic blend and a fresh Motorcraft oil filter. Since the viscosity change the noise is now completely gone. I am not one for coincidences, so I am of the belief that the thinness of the 20w oils is a contributing factor to the camshaft synchronizer issues. Otherwise, the camshaft synchronizer that is currently in the truck with only 1500 miles on it, that was beginning to chirp before the oil change would still be chirping after the change from 5w20 to 5w30. The engine runs nice and smooth and is very quiet. I have over 1000 miles on the truck since the change from 5w20 to 5w30. I have noticed a slight drop in MPG. About 1 & 7/10 MPG. Maybe due to running a little thicker oil. I think the gentlemen that posted his information that is in the quotation marks is pretty close to being spot on about the thinner oil and the part failures. Just my observation though. I like the little Ford Ranger and hope to get a lot of trouble free miles out if it, doing the required maintenance on it of course.

Best to all..........