2000 5.0 awd coolant leak | Ford Explorer Forums - Serious Explorations

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2000 5.0 awd coolant leak

Silverfox302

New Member
Joined
January 13, 2008
Messages
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City, State
Naugatuck, CT
Year, Model & Trim Level
'00 XLT
Hey everyone, I recently joined the explorer world and Im looking for some help. I seem to have a coolant leak that pools on the top of the water pump towards the passenger side right around where it meets the block. Ive checked and tightened all the hose clamps, and pressure tested the system, but cant seem to really see where the leak is coming from in there. I noticed there is one smaller hose that attaches to a heater line that runs inbetween the upper and lower intake. how common is it for that line to go bad? I guess it could also be the thermostat housing but when i pressure tested it, everything felt dry there. Its just really hard to try and see back there with all the hoses and etc. in the way! anyone have similar experiences?:dunno:
Thanks for any help!
Rick
 



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use a mirror and flashlight and just have to follow the leak. First i had a thermostat housing leak, then the spring clamp for a hose went weak, could be anything.
 












I have the same leak exactly. I am 99% positive its the timing cover. Mine has been leaking for almost a year now. I have replaced all of my hoses, water pump, thermostat and lower intake manifold gaskets trying to stop this leak, only thing left is timing cover and head. The timing cover is the only one with a close water jacket to that location. I am in the process of building another motor and tranny to swap in soon so it doesn't bother me much.
 






I have past the last two hours to try to find were was my leak and it seems to come from the timing cover .

How do you remove the fan from the water pump , clockwise or counterclockwise ??

I thinks im gonna inspect all the idler , change the waterpump , timing chain and a new felpro gasket kit .

Thanks
 






I have past the last two hours to try to find were was my leak and it seems to come from the timing cover .

How do you remove the fan from the water pump , clockwise or counterclockwise ??

I thinks im gonna inspect all the idler , change the waterpump , timing chain and a new felpro gasket kit .

Thanks

IIRC it's counterclockwise.

To all of you with this leak...

I had the same leak on the original engine of my 96. When I pulled the motor. I couldn't tell where it was coming from either but I knew I was changing the motor so I didn't worry about it too much. When I changed out the motor, it was all too obvious where it was coming from.

I went to loosen the nuts tha hold the coil chair to the lower intake manifold, the drivers side turned way to easy. I pulled the whole bolt out with my finger as it turned to complete mush. When I finally pulled the engine and the whole lower intke, I could see that the intake gasket had failed over time and allowed water to get to that bolt via the water port right there behind it. The bolt eventually rusted away to nothing. I'm betting this is where your coolant leaks are coming from too. It would not cause a drop in pressure because the water is actually leaking down through the corroded metal where the bolt is rotten to that area on top of the timing cover.
 






:roll: I remember when i bought a 96 5.0 explorer engine for my mustang , when i removed the intake bolt , the bolt at the front were very rusted and on the driver side the bolt broke so i had to drill and put and helicoil .

I m gonna start the inspection by removing the coil pack .

Thanks Chris
 






ok, so I guess I should plan on doing an intake gasket in this beast. Has anyone done a writeup on the process? Im pretty comfortable working on my vehicles, but advance knowledge of any special tips or tools I might need would be helpful.

Thanks
Rick
 






I didn't do a write up but it's a pretty basic v8 lower intake job with the only quirk being the Camshaft position sensor. Otherwise it's pretty straight forward. Get a Haynes manual if you don't have one. It was very helpful to me.
 






I have buy a felpro 1250 kit and for me it will be simple to change this gasket and i will grind that lower intake by the way .

My Mustang have head and intake from an explorer , i built the engine all by myself and i have done a nice porting job to the head and lower intake . Did nt change the valve but with a Crane 2031 and better valve spring , i have done 330hp . The good thing is that an explorer engine is very very simple to work on a mustang , but in a explorer body it s 2 time longer .

I dont understand why they choke the exhaust like that , and the stock cam is sooo weak .
 






I have the same leak exactly. I am 99% positive its the timing cover. Mine has been leaking for almost a year now. I have replaced all of my hoses, water pump, thermostat and lower intake manifold gaskets trying to stop this leak, only thing left is timing cover and head. The timing cover is the only one with a close water jacket to that location. I am in the process of building another motor and tranny to swap in soon so it doesn't bother me much.

whats up with your old motor? i got that stupid timing cover leak also. i live in vb. i got 2 x's so i am driving the 6 at the moment cuz the timing cover leak is too bad to drive now.
 






I'm pretty sure that my coolant leak there is the same. It has a tiny pool where the pump meets the block right under the Thermostat housing.
 






I have been trying to find a coolant leak somewhere around the t'stat housing. I have replaced the big and small hoses, t'stat, and gasket and sealed with permetex. Leak is still there -- I swear that small drips are coming out from above one of the housing bolts. Could the aluminum housing be porous?? I'm really lost here... Thanks for any advice/help. Dan
 






does it look something like this?
IMAGE_008.jpg
the dark spot behind my cps is where I think my leak is coming from and pooling on top of the right side of the motor not to hi-jack the thread but do you think it's a intake gasket?
 






Hey all you Ford fanatics, lol.

