2002 Ford Ranger XLT
4 cylinder 2.3
5 Speed manual


I've had issues with my turck overheating before and I fixed that by changing the water heater pump(about year ago).

Now the problem has come back, I'm overheating again! I'll drive for a good 4-5 hours and I'll loose half-3/4 gallon of coolant and then it overheats. I can't figure out where I'm leaking, the only visible sign of leakage is at the heat control valve which has four hoses connecting to it, and one of these hoses spurts out water. But I believe that to be because the overflow tank backs up until it's full and thats the only place it can get out. So I'm thinking it might be the thermostat... how should I approach this?

Should I change the heat control valve and the hose, and finally change the thermostat too? The thermostat is about 200+ dollars and I'm hoping it might be something else.

Also I want to get any air out of the radiator, if there is any, how would I do this? Is there a little valve somewhere that would flush out the air?

First off you can save a tone of money by installing a normal thermostat and housing from a later model Ranger (>2007). It won't have the built in resistive heater but that is normally what fails and is not worth $175 more. If the computer detects the resistor not being present install a resistor 500 to 1000 Ohms and that will fool the computer.

See if Oreilleys has a pressure tester to loan you. If you can put pressure in the system you can see where its leaking.
A blown head gasket could also be your problem.