hello everyone,
I own a 1999, ranger with the 4.0, and when the outside temp is below 30 and I START the truck for the first time in thee day the engine will crank a little longer then normal start stummble a little and die, usally on the restart it will start and idle perfect. Now that it is warm it starts perfect. I have replaced, iac, iat, ect, spark plugs and wires, fuel filter. I also have a coolant leak that I couldnt explaine untile today. I decided to look up through the wheel well and see if I could see any sign of coolant and there was old burnt coolant all over the side on both side of the engine comeing from the heads or something, I couldnt tell exactly.
I was told that the hard cold start problem could be intake gaskets. If it was the LOWER intake gasket could it be leaking coolant on both sides of the block explaining the hard start and coolant loss. Maybe head gasket causing both? There is no coolant in oil or visa versa and like I Mentioned the engine runs excelent just leaks coolant and starts hard when it is cold out, it uses no oil at all. I wanted to get some input before I went to a mechanic. thanks,
mike

 

Your best bet to find out for sure whats going on there is to do a simple coolant system pressure test. This will sometimes give you a exact location of a leaky gasket, assuming the leak is external. also id do a compression test to see if there is any big differences between the cylinders. hope you get it figured out