I have a 2000 Ford Ranger 4.0 L V6 4x4 model. I recently was having some problems with the truck idling too low when cold and I decided to change the spark plugs. I put in 4 out of the 6 new plugs and things seemed to work fine.
Unfortunately, during the change, I accidentally broke a little vacuum hose that goes to a small black globe towards the front. From what I have heard, this hose just controls things like the vents and such. I put some hose tape on it and drove it to work, planning on getting a replacement that day, and I barely made it there - after 10 minutes there was almost no acceleration, I had to pull over, wait 15-20 minutes, then go. The gas consumption was insane, like 5 miles per gallon.
Immediately after work I replaced the little hose, and now the stop-and-start stuff is gone but the acceleration and fuel consumption are still terrible. I'm going to try and get the code read at AutoZone today, but I don't see a check engine light on so I'm not optimistic it'll tell me what's wrong. Is there something I can do to fix this?
Unfortunately I changed two things - broke the tube and changed the plugs, so I don't know which one exactly caused the problem. From how sluggish it is it feels like maybe a few cylinders aren't firing (I've checked all the plugs, pulled them out and put them back in, tightened them, etc), but I imagine it could also be some problem with a bad fuel mixture. What could cause this? What is my next step?
Thanks.
Update: Forgot to put some pictures in here. This is the hose that broke, with the place of the break indicated:
And here's a picture of where it attaches to this little vacuum globe thing:
Update 2 Since I don't know what caused this I haven't accepted an answer, but for future sufferers I'm going to detail the further symptoms and will update when I find an answer. One problem was that the plugs that Amazon recommended were very much the wrong plugs. I should have been using AGSF-22PP from Motorcraft or equivalent, I was using NGK TR6 - same size and heat rating, but way different gapping, it's a copper plug not a platinum, etc.
I've been trying to triage this so I pulled codes and found 2 cylinders not firing, plus a third spark plug I saw a hairline crack in, so I replaced only those 3 cylinders, plus all the spark plug wires (one of the wires was rusted and useless when I examined them, so I got a new kit). That didn't fix it, but I took apart the throttle body and the MAF - everything looked fine there, but when I put it back together, the truck ran very well for about a week or so. Yesterday I started losing power at the high end, so it seems like whatever the problem is it's coming back. I cleaned the throttle body and MAF again but this did not help the situation.