My manual for my 05 says there is a water seperator under the drivers side that you should drain from time to time. I found it but the manual shows a lever you flip and drain off the water. Mine has no handle or drain for that matter that i can find. What's the deal?

 

I think Ford got ahead of themselves on this one. You've got a brass drain plug down there which you remove with a 6mm hex wrench. I'm not quite sure what they were thinking on this one. If you want something that will make removing it a lot easier,as well as minimizing your chances of eventually stripping the plug, look in to the drain plug that's available for the Ford LCF trucks. You can see pics of it and get the part numbers for it on this website here <--- Click here

 

Mine appears to be aluminum. At least I'm assuming that's the drain. It's located in the same place as the link you posted. Thanks for the info. Mine is 4 wd so I'm sure I'll have the same issues in the link. How often should that be drained?

 

some people doi it every month. Others drain it at longer intervals. I waited well...probably longer than I should've. (15,000 miles to be exact) and I don't think there was any water in the fuel when I drained it. Others drain it while they do their oil changes. How many miles have you driven it so far?

If you've got a few miles on it, it might not hurt to drain it to see just how much water you have in the seperator, (if any).

Now that I've got that new drain plug in, I can quickly get under the truck and drain it. The new plug also helps to direct the flow of fuel out of the seperator, minimizing the amount of fuel that won't make it into your catch basin.

With the virtually non-existence of water when I drained my seperator after going as long as I did (though, there was a tiny amount of sediment in my fuel) I now feel comfortable doing it when I do my oil changes(every 5000 miles) I also use a fuel conditioner (stanadyne performance formula) every 2-3 tanks, so that might have helped me along the way. But bottom line is what you feel comfortable doing. If you want to drain it every month to give yourself peace of mind, then by all means do it.

 

I'm approaching 12,000 miles so I quess I need to drain it. Not looking forward to the mess though. I'll have to get one of those plugs. Thanks for the info.