I figured I'd post in the general forum for more opinions. My ranger would occasionally sputter under load in 4th gear. Just rarely. It became more persistant and the other day, I pulled over, shut it off and it wouldn't restart. Had it towed home, sprayed some starter fluid in the intake, not start. Has to be spark. Did a test on the ignition control module with my meter, looked bad. Took the icm to autozone, had them test it multiple times and it was bad on each one. Put a new one in and it fired right up. I was excited! Made it about a mile, would start to sputter bad then lose all power, while rolling, I can turn the key off, back to the on position and it would start running fine for just a short time, sputter again, shut down again, turn it off and back on and start rolling again. I did this until I got home and it got to where it just did it over and over without much time in between. My girlfriend was behind me and said she smelled a lot of raw fuel. One of the times I left my foot on the gas when it was off, and when It restarted it back fired hard. The damn thing starts and idles fine in the garage. I believe it is a spark issue, and can confirm its not a cat, because it came to me without one. I'm going nuts. I'm leaning towards crank sensor, but thats a big job if it is not the culprit.

Thanks
Tim

 

Well for the future, if anyone runs into a similar problem, it was the coil pack on the passenger side of the engine. I pulled it and it had multiple cracks. Slapped a new one in and it runs better than ever. I have to wonder if this coil pack caused the ignition control module to go out. Anyway she is running perfect, so coil packs can cause some weird symptoms.