Hey y'all. I have a 91 Ranger XLT with a 3.0 / 5 Speed. It starts easily the first time of the day. drive anywhere and the motor gets warm, it will not start again.

I have never seen any motor that I could drive 25 miles and could touch any part of the motor (except the headers) with a open hand and it isn't even warm !!!! This motor is like that tho.

I was guessing the ignition coil was bad, but I replaced it today with a brand new coil and no dice. It does the same thing. The motor runs flawlessly until ya turn it off. Then it MIGHT start if ya hold the gas pedal to the floor. And those times are few and far between.

So if no Ranger owner here has ever experienced that before, would someone like to make a educated guess of what to check next? This is driving me up a wall. I live in th ecountry and can't chance taking it anywhere as I would have to sit for 3 or 4 hours and then it might start again.

Thanks y'all

Mutt

 

Welcome to the forum

Rangers with the 3.0l V6 had a distributor until 1995 model year
And would use TFI spark system
The TFI module was known to stop working after shutting down warm engine, after cooling a bit it would work again.

On other engines the TFI module was on the distributor, but I think all the 3.0l Rangers had them remote mounted on the rad support, because of the heat issue.
Check drivers side under battery on rad support, if battery is on passenger side then check there

Pictures of what you are looking for seen here: Ford Ranger Remote Mounted TFI Ignition Module

Ignition coils can also get heat sensitive but unlike the TFI module they would usually start to cut out when heated up, and you don't mention that, but............

Like the TFI module the problem may be the heat up AFTER you shut off the engine.
When engine is off fan is off and engine bay starts to heat up, so TFI and coil also heats up.

Knew a fellow who thru a bag of ice in an ice chest then got engine all warmed up and shut it down, if he got a no start he put the bag of ice on the TFI module for a minute or two then tried starting.
Did the same to Coil, but not at the same time, so he could find out if one or the other was the problem, lol.
Low Tech but he found out it was the TFI module