Slow coolant loss on V8

[ggomez2]

Replacement part installed and all is good now. Two items:

1. The part is as expensive as it is because ford sells it as a whole assembly that could easily be broken into smaller pieces. It comes with the hard lines and rubber to attached to the front heater core. All of which is unnecessary for this repair.

2. No troubles with the lower hose - removal or reinstalling. I removed the wheel wheel liner that was easy to remove, and bent the other part out of the way. Removal was a snap after that (with the wheel off and raised on a jackstand anyways...)

How much did that assembly cost?

 

[MNgopher]

Part was $203 and change from Autonation Ford (Formerly Tousley Ford) in White Bear Lake. Four other dealerships in the Twin Cities had the part in stock, ranging in price from $242 to over $300. Local dealer wanted $220 something, and I would've had to wait till today to get it...

 

[Quickvr4]

What is the part number for this entire assembly and its technical name.

 

[naiku]

Looks like I need to order one of the little Y pieces. I have been slowly leaking coolant and was having a hard time tracking it down, sometimes the coolant level would never drop, and others the expansion tank would be empty.

Was looking up behind the passenger wheel a couple days ago, spotted the Y and right where in the middle of the Y looks wet. Hopefully once I swap that out my leaking coolant troubles are over!

 

[ggomez2]

Have you tried a pressure test while it was cold? My loss was pretty consistent before changing the y piece.


[ QUOTE=naiku;3462127]Looks like I need to order one of the little Y pieces. I have been slowly leaking coolant and was having a hard time tracking it down, sometimes the coolant level would never drop, and others the expansion tank would be empty.

Was looking up behind the passenger wheel a couple days ago, spotted the Y and right where in the middle of the Y looks wet. Hopefully once I swap that out my leaking coolant troubles are over![/QUOTE]

 

[ajones51]

Thanks for this info

Thanks so much for all this information. My 2006 with 150k started leaking and I could not find it. Once I read this and popped the wheel well liner out it was obvious my y fitting was leaking. I got the recmonded y fitting from O'Reillys and cut the old y out. I did not mess with the factory plastic clamps, I cut the hose at its edges. Overall length was a little shorter, but it was OK. So far so good. Took longer to drain the coolant than to make the repair. BTW I replaced the leaking radiator around 110k, so I was really happy that wasn't the source of the leak. Explorer forum has now helped me repair problems with 3 different generations now.

 

[mopeymopar]

I hate using plastic under the hood even though these seem to last over 100,000 miles. Nobody except one seller on makes a metal Y and its in 5/8". Can anyone verify that the hose is 5/8" before I buy this?

 

[pjw73nh]

I had a similar coolant issue June of 2014. I had some exhaust work done the year before, and during that work they removed the heat shields, and never put them back on (unbeknownst to me).

In June of 2014, On a short trip into town, I heard the whooshing of the clutch controlled radiator fan. I knew immediately there was a cooling system problem. Shortly thereafter, the temp gauge started rising.

Long story short, the short, curved rubber piece that comes off the lower part of the plastic "Y" (under the corrugated protector) had chafed through both the protector and the hose itself against the hot manifold and sprung a leak.

The dealer wanted 3 days and about $260 to get it to me. Not !!!!

After letting it cool for several hours, I was able to limp home on water. The nest day I found a scrap piece of steel pipe pre-bent to the approximate shape I needed and cut it to fit, and connected it with two short rubber hoses and standard stainless steel hose clamps. It has held to this day. Though I think I now have a leak elsewhere in the system that I have to start looking for.

My only question is would I have been better off to use constant-tension fuel-injection hose clamps instead of regular hose clamps.

 

[ggomez2]

I used regular hose clamps and have no issues after 12000 miles. So did you cut off heat to your rear HVAC, since you replaced the Y pipe with a slightly bent pipe?

I had a similar coolant issue June of 2014. I had some exhaust work done the year before, and during that work they removed the heat shields, and never put them back on (unbeknownst to me).

In June of 2014, On a short trip into town, I heard the whooshing of the clutch controlled radiator fan. I knew immediately there was a cooling system problem. Shortly thereafter, the temp gauge started rising.

Long story short, the short, curved rubber piece that comes off the lower part of the plastic "Y" (under the corrugated protector) had chafed through both the protector and the hose itself against the hot manifold and sprung a leak.

The dealer wanted 3 days and about $260 to get it to me. Not !!!!

After letting it cool for several hours, I was able to limp home on water. The nest day I found a scrap piece of steel pipe pre-bent to the approximate shape I needed and cut it to fit, and connected it with two short rubber hoses and standard stainless steel hose clamps. It has held to this day. Though I think I now have a leak elsewhere in the system that I have to start looking for.

My only question is would I have been better off to use constant-tension fuel-injection hose clamps instead of regular hose clamps.

