Trying to work the bugs out of this truck
1. When going down the road and I apply gas the engine makes a gurgiling noise, it only does it when throttle is given, my dad said it is "gas going in the engine" but its to loud for that.
2. The tranmission makes a low pitch whiny noise in any gear wether i give it gas or not.
3. The front end shakes real bad and pulls into ditches, the drag link is bad and the front end mounts on the inner fenders are bad, would this be the cause?
4. Any other way to make the inside more quiet?

 

Am thinking there are issues more important than noise. I mean the truck steers toward the ditch? Give us another account of what is happening.

 

The drag link where it attaches to the pitman arm has play in it, when Im on a soft road it pulls to the road because there is play in the steering.
I have an extra one, but thats not my main concern what my main conccern is making it so I have to blow my ears out with the radio to hear it over the gurgle of the motor when gas is aplied and the trannsmission whine.

 

Ok, your 88 isn't too terribly different than my 94 as far as what's in it. Your transmission is different, but the motor's basically the same as my 4.9 I6. The motor portion of the truck I know well enough, and I learned that I'm no transmission expert, but I'm not too bad in that respect. The whining noise may not be the trans though, I have a whining noise, it sounds very centralized so I know it's not form the front end, I have learned that ig it sounds somewhat like it's from the middle of the truck, it's likely to be the rear end. On mine, it turned out to be something bad, the ring gear in my diff had missing teeth (something about the origional owner attempting to pull several tons of brick, roasting the clutch, and ultimately killing the diff, though it didn't give any signs until 10 years later, so we didn't know that). Now I have a low hum coming up again, but it's just a worn out rear wheel bearing that I haven't had the chance to replace. The gurgling noise is odd though, I'd pull the intake, and have a look-see to find out more details. The gasket set for the upper plenum is around $6, and the throttle body, EGR, and IAC gaskets are around $1 - $2 each (don't use RTC on any of those, fuel deteriorates it, and it won't seal it any better in that case anyway).

 

I almost forgot. As for the steering issues, look into replacing your tierods, and inspecting your ball joints. That long one that looks like a drag link connected to the pitman arm is around $60-$80 new, and the other three are around $20-$40 each (I work at a parts store, and price parts for my truck just to have the info). After you do all that, get an allignment, or kiss your tires goodbye.

 

1.the truck has never done any towing as far as i know. my dad had owned a 96 crown vic that made a whining noise noise when you were moving, im thinking since this trans uses a thinner fluid, it does not deaden the sound as much.
2 its not a gurgling like a drain its like if your on a riding mower and gun the motor, it only does it if your in 3rd or 4th gear and gun it my dad just says its gas going in the motor.
3.Since there is play in the drag link, that means that the wheels can move independtly a little bit so that would make the front end wobble. So im going to replace it this weekend. Im also going to replace the front end body mounts.
4. there are bars coming of the rear end and going to the frame behind the rear end (towards the rear), there are bolts going through them in the middle and rubber bushings, would this have any effect on handling?

 

Yup. on the older models they had something like radius arms on the rear, it'll help keep the rear from swaying, and thus more control. For the noises, if it's fuel going into the engine those are some loud injectors, if it's carbed, then that would be really odd, and saddly, my knowledge on carbs is limited to "they are old". I would look into the air injection tube coming off the exhaust by the cat, the base of them tend to rust out, and crack, and what you hear could actually a small exhaust leak from there, mine has that problem too, and I'm just too lazy to fix it. It only happens when I put a load on it, the more I hit the gas to accelerate, the louder it is.

 

Check the water level, the heater core may be gurgling. Check the fluid level in the transmission, maybe even change it out for some fresh stuff. The bar in the back is the sway bar and it is for better handling but even it it were removed it won't cause the pulling issue.