1994 Ford Ranger Timing Belts….UGH!!

Mkay I’m finally back. We have been too busy to get the thermostat back in there. But the new timing belt has about 300 miles on it so I’d say its all back in working order. Here’s a few pics and explaination of what all we did, for those interested. (comments below each pic)

You need to first remove the upper radiator hose. Then you need to get this fan off.

This shows the bolts to need to remove the fan. And no, there is NO easy way to get in there. Rachet wrenches help. But in that tight and uncomfortable of a space, your grateful just to get a normal box wrench in there. Also as an FYI, this picture was taken while putting everything back together. As you can see I had forgotten to put the pully back on first. So had to taken the fan back off, put the pully on and line those holes up all over again. So to save your self aggrivation, remember the pully the first time. Otherwise your truck won’t go very far.

Now I don’t have any pictures of removing the thermostat or the radiator. But they’re pretty straight forward. The only bolts holding the radiator are the ones you see at the top. And the bottom has tabs that fit into rubbor boots on the frame. Remove the bolts and pull up and out.

These are the bolts holding the condensor on. Their hidden behind some old rubber foam. Careful not to pull to hard, as this stuff is falling to pieces already. There were 2 bolts at the top, and 2 at the bottom. Next pic shows how the bottom ones are.

This is a very close up shot of one of the bottom bolts for the condensor. Next shot shows where its at. You’ll like this.

This shows that the bolt in the previous pic, is actually behind the bumper. I took that pic by holding my phone behind the grill. hard to get to, but not that bad.

This was also while putting things back together (I forget to take pictures when I get on a disassembling roll) And that bolt holding this Idler pulley on is held in the pulley itself by a clip on the back. I just put it on my vise and tapped the bolt out with a hammer. (gently, don’t kill the thing.) And used a deep well socket to push the clip onto bolt in the new pulley with the new bearing.

(First note that this was also after we got the crank pulley off.)
This thing was a lot more trouble than it was worth. You don’t really need to remove it. But the serpentine belt wasn’t staying tight, so we knew we were going to need a new one anyways. But see that bolt head in that big hole at the bottom of the tensioner? Yea, that is a torque head (star bit). It is the ONLY torque head I have seen on the engine. And the only other torque heads on any bolt on the entire truck, are the ones holding the bed on (stock bed anyway, we have a flat bed 😀 ). We learned the hard way that you don’t ever want to use an impact on these when they are really rusted in there. I can’t remember what the size was, but we couldn’t get it to budge with a normal ratchet, and the torque socket was getting twisted. So we bought a new torque socket and tried the impact on it. DON”T DO THAT. because the torque head became a round hole. So our only option was to take an angle grinder and dismantle the whole tensioner. After that where there was nothing but the bolt. It screwed by hand cause all the pressure was off the threads.

Now that hole there that looks like a bolt should go in it? Well there is one that goes in it. Another out of order pic I took. But still get the general idea. You actually need to line up you marks now. Cause on this 1994 Ford Ranger. There are some timing marks on this plastic cover for the crank pulley. So put a BIG wrench on the crank bolt and keep turning until you got your marks lined up. Note that where you see the gear there, actually has a rubber plug that you need to remove. Once you got those marks lined up, remove all the bolts holding the plastic cover, and gently put on the outer edges and work those tabs loose.

Now I’m sorry, but I don’t have any pictures of the crank pulley itself. But this is what’s behind it. There are 4 bolts that hold the pulley onto this metal thing. I highly suggest removing the pulley from this thing, as it will help later in getting things lined up. (I’ll explain later.)

TADA, this is what you have after removing the crank bolt, and sliding that metal thing off. That’s a washer covering the belt, so just slide that off too. But the weird plastic looking thing to the left of the crank shaft there?? Yea to the best of my knowledge its a sensor that helps sense the timing of the crank shaft. It senses when that metal thing you removed, passes by it. Don’t know what that has to do with anything. But I suggest you don’t damage that in anyway, as the wire looks like it would be almost impossible to replace without taking the entire engine apart. That would not make for good times. But here you can see the crank gear much better. What we did was put paint on ALL the gears before removing the belt. Even the oil pump gear. And this made things much easier to keep in time.

I’m sorry, but this is the last picture I have for you folks. And its not really that good of one. I was actually taking a picture of the idler pulley bolt hole for some reason. But I put it up to show the oil pump gear. I don’t have a picture of the timing belt tensioner, but its is the the left of this gear. We just used LONG screw drivers and used leverage and pried on different places to get the tensioner lose so we could remove the belt. BUT BUT BUT, like I said, put your paint on the gears first. As if things get out of time, you could very well do damage to the engine, possibly permanent damage. So take your time and keep all the lines in sync. The crank gear at the bottom, and oil pump gear shown here, both don’t have any timing marks. But we just put our paint lines any were we could. Just don’t move ANY gears until you get the paint on there, And make sure while doing this, that you keep the mark on the Cam gear ( the one at the top of the engine ) lined up.

Now just get the new belt on, reassemble in reverse order, and your done!!!!! And yes, as hard as it is to believe, the feeling of accomplishment is worth it!!.

P.S. if anyone would like to see a picture of the flat bed, let me know. I was gonna put on at the bottom here, but I haven’t taken any yet. 😛

Quoted From Beefy:

Man, congrats on gettin yer ride fixed! And now you know for next time to figure the crank pulley bolt first 🙂

Thank ya sir!! 🙂 I’m in the process of putting the pics I took along the way. And explaining what problems we ran into. But do you think I should put these on a new post to make them easier to find for others? Or just make a note on my first message about pics being later in the thread?