The engine on my 1996 Ranger (2.3) overheated earlier today and now it's backfiring pretty badly. It didn't run great before but I think this may be the nail in the coffin for this engine. Am I better off to tear the engine down, resurface it all, new gaskets and rebuild it?? Or find a new engine for it and swap it out?? It still runs, drove about 10 miles home but ran ROUGH. It's still overheating for some reason (had water and new water pump/radiator). Everything else works, AC even blew cold on the drive home as it ran like crap.

 

Welcome to the forum

You probably just need to pull the head and have valves checked, intake valves can "tulip" if over heated, and pressure test the head for cracks
The 2.3l SOHC Lima engine is very heavy duty and can take alot of abuse, so pistons and bottom end is most likely OK, pulling the head will tell you more.

You most likely crushed the head gasket which happens when any engine over heats
The head gets the hottest and metal expands when heated, it can't expand up because of the head bolts so it expands down..........crushing the head gasket as it does. and sometimes cracking the head from too much expansion in a VERY HOT spot.
The cylinders and head are full of coolant passages, thats the point of the cooling system, lol, to cool the cylinders and head.
When head gasket is crushed then coolant can get into a cylinder which causes misfires, AND high pressure "air" from inside the cylinders can get pushed into the cooling passages, this displaces coolant as the "air" collects in the head(high point) which causes more overheating.

Coolant in the oil is also possible with a bad head gasket, but newer gasket material make this less likely, but check dipstick to see if you have a "milkshake" instead of oil in the pan, this doesn't mean you do not have a blow head gasket, it just means bearings are probably OK, oil with coolant mixed in is bad for the bearings