Cooling System Nightmare!!!!!!!!!!!

[redexplr]

Ugh!!!! im about ready to go insane!!!!!
Ok heres the deal, after offroading a while back i overheated the engine, and consequently started losing coolent. WEll first it was gushing out of the water pump. So I spent $100 for a new one and put it in and it stopped leaking. Well then later it decided to start leaking again. Thins time i had to look more into it, i then discovered it was leaking out of the intake manifold gasket. After deciding that i didnt want to get into there i took it to the local shop who specializes in cooling systems! Here where the fun begins!!! I told them that it was leaking, and i knew it was the intake manifold gasket, so they replaced that and i asked them if it was good now and they did their pressure test and sent me on my way. By the time i got home it had already lost allot but i didnt even see any externally! Which is not a good sign. So i gave them the benefit of the doubt (big mistake) and thought maybe its just getting rid of air bubbles and it will settle and the coolent will stay. So i kept filling it up and drove it, and found it was still losing it. So i just spent $500 and its leaking. So several days before im supposed to leave on a 3000 miled drvie to colorado and its back in the shop. They then tell me its weaping out from an old hose clamp, which to me didnt make sence as it was leaking at that point almost a gallon of coolent every couple days. So they got new clamps on and then tested it and then told me its weaping out of the radiator. Again he said weaping. SO i took it out to see if they could fix it, and they said its unrepairable and i need another new radiator. So I figure this has to be the end of it! And i asked him, if i do this are you sure this will stop the leak, there is nothign else leaking right, and he said yes, your engine is perfect and your ok to drive your 3,000 mile drive after. So i say ok lets do it. So out goes $300 to replace the radiator. So ive now paid $800 on to stop the leak and it should be done!! but nope its just starting!! on the way home its already lost coolent and now theyre closed so i decide ill go in the next day which would be saturday. They are not open on the weekends and im supposed to leave on sunday (which was yesturday!!!!!) So now i cant drive down to college. I decide to do a little test wit the oil to see if there was coolent in it, i assumed they had done this from the beggining as any mechanic should have taken two mintutes to do this simple trick, i took out the dip stick, first of all it looked runny as hell!!!! obviously something not right, probably coolent, then i tested it, i splashed some of the drops from the dipstick onto the exaust manifold which is of course very hot, and it does the classis coolent thing which is bubble and white steam all over!!! So ive now got coolent in my oil, I then change the oil and there were metal deposits which looked to be bearings!! SO obviously this has been going on from the get go and they never caught it or checked for it. So now i most likely need a new head gasket and probably will need to machine down my heads,, or ill just need a new engine! all this after spending $800. So this moring i took it in very upset cause if they had told me coolent was in the oil i would have not had them do any work to it at all.. Why spend $800 to replace an intake manifold and radiator when the heads warped!!! So they basically told me to screw myself and they claim it must have just started doing this! But since they have done the work it has not slown down the leak which means its been doing this since i first brought it in, they have screwed me!!!! So i told them i at the very least want them to either give me back all my money or fix it altogether.

 

[redexplr]

They insist its something that has happened after they worked on it which is BS because they have done work and it has not slown down the leak much. ITs like bailing water out of a boat with a teaspoon when theres a bucket next to you!! So i have two options, sell the truck , and then take them to small claims court, OR this UPDATE,,, they say if get an engine from a 93 aerostar van which is the same engine i guess, it will cost $700 plus labor is $896 plus $150 for parts. They said if i did that they will apply the original $500 i paid for the intake manifold fix so thats roughly $1246 for this engine swap.


What does anyone think?? does this sound good?? i assume the aeorostar is the same since its a 4.0 and it would be all the parts from my engine that are usuable like all the extranous, water pump fuel injection ect...
they said the '93 aerostar has good compression 200/205 but the thing i dont like is it has 84,000 miles on it. But then again soccer mom is most likely the one who drove it (no offence if you are a soccer mom) so therefore it most likely wasnt romped on like mine is!!
I just hope itd be the same as far as the end result of power. what do you guys think is it worth it???

 

[Sschultz]

redexplr,
Usually when you over heat the engine, the first thing to go is the head gasket. If you over heat it enough you'll warp the head itself. It sounds like you just blew the head gasket (don't quote me on that). Now it's possibale that the reason the truck overheated in the first place, is that the water pump took a dump, or you had a coolant leak to the point that there wasn't enough the keep the truck cool.
Lets put some facts together: We know the coolant system has a normal pressure of about 17 psi. the oil system will run at about 40-60 psi. and the cylinder compression is well over 100 psi. If you blow the head gasket and the blowout is across the water jacket the pistion will essentially try to pump the coolant system well beyond the 17 psi rating. Inturn it will usually blow a seal ( not a gasket ) first. I beleave that there is a seal on each end of the intake manafold ( at least on gm V-8 there is, I've been lucky enough not to have this happin on the X). Another thing the cylinder pressure will do is pump up the radiator and if the radiator cap doesn't blow fast enough it'll blow the radiator up. If you remove the radiator cap and start the engine water will come out like a fountian. So far we know two of the casualties, the intake seal and the radiator blew. When the intake seal was replaced and a pressure check was done it showed that the coolant system was able to hold 17 psi. This test is usually done when the engine is cool (thats the safest way to remove the radiator cap, and install the pressure tester)that only tells you that the head gasket was in good enough shape to hold 17 psi. when the engine was cool. That check wasn't able to tell you that the head gasket was bad when the engine was up to temp. You see sometimes the engine needs to be brought up to full temp (or close) before its bad enough to leak. The third casualtie found out later was the coolant in the oil.
Hears what I think happened (beleave it or not ):
Lets say the water pump started leaking. the truck ran low on coolant and the truck over heated. When the truck over heated, it blew the head gasket and pressurized the coolant system and then in turn blew the intake gasket seals. You replaced the water pump and then came to realize that the engine was still leaking. You took a look and saw that the leak was coming from the intake manafold. you then brought it to a shop and let them know that you saw the intake gasket was leaking and asked to have it fixed ( or at least thats what I got from the info. given). So they fixed exactly what you asked them to fix. Now since the new seal was in excelant shape and the root cause wasn't fixed, the next weakist link to fail was the radiator. So you had them replace it too. but still the root cause still was not fixed. so you did some more checking and found antifreeze in the oil. and then you and the shop knew some thing far worse has gone wrong. Unless I'm missing something the cooling system specialty shop fixed everythig you asked them to do. but since the root cause of the failure was not addressed, it is still leaking. From everything you staited, I would have to say that the shop you brought your truck to appears to be a deasant shop and are being generous in applying the $500 already spent twards the new engine. I understand your frustration, but at the same point they did exactly what you asked.

