Hey new here hope I'm posting in the right area. I have a 94 Ranger with a 2.3 4cyl that has 209,XXX miles on it. I have had very little trouble that couldn't be easily found and fixed until recently.
About three months ago my check engine light came on. At the time no performance change what so ever, so I just figured that the lone gas station that I buy from had gotten some poor fuel. After about a month and several tanks of fresh gas I took it to OReillys where they were unable to determine what was causing light to come on.
So I took it to a trusted mechanic friend. By this time the performance was terrible, the truck got only about 14mpg could barely touch 70mph and you couldn't idle with the AC on. The mechanic said right coil was the problem and changed it, but with no results.
So I took it to the Ford dealer, who diagnosed it as the ignition module. Here's where it gets puzzling. At this point I couldn't drive any faster than 65 my high end power was so bad, so I changed the fuel filter real quick thinking that it might help, and it did fix the rough idle and allowed me to run 70+ and have the AC on. But the gas milage was just as bad the check engine light was on and still had poor performance at highway speeds. For instance hitting an incline at 70 would slow me down so bad I would have to downshift to fourth.
I went back to the mechanic who put a ignition module off a wrecked ranger with 60,000. We put that module on, and started the truck, it idled low then died. We restared it, it ran great, check engine light was off, and the motis said that it was running perfect. We figured it dying that first time was just the main computer adjusting to the new ignition module.
I left very happy for about one mile, when it cut out twice then died, I pulled over, restarted it, turned around drove about half that far back and it did the same thing, only harder to restart, I would have to wait about a minute for it to restart. Each time it would go about half as far then die, and I'd have to wait longer to restart it. Finally my mechanic and I pushed it the last few feet into the shop. We put the old module back on and it wouldn't restart either.
He has checked every fuse they are all good. What could this be? Is it the computer? A couple of guys think it is, but the motis reads the computer just fine, and even gets an RPM reading when we are cranking the engine. But it is not getting spark. I am puzzled, all my mechanic buddies are stumped.