Came home from work tonight and my car was smoking! Both radiator hoses collapsed as well so we knew something was wrong with the radiator and refilled it. Now there is a huge puddle of antifreeze under my car and my engine is hissing from the top.

While driving the car home tonight the temp gauge showed normal so I don't know what happened. I suppose maybe I should have checked my water more often. I have never had any signs of leakage so I figured everything is fine.

Since the hoses collapsed should they be replaced or are they reusable. My dad said they probably are fine. I say replace them.

At this point I know my car has to be towed into a reliable shop. What I would like to know is what may have to be repaired. A friend of mine said to repair the thermostat and the hoses and it's possible that the head gasket may have blown. What do you guys say so I am not ripped off by the garage?

--Crystal

 

^^Bump

Come on guys, we could really use the help!!!!

 

If there were no visible signs of coolant leaking and the car dropped the fluid level than it is more than likely the engine has consumed the cooland via a bad head gasket. If you have visible white smoke out the tail pipe there is a very good chance that the head gasket has now progressed to a much worse level. My question is, did the engine get very hot because of the lack of coolant in the engine? There is another thing that can be done to see if the engine has consumed coolant. If the car has been sitting a day or two, you could pull the oil drain plug and see if there is cooland in the oil. It is heavier than oil so it will be present at the first part of draining the oil. This is only if the head gasket is gone in a more drastic way or if a head or something is cracked. I think the engine will need a top end gasket kit,(head gaskets, intake and exhaust manifold gaskets, and valve cover gaskets) the top end will need to be tore down, and it would be very wise to have the heads resurfaced. Just to promote head gasket seal. I can not remember but it may have torque to yield head bolts and if this engine does, it will also need ne head bolts as well. They are meant to only be used once. Given it may be a costly repair, I would not gamble on reusing torque to yield head bolts. I hope this is a help and I also hope that this is not the problem. Being a Ford Technician, I have disliked the 3.8 V6 for their head gasket troubles all along. Perhaps a 5.0 liter transplant is in order???

 

I knew I could count on you!!! Hopefully nobody will ever have to experience what I am going through now. I'm just a poor girl working her way through college. [8D]

When we were looking at used cars we knew the history of the V6 engine but thought a 97 should have had all the bugs worked out by then. Now I can rub it in to my dad the error of his ways. He knew the problems they had and made me buy the V6 when I wanted the V8. LOL.

The chances of changing my V6 to a V8 are slim to none unless you would like to do all the labor for free. LOL. My car has only 132k miles on it and my dad's '93 has 160k. No new engine unless it's absolutely necessary.

Thanks for the help!

 

Is it true that the V6s will always have a head gasket problem? If my car needs to have it repaired, will I have to change it again in the future? If it's true, then maybe I should fix the car I have now, sell it, and upgrade to a V8. My premiums may be more monthly but then I won't have to worry about my engine anymore.

I know things will definitely interesting around our house because then we would have 3 GTs!

 

upgrade to the 99-04 headgaskets (mls?) and you won't have repeated headgasket issues. if you keep using stock 94-98 gaskets, the problem will repeat itself

 

yeah, the new head gaskets are multi-layer steel(MLS)

Why dont you upgrade to a split port Essex? Get an Edge