 

[pjw73nh]

Sorry for the confusion. No I replaced the small curvy rubber pipe that COMES OFF OF THE lower end of the "Y" with a short rubber piece, then the bent pipe, then another short rubber piece. Sort of "splicing" in a new section. I still have rear heat.

 

[pjw73nh]

Talk about being jinxed !!!!! After reading this thread (and responding above), I just looked at mine and I'm low on coolant. I looked at my splice repair and it's completely dry. The plastic "Y" however is a different story. It's leaking. I am going to tackle this with the O'Reilly part and some hose and hose clamps. Can anyone confirm the size of the existing hoses? I know the Y has both size barbs, but I will probably need to add a short piece it to make up for what I cut out. I am going to try and do it in place like I did the other one.

Thanks.

 

[mopeymopar]

Would this work?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/291609768771

 

[pjw73nh]

UPDATE: I tackled my cracked "Y" today. Took about 2 hrs. I warmed up the car first to make the rubber a bit more pliable . I drained the system as far as necessary. I removed the upper air filter cover and air snorkel to the throttle body. This gave me room to get to the top of the thermostat housing where the heater hose connects.

NOTE: The existing hoses are probably metric. But they are far closer to 3/4 than 5/8. I used O'Reilly # 84757 . http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detail/MRY0/84757/N0187.oap?ck=Search_N0187_-1_2654&pt=N0187&ppt=C0108 It has both 5/8 and 3/4 barbs. I used the 3/4 barbs.

See my before and after pics.

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/a-aNT7q25EOPJbZJXAgybI7pRwEIR5pL-BdpGgHsB40?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/ziLfCKYTixu_txbBEm5FQY7pRwEIR5pL-BdpGgHsB40?feat=directlink

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/fDDAu2-43Lci6BT6JpbcXI7pRwEIR5pL-BdpGgHsB40?feat=directlink

I decided to pressure test the Y pipe to see where the defect was. I pressurized the pipe with 10 lbs of pressure. See Video here for leak:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAjdwBL5I7s&feature=youtu.be

 

[Diesel Tom]

Many thanks to the folks who have contributed to this thread. I did this repair to my son's 2007 Explorer today. It really cut down on the diagnosis time. The O'Reilly's part fit perfectly. I used new worm gear hose clamps for every connection. I really dislike the clamps Ford uses for the original installation. You just can't trust that they will make a leak free connection when you re-use them.

This was my first experience with the "gold" antifreeze. Even being careful, I got splashed with some of the antifreeze. They say it has a "bittering" agent and that is an understatement. It tastes awful. No dog would lap up this antifreeze.

 

[HotRodGuy80]

I purchased that part for about $180 and that was shipped to my location at the time in WA. I purchased it from fordpartsgiants.com. It was a lot cheaper than any dealer I could find. Then to save myself time and such, I found a shop in my area that installed it for me for about another $180, I also provided the coolant for them, since it they would've replaced it with some other cheaper stuff. Now I have another coolant leak, somewhere.

 

[fmlman]

I just discovered that my 2006 has this problem. For those of you that replaced the Y, did you find the Y to actually be cracked, or was the hose cracked, or was it the Ford clamp that failed. I'm trying to figure out how many components I'm really going to need to fix it.

 

[MNgopher]

On mine, it was the actual "Y" that failed. There are no reusuable clamps at the Y - the "removeable" clamps are at the other ends of the three hoses that connect to the Y. If you want to replace the Y only, you will have to cut the hoses, supply your own clamps and y, and go from there.

That would have been my plan had I not had damage to the hose in another location from the exhaust.

 

[HotRodGuy80]

I just discovered that my 2006 has this problem. For those of you that replaced the Y, did you find the Y to actually be cracked, or was the hose cracked, or was it the Ford clamp that failed. I'm trying to figure out how many components I'm really going to need to fix it.

On mine it was also the Y, that broke. The part that came from the dealer or from fordpartsgiant.com, came with the hoses, y and valve.

 

[fmlman]

Thanks to everyone that replied and everyone else on this thread that discovered the issue and was able to replace the component. I replaced mine today. I decided to go with the aluminum Y from ebay. After seeing how brittle the old plastic one was I think that might have been a good choice. I also had to replace the hose between the Y and the control valve as the original had enlarge too much. I was able to find one at advance auto parts.

 

[tojan19]

Well I'm joining the club. The Ex started to overheat this afternoon. It was missing about 3/4 a gallon of coolant. Been a while since I checked it I guess. Well I remembered this thread and one about the rear clamps. Rear was fine, my Tee/wye is leaking. Well I guess I'm off to O'Reillys tomorrow. I guess I need to drain the radiator to do this. Hoping I can change the wye in place w/o removing those hoses.