1986 Ford Ranger 4D55 Turbo Diesel

[Enemy]

Pulled out of the parking lot at work the other day and reverse in my POS 1994 Cutlass decided it no longer wants to remain in its designated area of the transmission.. In the 3 years I beat the holy hell out of that car on a daily basis back and forth to work, I don't think it ever got washed... Should NOT have done that earlier that day! And really effed up part is that a co-worker said "I bet it wont run right after you wash it!" Little shit head cursed it..

Anyway! In my search for another POS that gets descent mileage to drive back and forth to work, I had this little gem fall in my lap. I browsed over the add at least 4 times always thinking that somebody hacked together a diesel in a Ranger. Even a Ranger guru friend of mine has never heard of them. Well, an evening of research later, I learned the saga Ford had bringing a light diesel truck to the market in 82. An epic failure with a non turbo Mazda diesel until they dropped the 4D55 turbo diesel in it in 85 (You didnt have to push this one to get going on a downhill slope  ) From my understanding just after it started coming together, the EPA forced a halt on Ford producing them in mid 87. Hmmmm...cant figure out why that would be....Claims of 40+ MPG, a very tried and true (simple) turbo diesel. Such a polluter!

Rare, parts getting hard to come by, seems to been taken pretty good care of for the most part, and a very clean truck for its age. What the hell! 
How I found it..















 

[Carlriddle]

DS was telling me this and I couldn't believe it.  So I did the google thing too. lol  Seems the also put it in a Tempo.  Yeah those first few w/o turbo made a whopping 55hp    But you should be good cause the turbo one is 75 or so.  But good torque and great milage.  Dont forget to keep it plugged in in else it wont ever start.  You gonna mod it or drive as is?

[dsrace]

carl you know as well as i do enemy would never even think about moding it.   

[Enemy]

Didn't know about a diesel Tempo! Also stuffed in the Dodge D50, and a Mitsubishi Mighty Max I believe..
Nice little reference chart on the diesel Rangers > http://www.therangerstation.com/tech_library/Diesels.htm

For 86 claimed HP, the little shit gets right after it! It's no speed demon, put 0-60 is no slouch. No problem accelerating up hills from 65 mph up. Glow plugs are definitely in good shape, forgot to plug it in the other night it got down to 5* and it popped right off in the morn!  ...It didn't like it much with the baby 600 CCA Walmart battery, but it took off! Whats surprising is it is putting out descent heat in the cab after 10 min of warmup on cold ass mornings.

I was planning on just driving the wheels off it, but can ANY of us on here leave ANYTHING alone!??

First mods last weekend was general maintenance. Changed out the engine and all the drive line to Redline, changed the timing belts and serpentine belts, cleaned the mouse nest out of the filter box, flushed the cooling system and gave the engine bay a thorough douching. Ordered a boost and Pyro gauge so I don't over-do adding some boost on the baby hair dryer and fuel on the Bosch pump  . I have a much better intake system designed with some left over parts laying around and going to improve on the exhaust this weekend.

And cab corners... And a tailgate....And a paint job....
Oh, and I found a wrecked 87 4x4 to swap out the front end and transfer case...
 
"As if I don't have enough on my plate" ~fabr 

[Enemy]

Major and most important mod #1 - Boost and Pyro gauge!
Found a nice little spot in what used to be an air register. Painted the housings of the Sport-comps flat black and shoved em in the hole. Still get good air through the vent,  just not adjustable.. boohoo! Just gotta add a resistor in the lighting circuit, damn things are WAY to bright..Good grief!





I had no choice but to put the pyro sender post turbo immediately after the housing, wouldn't think the reading would be much less than if it was directly at the exhaust port, which is optimal. Couldn't quite get the ambition to pull the turbo and exhaust manifold to accomplish that! Just a daily driver right! Regardless, I couldnt even get it to 1300 if I tried. Safe to start tinkering! 

BONE STOCK
10psi on the gate
1250 max on the Pyro 4th gear lug in a headwind up a big hill.
Last check on MPG is close to 30. 10 minute warm up in the morn and eves, fighting a nasty North wind in the eves coming home. Not too friggin shabby!! But room for improvement I'm thinking..Like keep led foot off floor 

[Enemy]

"WTF were they thinking" Mod #2 - Slightly improve the stock intake system....

Just a couple factory service bulletins back in the day on this wonderful little system.. Oil soaked filters, collapsing intake boot. This truck didn't have either one addressed lol



Cleaned up the engine compartment just a bit. Going to build a shield around the filter using the old 2nd battery location as a base and gasket it to the hood to keep the heat away. Definitely hear the little blow dryer spooling now! Its almost comical...


 Such a cute little guy! 


11-12 psi Boost
EGT's dropped by 100* on same hill. Mileage suffering (most likely) cause driver currently enjoys hearing the little turbo screaming through every gear.

