Sorry for the long winded title and sorry in advance for how long winded and goofy this post may sound. I am not a car mechanic by any means and I do not know certain lingo when it comes to vehicles. I am extremely inexperienced but I have no where else to turn in order to get my vehicle fixed up. I have watched you tube and and I am trying to fix my 2000 Ford Ranger. 2.5l 4x2. Please be patient with me as I try and elaborate the best way I can.

I first noticed this problem a few weeks ago while driving. When accelerating and or going up a hill the vehicle will make a loud metal ticking noise. The harder I accelerate the louder and faster the ticking noise. It sounds like it is coming from underneath of the vehicle but i am
not sure. It finally stalled out when I came to a stop at the top of my development and from that point on I have not driven the vehicle. At the same time this was happening my oil was low even though I had an oil change right around the first of the new year. The truck stalled but started right up afterward and I made it home safely after. The following day I started looking into the truck to see what the problem was.

Started it up. Very rough idle, large amount of shaking in the engine compartment. I also noticed some very water based oilish liquid coming out of the exhaust pipe. I asked my buddy to take a look. After doing so. He recommend I changed the spark plugs (2000 model has 8, that was neat) and the wires as well. As I was taking the spark plugs out they seemed pretty decent from what my buddy said however, he did mention There was a small amount of fuel on the end of A few of them. Fired it up and it continued to run rough. No fix.

*check engine light finally came on after all was said and done and it displayed two faults. They are error code P0303 cylinder 3 misfire detected and error code p0400 exhaust gas recirculation flow malfunction.* this happened Before spark plugs were installed.

I then cleaned the oil filter and did all the proper pmcs for that item. I then dug around on YouTube videos and advice from others and replaced the EGR. After having that replaced the problem still remains. Very rough idle, stalls when I go between gears and when I test drove it around the neighborhood the loud clicking noise is still extremely prevalent when accelerating up an inclined surface. I then changed the O2 sensor as well for some reason (inside engine compartment one, not the one under leather the vehicle). Still no luck. I then got fixated on the the mass air flow sensor. Changed that as well and again no luck. I also drained the oil and changed the filter along with adding fresh oil.

like I said I am not familiar with what I am doing. I am just trying to piece things together in order to get the truck back up and running. I have come to a stop because I just don’t know where to turn. Some of the things above were not done in the exact order as explained above. Typing this on a cell phone is quite difficult so I apologize for any grammatical errors or misspelling if anyone has any comments or solutions please reach out. I can private message or just give my cell phone number. I honestly do not care. I just want to try and fix this myself because it is more of a pride thing now. Thanks all.

 

Reads like a clogged exhaust system, the noise is a leak that you can hear when enough pressure builds up in exhaust system
Let engine idle and put a gloved hand over tail pipe, see if you can start to hear that noise
You can also have someone REV the engine while you feel exhaust flow at tail pipe, see if flow matches REVs or if flow stalls out above a certain RPM, partially blocked exhaust

You can test for clogged exhaust with a Vacuum gauge