Coolant leaking

shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Advertise with us
Ford SportTrac Forum

Help Support Ford SportTrac Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
J

Jeffksf B

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 20, 2007
Messages
772
Reaction score
2
Location
Cleveland , OH
So I see engine coolant on the garage floor today. I do a litle looking around and I see some coolant laying in the valley of the engine. I noticed some milky film under the oil fill cap when I changed the oil this weekend. Wondering if its intake gaskets, or worse.

2001 job ll 159,000 miles
 
Pull the dipstick without wiping it off; look for milky residue above the oil level. If it's there then you've got coolant in the oil, a sign of head gasket failure. Coolant in the oil will destroy rod and main bearings pronto. Take off the radiator cap and look for oil in the coolant. Sweet-smelling white smoke out the exhaust is also a sign.
 
No effect on the milky crankcase film, but check the lower thermostat housing for the coolant leak.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If you can verify there's no coolant in the oil then that's good, all things considered. If leak is outside the engine then it's prolly the thermostat housing as swshawaii mentions.
 
I have done the thermostat but not the housing. it does show signs of new leakage there as well. I will review that how to. I remember looking at that job before.
 
Did a little more looking and it appears its leaking where the housing meets the engine. The oil dipstick didn't show any signs of milkyness. Rockauto.com has the parts to.

Looks like I know what I'm gonna be doing this weekend.

 
Dorman makes a GREAT replacement Tstat housing. Comes with stat installed and a new designed gasket. Look into that too.



Todd Z
 
I have a job one with the older design housing and used the 4 seasons thermostat housing with no problems. Mine was seeping just enough to corrode the front housing bolt. It has been tight for about 6 months since the replacement.
 
@jeffksf



I just had to do this back in September after having a slow leak for a long time which probably exacerbated my frozen housing bolts dilemma. What I thought was going to take an hour to change out turned into a 3 hour project. I was naive to think that 13 year bolts were going to come out like they were installed the day before.



When I tried turning the bolts and began getting into my socket wrench more and more, I knew that I may wind up having to get my easy out and trying to remove broken bolts which would have added another 4 hours and not to mention days off the road while having to get new OEM bolts. Here's what I decided to do and maybe it'll help you if you have the same issue.



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:



[Broken External Image]:
 
Last edited by a moderator:
@Yardsale



Thanks! I hope jeffksf gets to see this before the weekend.



Had I to do it again, I would have bought new bolts from Ford before starting this project to have as a backup. I had the motor changed out years ago and when I got the first bolt out before having to break apart the T-Stat Housing, I noticed it was much newer looking than the two frozen ones. Bet that broke off on the Ford mechanic :grin: when he was changing over all of the stuff onto my remanufactured motor. Yeah, metal sleeves and bolts are never a good match. Learned that from my recent experience of changing the spring shackles - a bitch indeed. The $55.00 ball joint press kit investment was priceless!
 
Thanks, toptobottom, these are the types of things that make this site great. :supercool: I will be crossing my fingers when I get to these bolts, but atleast I have a back up plan now. Did you literally use a chisel or can some large pliers be used to break up the plastic housing?

I think I will go spray the bolts down now with some penetrating lube.

My Garage is busy this week, last weekend it was a 3.5L Honda timing belt/water pump/serpentine belt/ spark plugs, oil change on the ST, snowtire install on the Honda.

 
@jeffksf



Glad you saw this so you can buy enough beers for this job - just in case your in it for the long haul. Hate to discourage you but it's always a chore when working on 13 year old vehicles.



I used a nice sharp chisel and cut into it really nicely without much effort. I guess you could use pliers. I just wanted to do it with control so I wouldn't get alot of plastic down the coolant intake. The Housing is pretty brittle and comes apart quickly.



Don't bother spraying it with penetrant because there is no way it's going to get to those threads. If you have time, you may want to get those new bolts from Ford to make re-assembly easier. See photos for Part#



Good luck and let us know how many beers & muthaf**kas it took ya.



 
Finally got around to this today. The front bolt was corroded, the other 2 showed absolutely no signs of corrosion what so ever. So I broke up the housing with pliers, sawzall, and a hammer/punch. This allowed me to get to the one bolt and unscrewed it with the hunk of the housing still attached. This worked well because I was able to break up the remainder of the plastic with a sawzall and the vise. Getting the sensors unplgged and out was a big PITA. so little clearance between the intake manifold and the sensor plugs. Before putting the new one in place I put the sensors in and then set the whole housing in the area on an angle allowing me to plug the sensors in and also put the back bolt in it's home. Because of clearence issues I was unable to pull the back bolt up and out, it is about 2.5" long. I was only able to replace 1 sensor because I had a hard time getting the other one. I did put a new O ring on the old one of coarse. Hopefully I don't regret that. I was able to hose out the valley of the engine and clean that up pretty well.
 
That's great that you 'got 'er done'!



It should have been simple unplugging the sensors when busting it up into pieces. When I was installing the new housing, I just slipped the sensors in the holes without the clips so they stayed loose and wiggled somewhat. I placed the housing assembly in on angle like you said and plugged the sensors in first as I got it somewhat under the intake. Then I maneuvered the housing over the hole and it went right in. It was a tight clearance on the wires at the top of the sensor plugs. After, I used extended needle nose pliers to grab hold of the sensor clips an slide it into the sensor slot. It's good your bolts didn't bind up as bad as mine did. You lucked out!



I always wonder how these guys can call themselves design engineers when they do this kind of crap. I'm not an engineer and I would know better to calculate a bit of space to get a part out & in without have to disassemble half the motor. This must be intentional so they can bet on whose design causes the most skinned knuckles or greatest amount of cuss words. There must be a convention after each model year and awards are given to the top most frustrating design nightmares.
 
If they only would have put right angle wire connectors on those 2 sensors it would go a lot easier!

Honestly I don't think they think about working on engines 5-10-15yrs. down the road. Their main concern is assembly kinda stuff.

 
Top,

Thanks for your write up as well. It always helps going into a project like this with a little more inf like that.:supercool::supercool:
 

Latest posts

Top