 

[redexplr]

Unless I'm missing something the cooling system specialty shop fixed everythig you asked them to do. but since the root cause of the failure was not addressed, it is still leaking. From everything you staited, I would have to say that the shop you brought your truck to appears to be a deasant shop and are being generous in applying the $500 already spent twards the new engine. I understand your frustration, but at the same point they did exactly what you asked.

first of all thanks for your reply, and i agree with much of what you said in your post, but
when i brought it in the first time i did tell then it was leaking form the intake man gasket, but after seeing how much the coolent was droppign i was learly that thats all it was so i asked them if there was an internal leak and they said no, now i cant say wheather or not there was at that point BUT after recieving the truck back the leak had not slowed much so obvious there was something bigger there. So after bringing it back in the second time i had no idea what was happening and there was no sign of external leak at all, so i just wanted them to find what was happening. There exact words to me were "coolent is weaping out of the radiator" They said $300 to replace it, I did not have them immediatly do that, i thought about it, and i asked him many times, if i do this will the leak be over, their reply was yes, i asked them its leaking quite a bit are you sure this is the only thing left, is there an internal leak, he said there was not, so i had then do it. I drove just on the way home and i had already lost coolent, and it WAS NOT slowed down at all, the same rate. So i dont know what the deal is now. Who know? Maybe they did everything in their power, but ive talked to allot of mechanics lately and theyve all said if it was leaking that much coolent that fast, and ther was no external leakage they would have looked into it more. I also saw the Haynes Manual that it should be checked out more. Anyhow ill just see how it plays out but i have about 4 days before i leave so i have to decide if im gonna sway the engine or not?

 

[redexplr]

is it possible that if when they did the intake manifold gasket they could have not got a good seal around the water jackets?? would that lead the coolent to get inot the oil?

 

[Sschultz]

To the 1st responce.
In all respects they should have done a more thoural check of the complete system. After all when you blow a fuse in your electrical system. The fuse didn't blow becase it went bad, it blew because something else failed. Same thing in your case.
To the 2nd resopnce
Yes... But...
The Cooling system runs at about 17 psi. And the Oil system runs at about 40-60 psi.
Usually when you have a leak between the coolant and the oil, the oil will end up in the radiator. Because the oil pressure will over come the coolant pressure. But because of the location of the leak, there is not an abundant amount of oil or oil pressue at the intake sealing surface. So in this case it is possiable to say that there still could be some leaking at the manifold. But if they did do a pressure check after they "fixed" it I would have to say the leak there was probably fixed.
As I read your sanario, You said the radiator started to leak after the manifold was fixed. Usually 40-60 psi. would not be enough to blow a radiator. But a 200 psi blast from a cylinder through a head gasket would be.
The more I think about it, it's coming pretty clear that you may have blown the head gasket or warped/cracked the head itself.
If you want, make sure the engine is cool remove the radiator cap top off the radiator, start the truck, and allow it it idle until it gets up to temp. the radiator should "burp" one or two times durring the warm up( thats when the thremostat opens) but after that the coolant should circulate through out the system without running out of the cap opening. If it continually surges (I don't mean dribble)out of the cap opening like a water foutian then thats a pretty good indication that the head gasket is blown or a warped/cracked head.

 

[redexplr]

Thanks Scchultz,
the truck is at the shop awaiting my desicion, ill have to go down there and do that test, makes sence to me.
I'll probably just be doing the engine swap and then selling the truck, ive gotten out of hand with this truck with how much ive spent on offroading and mods, so now i cant affort it when it has problems, especially this many so close together. I just had the tranny rebuilt and that was 2500 and now all this. But she was a great truck, and even leakign that much she runs about perfect. She's taught me allot im gonna miss her and ill always love early model explorers. I will build up one again some day when i can afford it, either that or a J**P but you didnt hear me say that :O

Well ill let you all know what happends to the truck
anyone in alaska wanna buy it??

 

[amigo]

Man i know how ya feel. I have a 91 Xl and i had it overheat and ended up having 2 cracked heads out of it. Lucky I had a friend who owns a shop and it only cost me $1250 for new heads and all the work and he even replaced the lifters while he was at it. if the truck is still running and not spewing white smoke i'd say it is safe to assume it is only a head gasket. Mine when I started it and tried to drive it threw a cloud of white smoke you couldn't see a thing if driving behind me. Good luck!

 

[leenjen]

why sell it after the engine swap? you also rebuilt the trans too! dont sell it. everything should be running fine after the new engine. you'll never get back what you put into it, and the money you get from selling it will only be enough to buy a car that might have problems of it's own waiting to happen. just fix the X and keep it.

84K miles isnt bad. it'll last a long time if you take care of it.