Bought a ranger with a 2.9 v6 for 500 bucks was only running on 5 cylinders changed the spark plugs and the oil(very black)now it runs good first time i start it i come back to it a few minutes later and it stalls constantly wont keep a good idle. Guy down the street recommended the fuel injector cleaner u screw into the fuel pressure gauge port any other ideas i want a cheap truck handy for when i need a truck not my daily driver

 

f.y.i. i removed and then put back what i thought was the fuel filter but must have been fuel pump its right under drivers seat like someone else said in another post but 2 parts houses gave me a part that looked different than what i removed and what i took out had an electric plug fuel filters dont need electricity so i put it back there is another black thing before the pump on the same hose but it looks different than what parts houses are giving me is that a different filter than i am being given

 

Welcome to the site..

Had the truck been sitting for a long time or a driver? Fuel filter won't usually affect idle, more so if it can be driven. Did they give you a canister type, or inline filter?

 

I bought it from a kid who bought it in ocala running only on 5 cylinders and drove it to lutz (2 hour drive) he planned on dropping a 5 liter in it but i guess lost interest didnt realize it would be so expensive something happened and he wanted to dump it. Then they gave me an inline filter what i thought was a filter turned out to be a pump and it is inline with the tank it doesnt make since the filter is the culprit because i would constantly have that problem and i dont initial start up goes fine i drove it 10 minutes maybe than parked about 1/2 hour came back to it and it drove like crap i have little automotive knowledge and i am stumped

 

Being a 1986, you will have both a LOW PRESSURE and a HIGH PRESSURE pump that feeds an in-line filter and a canister filter. The LOW PRESSURE pump feeds the canister filter, which in turn feeds the HIGH PRESSURE pump which feeds the in-line filter. Your fuel rail has a return line that feeds back to the low pressure canister filter. Either or both filters could be an issue, with the canister filter getting most of the crud from the tank. Ford phased out the canister filter in 1988 but left the housing due to the way the fuel system was designed. This fuel system was used on the 1986-1988 Ranger/BII. With that said, you could just remove the canister filter and just run the in-line filter. Because of the way the fuel system operates, I would just run a couple of tanks of fuel with "Techron Concentrate Plus" in it for starters. It won't hurt.

 

great info !!