[dsrace]

lol ya i know that's why the mpg's have dropped!! lol     on the egt probe, I can tell you on the psd after the turbo you could see a 300* loss in temp but right after the exhaust manifold where the up pipes start not more than a 50* dropp.  that is a nice little truck and the gauges turned out nice!  what about the dp and exhaust back? btw they put them in the escort as well back then but that one is very rare but there was one on craigslist locally a few weeks ago. steve termant from husker asked me about it yesterday and said that ad had to be a lie then I told him of your ranger.

[Enemy]

I hope the 300* difference would be because of the long distance from the manifolds to the turbo on the psd? Most likely that would be the case, i suspect maybe a 100* max drop on this setup since the tiny exhaust runners are only 2 inches to the turbo flange, Another reason I didnt want to drill into them, only be able to sink the probe in a 1/4 inch! A rare manifold as well. Downpipe is 2 1/4 cast and supports the wastegate, so going to to adapt to 2 1/2 flex coupler to 3" out the back. Found a Mitsubishi forum with a wealth of info on this motor that says 2 1/2 minimum, 3" preferred so think It will do a good job, Just got to get rid of the exhaust vibration! Another service bulletin from Ford on this truck back in the day. I think the flex coupler should do the trick along with getting the butchered old exhaust off. Its full of Grandpas "Chicken Poop" welds!

[Yummi]

OK,

Got a funky error code.  Last visable message was from DSRace:

ya the exhaust will do it well!!  ya I think the long up pipes account for the drop and i was talking about the down pipe side of the turbo where I have seen some post up where they installed there probe.

that is one nice little truck btw!!

My guess is there was a post by Enemy with photos after this? 

Carry on.

[LiveWire]

I had an 84 Escort Diesel. It got 62 mpg - 2 door, no air, no power anything. That was even with a 20 year old thinking it was cool it could chirp 3rd. If held to the floor, it would continue to climb in speed very slowly. I once did for like 15 miles. The speedo needle popped past the bottom of the display. With a full size fuel fill, I could fill up the 10 gallon tank in about 30 seconds at the truck stop. It had 165K on it when sold. It still had the original exhaust and battery. My Dad got an 86 4 door with air. That one only got 50.

My dad now has 3 of those engines. He put one into a 98 Escort ZX2 but lost interest before completing.

[Hammerworks]

Heres a miata on my local CL.

http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/cto/3652856278.html

[Enemy]

I had an 84 Escort Diesel. It got 62 mpg - 2 door, no air, no power anything. That was even with a 20 year old thinking it was cool it could chirp 3rd. If held to the floor, it would continue to climb in speed very slowly. I once did for like 15 miles. The speedo needle popped past the bottom of the display. With a full size fuel fill, I could fill up the 10 gallon tank in about 30 seconds at the truck stop. It had 165K on it when sold. It still had the original exhaust and battery. My Dad got an 86 4 door with air. That one only got 50.

My dad now has 3 of those engines. He put one into a 98 Escort ZX2 but lost interest before completing.

62 mpg, damn thats really impressive. What I love about the simplicity of this mill, it just works and works well. Let them get ahold of it today and it will have so much BS hanging off of it for emissions, the cost of it will be 10x greater with greatly reduced longevity, AND it will only get 16mpg! The price of technology I suppose (OR another alphabet agency is looking out for our best interests as usual..)
Something about all that just doesn't add up 


Hammer I think that 25hp Miata might be one ya have to give a little push to help get going like the first diesel Rangers! 

[BDKW1]

Back in the mid 80's Toyota also made a diesel pickup. A buddy had one. Not sure on the mileage it got, but I do know we drove it from north San Diego county to San Felipe and back on one tank of fuel. That's a 540 mile trip with a little screwing around down there and a couple days of fuel left over when we got back. All from a 16 gallon tank. Not the speediest of trucks, but it got there.

[LiveWire]

62 mpg, damn thats really impressive. What I love about the simplicity of this mill, it just works and works well. Let them get ahold of it today and it will have so much BS hanging off of it for emissions, the cost of it will be 10x greater with greatly reduced longevity, AND it will only get 16mpg! The price of technology I suppose (OR another alphabet agency is looking out for our best interests as usual..)
Something about all that just doesn't add up 


Hammer I think that 25hp Miata might be one ya have to give a little push to help get going like the first diesel Rangers! 

The diesel Fiesta in Europe is supposed to get over 60, but that is in imperial gallons I think. Ford doesn't think sales will be high enough here, which I tend to agree with. Now that Dodge Fiat Ram is going to offer a 1/2 ton truck with a diesel, that may start to shift things. Dodge Fiat Ram is low volume compared to the others so having a segment unique feature might get them enough to justify it. If they do well, Ford and GM would join in.

[Carlriddle]

Ford has truck over seas with a 4cy diesel, little smaller than f150 that get 30+/-.  And they are bringing a small diesel in the ford transport van.  I'm all for energy eff, electric, hybrid, coffin size, eco friendly things that can get 50 mpg around town, (not on highway)  but if I cant go to Home Depot and grab 2 sheets of plywood and some 2x4's to build a doghouse then I've got to have something else too. 

When Enemy gets done with this truck, he'll be pulling his camper/rail to the dunes with it.