Need to rebuild engine or do motor swap

Hey guys,

First time poster, long time lurker.

Some background info: I have a 2002 Ford Ranger XLT, 3.0L 4wd with 103K on the odometer.

Recently I had a CEL and a scan produced a misfire. Checked ignition (has new coilpack and plugs) - no problems. Messed around with it for a week then brought it somewhere for diagnostics. Turns out the injector failed. It gets replaced and the shop owner tells me I lost compression in the 5th cylinder but was able to get it back up and running but it's got a slight rough idle. He tells me that I need replace the spark plug wires and I'll be fine. I replace the wires that week with a Bosch set but it doesn't help. Two weeks later CEL pops up again and I bring it in. This time he tells me I've got shot rings and I need a rebuild or motor swap. Tells me he'll do the rebuild for $2,000 or $1,000 for the swap.

It still runs well enough right now, no CEL at the moment, but I need to do something. I'm not opposed to swapping the motor myself as I've done two before with Taurus SHOs. I've looked online and found some rebuilt engines from $1600-1800 with what look to be decent warranties and will start calling around scrap yards this week to see if I find a decent donor motor.

My question to you guys is, when looking for a compatible engine, what are my options? What other year Rangers can I pull a motor from and what necessary changes might I need to make (ie, ignition, accessories, etc)?

Thanks in advance for any help. It'll be greatly appreciated.

 

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I would suggest calling/emailing a couple of decent salvage yards. They usually have complete listings of what engine fits what year, etc.
You mentioned working on Taurus SHOs. This might be a blessing in disguise. You may be able to get something more along the line of what you would have liked in the truck originally, but wasn't offered.

 

Are you burning oil or is your oil level going down ?

Can you do a compression check ?
If so, do it, that will tell you if the rings are bad.
Pull all of the plugs, mark the wiring.
Look to see if the spark plugs are fouled, could be an indicator of oil in the cylinder.
Check the compression, record the numbers and do it again.
Squirt some oil in the cylinders either all or any that are low and recheck the compression.

If all of the numbers are all the same chances are you are OK, that is if they are close to the book compression rating.
If the numbers are low in one or that particular cylinder then the oil should raise the number some; if that is the case then you might need rings.

Second thought… do you know this shop, is it dependable ?

Second opinions are good too !

Luck

 

Sorry, I meant that to mean that I've swapped a SHO motor into another SHO and installed a rebuilt engine into yet another SHO. It would be cool putting one into a Ranger but dealing with the wiring harness alone on those things makes me cringe.

I wasn't sure if junk yards would have listings of what engines fit what models and thought I'd hit the forums first to gain a bit of info before I started calling around. Thanks.

 

Cylinder 5 was dead when brought into the shop. This was the one with the dead injector.

Plugs are all very recent. I replaced them all prior to bringing it into the shop. I found one, cylinder 5, that had a burnt and cracked tip.

When oil was squirted into cylinder 5 it bounced back and seemed OK but after a couple of weeks compression dropped to 85.

The shop is well known as a Ford performance shop but also does a lot of maintenance work and is the reason I sent it there.

There is another credible shop nearby that I've been debating getting a second opinion at. Money's really tight as I recently got laid off and I already lost $500 to the first shop and I'd hate to have the same thing happen and still have the issue.

 

Money being tight is a problem when talking about replacing a motor.
Even a used one is pricey.
You might try as suggest in earlier post to see if JY near you has a low mileage engine, might work out.