I need some help.

[SowrongItsJoey]

First time on this website, I'm very new to here. My apologizes if this is placed in the wrong section or anything.

I currently have a Automatic Ford Explorer '94 Normal Stock. About 1 1/2 years I was in a accident where I slammed into a tree. The underneath of the truck was stuck on the stump, and It was pulled out but did some damage underneath (Along the Axle's/4WD/etc etc. The transmission nor the engine were effected, since the heavy duty bumper It had from back in the day took most of the impact. I was able to get it fixed but the mechanic that fixed it only 'made' it look good, instead of doing any of the proper work underneath it. Since the accident, it did not run well at all. Not bad, but not well. For awhile now, I would hear cranking and squeaking noise from underneath the truck. Especially when I go over a bump, or even turn my wheel in any direction. About a week ago, I hydroplaned off the road into a ditch where my left wheel/side of the bumper took the impact but nothing was damaged. Slight cracked on the bumper but nothing more (I was only going 35 MPH and slid off into the ditch). When I come to an idle stop, It sometimes will continue to make the noise as like my engine is shaking drastically. Whenever I come to a stop at a red light or currently parked, Most of the time I need to change gears into Neutral to cut down on the sound it's making. Since I slid into the ditch, my Radiator Coolant will constantly get too hot (more than usual) to the point it'll be smoking. I can smell the Coolant and the smoke is a tint of white. Though If I go over to the next town, It'll be close to over heating and I'll pull to the side, turn off the truck, and open my hood to see it bubbling to the top and over flowing. I currently put cold water in it to cool it down but that's not a permanent fix. I also noticed when the truck would start up strange the engine would be 'shaking' a lot more then usual. As it looks like it's not properly in placed correct (Motor Mount?). And last but not least, I sometimes have trouble with acceleration. I can be flooring it and my RPM's will practically stay in between 1 & 2. It'd even 'buck' as it's trying to go but it just simply can't. It's odd, it'll run smooth on some days, and run like complete garbage on another.

It currently only has 79,000 miles. Needs an oil filter change as well. Can anyone give me a better idea of what can be wrong? or did I nail it down for the most part? Thanks .

 

[rustbucketMI]

That sounds like you have quite a liteny of issues. The first thing I would do is a visual inspection of everything. Make sure things aren't bent out of whack, and make sure everything is connected and looks right. The issue of it working allright one day and not the next sounds like a connection of some sort is not complete. There are a lot of things it could be. Take an extra hard look at all of the suspension components. Unless everything was replaced I'm willing to bet that something isn't quite right. I've only once ever hit something and not screwed up part of my suspension (That was on my F-150) I'd be willing to bet a lot of your noise issues are coming from the suspension.

The engine shakking a lot probably means that a mount is bent, missing, or loose. It could also mean that the frame is bent. Take it to a real shop and have them check that out.

With the truck overheating, I'm going on the assumption that the internals of the engine aren't bad, then it is either the water pump, thermostat, or the rad. A real easy way to check if the rad is flowing coolant is to undo both hoses and flush water from the top. If it drains out the bottom inlet then it flows water. An easy check on the water pump is to really just check the hoses when the car is running. When the car is off the hoses are pretty flexible and you can squeeze them pretty easily. Turn the car on and if the hoses are unchanged your pump is dead. The hoses should be pretty firm and you really should be able to compress them much. The thermostat could be stuck closed, which would also prevent the hoses from filling. I think a new thermostat is $20-$30 so it might not hurt to replace that anyway.

This is just a start. It sounds like things a pretty screwed up with you truck so this probably wont be a quick fix. If you have specific issues try searching the forum for that topic. It would seem like almost everything is covered at one point or another. If you can't find your issue there are a lot of good people here. Good Luck.

 

[Everdream]

I don't know much about these, but I will tell you one thing, hitting stuff...sucks...first thing to look at is the radius arm bushings underneath. my sister hit a curb in her explorer and ended up crushing those pretty hard, her truck never ran the same, and def. didn't steer very well
(Edit: This is @ the squeaking problem, not the over-heating, my guess there would be you may have dmged the radiator bottom when you stumped it)