Hey folks, new here.

I recently picked up a 1994 Ranger XL Extended cab 4x4 3.0 V6. It seemed to be lacking on power, especially on hills. Friday it died halfway home from work.

Got it home and found no spark. Coil checked out ok, removed ICM and had it tested and it came up ok. Suspected the PIP next, so I removed the distributor cap and cranked the engine over to index the rotor. That's when I found the rotor wasn't rotoring. Turning it by hand it would go a few degrees and stop. Wish I would have checked that first before fighting with the removing the ICM. Lesson learned for next time.

Pulled the distributor and found 3 or 4 teeth sheared off the distributor drive gear. The other teeth were worn very sharp and thin. I suspect this was causing timing issues, which would explain the loss of power.

Picking up new distributor tomorrow. My question is what is the best way to find TDC to align the distributor? I don't see the usual timing marks to line things up.

Attached pic shows the damage on the drive gear.


Thanks

Im not familiar with the older 3.0's but are you sure there are no marks? Take the plug out of #1 and turn the motor over manually until #1 is pushing air out.

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1999 ranger ext cab 5 speed with 3.0
2012 3500 dodge cummins

After you get it timed and back togather, just hope the drive gear on the cam doesn't look like the one on the dist.

http://imgur.com/7I7Orxh
Well, I was wrong about the timing marks, they are on there. Very faint, but there.
http://imgur.com/7I7Orxh

Couldn't get a good look down the hole at the cam gear. Tried taking pics with no luck. I'm hoping that they designed it so the cam gear is harder than the distributor gear. From my experience with industrial gearboxes, the softer gear wears out while the harder gear remains intact.

Changed the oil. Tried to run it through a t-shirt filter to look for metal shavings, but didn't find anything.

Got it all back together this evening and it fired up on the first hit. HUGE power increase over how it was. Timing is still a bit off as it's knocking a little at low RPM under load. Ran out of time tonight, but it ran good enough on the test drive for now. Didn't want to press my luck too far.

Thanks for everyone's help on this.

Vince

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Way to go ! Awesome job !