Ford RangerMore than two decades ago, the Ford Ranger debuted as an answer to various compact pickup trucks being made available by Japanese automakers. The Ranger was cleanly styled and offered with a choice of a 6-foot or 7-foot bed. Ford boasted that the Ranger had more interior room than the best-selling imports and that 4-by-8-foot construction material could be carried in the bed.
I have a 1999 Ranger XLT 2x4 pickup truck. Just recently, it has developed a miss of some sort. At idle, no matter if it's warm or cold, it runs really rough as if it's not firing a cylinder or two. It makes the whole truck rock pretty good. As soon as I depress the accelerator, the roughness goes away until you get onto the freeway at about 60 mph and try to accelerate. The engine feels like it's cutting out all together and it won't accelerate at all. When you get out of the gas the shuddering goes away. Could this be the result of bad spark plugs, wires, and/or distributor? I've owned the truck for about 8 months now and the only thing that I have done to it is give it oil changes. I have about 1000 miles to go till the next one. P.S. the "check engine" light is on as well.
In the past whenever I bought a used vehicle I gave it a tuneup, or at least checked the plugs etc to see if it needed one so that I would have a base line for starting regular maintenance.
Things to check are ignition as you mentioned, vacuum leaks, and finally fuel delivery.
First thing I'd check is pull the cap to see what condition it is in.
Then a plug or two, glance at vacuum hoses, and then pull diagnostic codes.
Let us know what you find, and if you need any help.
__________________
BroncoJoe19
2006 Alt Fuel Jeep (electric)
'98 windstar 3.8L
'99 Crown Vic 4.6L
'90 Full Size Bronco 5.0L
I'm not a professional mechanic, take my suggestions with a grain of salt, or a cup of coffee
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I agree with Mark. Before you fool with the EGR stuff, I'd pull codes. Not saying that the egr is a bad idea.
I suggested checking the cap and a plug or two, and glancing at your vacuum lines, so that you can buy parts (if you'll need them) while you are getting your codes pulled. Autozone is one place that'll pull codes for free. THere are others, you may want to call around. Some members are tens of miles away from a parts store, if that's the case, no sense in making two trips.
__________________
BroncoJoe19
2006 Alt Fuel Jeep (electric)
'98 windstar 3.8L
'99 Crown Vic 4.6L
'90 Full Size Bronco 5.0L
I'm not a professional mechanic, take my suggestions with a grain of salt, or a cup of coffee
At the bottom of each post there is a little icon
Clicking it gives feedback to the moderators, and poster regarding which posts are most helpful.
Like someone had mentioned on here it could be plugs or wires or even a vacume leak I have a 2001 ranger that did that for a bit and it had a vacume leak, there is a good way to tell if it is a vacume leak however it can mess up an O2 scensor doing this. open the hood with the truck running and spray a chemical called ChemTool on the motor if you do this and the truck all the sudden revs up when you spray it on one part of the motor then that can narrow down where you vacume leak is at least in that general area. If it is not a vacume leak and you spray it on your motor it will just make it smoke for a few minutes till it burns it off but it wont rev up. Once again this can ruin an O2 censor but if it is a bad O2 scensor it will cause it to idle rough too. best of luck!!
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'99 Ranger XLT with rough idle 
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