So I am having that same pooling issue with the antifreeze. Have owned the vehicle a couple months and right after I bought it I relocated down to arkansas from oregon. Its the 5.0 AWD XLT with about 140,000 miles. Had no issues on the drive down and havent had any since til today I went to get in and drive it down the street and when I pulled into the gas station I seen smoke(or steam) coming from under it so I checked and I see its all wet up near where those hoses are more towards the passenger side on top side of the motor and down on top of the water pump I see a buildup of antifreeze which is why its smoking. It has been extremely cold out these last few days but ive driven it in the cold with no issues and I did give it a few minutes to warm up. Ive slowly been smelling antifreeze before this and needed to add some at times but my tempature gauge seems to be working fine and never goes over half way even today. So is this the timing cover as I been reading about in this post or the intake gasket and how easy is it to change because im not very mechanically inclined but I have family who is so they can assist. I havent bought a haynes manual yet but I will be getting one this week. Im not driving it until I can figure out what im looking at so I dont mess up anything any farther. haha. Oh and this leaking seems to be a very common issue from what im seeing online. Is it a faulty part or just happens over time? Thanks for your time and you guys seem to know what this is all about! HAHA. This is only my first Ford.

Robert T.
 






I would suggest to clean the spill the best you can, and then pressure-test the system. With the coolant under pressure and the engine cold, you should be able to see where it's coming from. A small mirror and a flashlight will help.
The pump has a weep hole at the top, so if the bearing seal fails, that's where it would leak from. There are many other possibilities, of course. The timing cover has coolant passages on both sides close to its top, and there isn't much gasket material around there. Also, the joint between the aluminum timing cover and the cast iron block is a trouble spot, due to the different expansion coefficients. I just finished this (very nasty) repair, and many others reported this failure as well, so look at that possibility carefully. Good luck!
 






After I posted in this thread some time ago, I found a coolant leak on my Mountaineer in the two small elbow hoses that come to and from the water pump, I never did find a hole in the hose or any puddling coolant, just always smelled it. A pressure test found the bad hose in short order, it was a tiny pinhole only evident under pressure.
 






I too have a mysterious leak coming from the timing cover on the drivers side. I have a 01' mercury mountaineer 5.0 AWD... I have recently replaced a leaking t-stat housing, water pump, and t-stat, all proving to be bad(t-stat housing tube was deteriorated, and falling out, same with the tube coming out the top of the water pump). After all was replaced I am still experiencing a leak from what appears to be the top drivers side of the timing chain cover. Upon inspecting it I did notice a loose and broken piece of gasket in the area of the leak, So I am assuming it is coming from the timing chain cover housing. I don't think it was leaking from this spot prior to changing the leaking t-stat housing; only after repairing that leak it began to leak out of the timing chain cover area, therefore finding the next weak link.

I am going to pressure check the system when the vehicle is cold to see if I can pinpoint the exact location of the leaks. Hopefully after finding and repairing this leak I will have repaired all the weak areas in my cooling system, my luck the radiator will go next... :)

I haven't replaced the timing cover/gasket on a newer for 5.0, has anyone repaired, repalced one of these, does the oil pan need to come off to do this?

Also while I have all of this off for the repair is there anything else I should replace when it is off(timing chaing assembly, etc)? My truck has 177,000 miles runs beautifully, but I do like to do preventative maintenance when at all possible...

thanks, and sorry if I ramble I just don't like to leave anything open/unclear.
 



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I too have a mysterious leak coming from the timing cover on the drivers side. I have a 01' mercury mountaineer 5.0 AWD... I have recently replaced a leaking t-stat housing, water pump, and t-stat, all proving to be bad(t-stat housing tube was deteriorated, and falling out, same with the tube coming out the top of the water pump). After all was replaced I am still experiencing a leak from what appears to be the top drivers side of the timing chain cover. Upon inspecting it I did notice a loose and broken piece of gasket in the area of the leak, So I am assuming it is coming from the timing chain cover housing. I don't think it was leaking from this spot prior to changing the leaking t-stat housing; only after repairing that leak it began to leak out of the timing chain cover area, therefore finding the next weak link.

I am going to pressure check the system when the vehicle is cold to see if I can pinpoint the exact location of the leaks. Hopefully after finding and repairing this leak I will have repaired all the weak areas in my cooling system, my luck the radiator will go next... :)

I haven't replaced the timing cover/gasket on a newer for 5.0, has anyone repaired, repalced one of these, does the oil pan need to come off to do this?

Also while I have all of this off for the repair is there anything else I should replace when it is off(timing chaing assembly, etc)? My truck has 177,000 miles runs beautifully, but I do like to do preventative maintenance when at all possible...

thanks, and sorry if I ramble I just don't like to leave anything open/unclear.

I just did the timing chain cover gasket on my 99 5.0 mountaineer a week ago. It's not a bad job at all. I would definitely inspect the timing chain, might as well replace it since you will have everything apart.

The oil pan doesn't need to come off, you just need to remember the four bolts that attach the oil pan to the timing cover. For me, the longest and tidiest part of the process was removing all the old gasket material. Took me better part of half a day to remove all the old gasket material with a blade gasket scraper and some penetrating oil to loosen the rock-like hold of the gasket material.

Take it easy on the bolts when you remove them. If any of them are very difficult to loosen, penetrating oil and a map torch are you best friends. I managed to remove all bolts without breaking them (3 of them were pretty nasty), cleaned them all up nicely and reused them.

It would be a good idea to change out that cranshaft oil seal on the timing cover as well. I'm sure yours is brittle and it would just be a matter of time before it was completely dried out.

Check out this link, it is a decent writeup with links to other posts about what to watch out for and other little tips. http://www.explorerforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=299763&highlight=replace+timing+cover
 






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