I just bought an '86 diesel ranger. Got the best deal of my life on this truck, 94,000 miles, 1 owner, mechanically babied, body is a little banged up but zero rust...get this: $500. Young couple moving to hawaii didn't know what this truck was worth, leaving the states and needed to sell. Anyhow, I am not posting just to brag about my truck, I have run into a small problem and have a couple of questions for y'all.

First, I am really excited to find this forum and have found it helpful already. I would sure love to find service manuals specific to this vehicle, does anyone have them in pdf form?

Okay, bought the truck and picked it up, filled the tank with diesel and drove it home 350 miles, it quite nicely all the way home but seemed to lack a little power especially on hills. I figured fuel, air and oil filter changes would do the trick. I changed the primary and secondary fuel filters and put two gallons of biodiesel in the completely empty tank. I started the truck but and let it warm up for at least five minutes, got in to drive but didn't make it three blocks before it lost power and stalled. It took me about 5 starts just to get it back to my shop. It was extremely cold that night so I figured that the biodiesel had gelled and restricted the fuel flow, figured I'd try it in the morning.

The next morning, I started the truck, it ran fine, drove to the duel station and put 4 gallons of petrol diesel and a touch of anti-gel additive on top of my 2 gal of biodiesel. I got on the freeway to drive the 12 miles home and everything was great at first but then started lacking power and I slowing down, couldn't get up past 45 in 3rd but made it home.

Next day, 12 miles back out to the shop, fine at first but then completely died several times on the freeway, it was horrible. I got it to the shop and thinking that it might still be fuel related, put an additional 6 gallons of petrol in the tank. The truck would start and idle rough, then die. I filled a two liter bottle with diesel and connected a hose from the bottle to the fuel filter in. I also held a bottle underneath the line coming from the fuel tank to the filter in to catch any fuel pumped by the lift pump.

The truck ran fine and idled smooth when running it from the fuel bottle. This is what I noticed in so doing. In the amount of time it took to drain the fuel bottle, the lift pump only pumped a small fraction of fuel compared to what the injection pump took out of the bottle. When I hooked the regular fuel line back up the truck again ran rough and then died.

Here are my questions: is this truck equiped with an injection pump, fuel pump and lift pump and is this problem due to a failing fuel pump or lift pump? Is it possible that there is air in the fuel lines and if so how can I bleed the lines? Could this be a fuel related problem? Also, the injection pump seems to have a slight leak but this has occurred from the beginning, could this be causing the problem. What else should I look at when diagnosing this problem and what would be a good thing to try next?