BigGary

hey all, i've got some strange activity under the hood; the coolant resevoir will go almost empty, it will leak from the thermostat housing, white smoke from exhaust, so i take a video of it idling (rough) and the resevoir is now full and no new fluid leaking from the thermostat housing...

http://youtu.be/BwoghPLsHmA

no clue whats going on here, i picked up a new thermostat and fuel filter to start with...
(please forgive how dirty she is)

stevednmc

Probably the intake manifold is damaged/cracked. That would be my guess..how many miles?

BigGary

166,000kms, these problems all started happening at once about a week ago, ran like a dream all summer... any particular tests i can do to find the cuplrit?

stevednmc

Well,I would pull some plugs and see if theres coolant under there...and do a compression test. But i think the first thing i would do is a cooling system pressure test. You can get a test kit from sears,or maybe rent one from an autoparts store (i think). I own my own from snap on so im not sure. Basically its an adaptor to put on the radiator cap thats attached to a pump. Make sure the system is full of coolant and warm...not hot and put the adapter on, hook it to the pump and pressurize the system to system pressure. If the gauge drops immediatly you have a big l leak. If it drops more than i think 5psi in 5 minutes you have a smaller leak. Also when you pressurize the system any external leak will be evident.

BigGary

Ok thank you, I've got a point to start with, good opportunity to change the plugs too since they will be out

stevednmc

No problem. Do the pressure test first before installing those new plugs though!

SXGT

http://www.am-autoparts.com/Ford/Mus...FQvptgodVyDJng

I had a crack near my housing. had to replace whole manifold, ford is great.....

You could have gotten hot and cracked the block very slightly or warped the head and are losing compression on some fires

swarthyfellow

Is it just running rough at idle or does it run crappy all the time? No check engine light? I assume that the exhaust has a sweat smell to it? If I can to take a guess its either a manifold gasket or head gasket or cracked manifold. For your sake i hope its a manifold gasket, allot easier to fix.

BigGary

im having trouble finding the compression tester here in town, may just have to hand it over to the 'stealership' for a test, changed the fuel filter though which did help a bit, ended up finding a fried spark plug when i was poking around the engine with my multimeter... the hole to the spark plug threads was 1/3 filled with water and the ceramic insulator is brown (fried) time for new plugs on my days off...

stevednmc

Hole filled with water/coolant points to intake manifold.......looks like thats where your headed. Which cylinder had the water?