I've got a '97 (212k miles) with a 4.6 that has developed a mysterious water leak.
It's not the heater hoses.
I do not see any evidence of a leak around the passenger side rear like a head gasket leak might look like. It shows up after revving a little dripping off of the bell housing right in the middle of the truck. And it's a pretty good leak.


I just went out to the truck and crawled all under it. as it turns out, without the engine running, it still drips. Probably just due to head pressure. A steady drip.The curious part is that it appears to be coming out of the rubber plug at the bottom of the bell housing. I pulled the plug out and sure enough, I see drips falling off the bottom tooth of the ring gear. Start the truck and it really pours out of the drain hole in the bottom of the bell housing.

Are there freeze plugs under the bell housing?
It's a 4X4. How much of a job it it to pull the tranny out and reinstall it if there are plugs in there?
I have had a number of two wheel drive trannys out, all manual. Looks like a really big job. I have an adapter for a transmission to go on my floor jack.
And what benefit would I gain from replacing the torque converter to eliminate shudder while I'm in there.

Thanks

 

If I'm not mistaken, there is a coolant hose under the intake that may be leaking and runnind down the back of the engine. As for the studder, I would try powerflushing the tranny first. This usually cures it, but replacing the converter will eliminate it as well.

 

Thanks,
I have looked under the alternator witha mirror andlight and could not see any water there, which is the reason I thought there might be a freeze plug or something under the bellhousing.

 

there is a steel coolant line under the intake that is prone to rusting out.

 

Found this place for my '93 F-350 460 four-door dually several years ago but lost the URL and a search for 4.6L found it. Such a great resource that has helped me solve a problem with a '96 Crown Vic 4.6L with only 52,000 miles on it that I inherited from my father when he passed away in March of this year.

I've worked on vehicles since I was four and this engine is so different than my injected 460 and I was lost. I saw water dripping from between the engine and the block from underneath but all the hoses were solid. Tonight a friend and I spotted water showering down under the intake manifold based on the tips here.

Tomorrow I will start looking for that leaking pipe and trying to understand the weird cooling setup of this engine.

I had a complete shutdown with no restart for fifteen minutes at an intersection. Is OBDII so aggressive that it will shut off the fuel supply when an engine parameter is way out of normal - in this case an overheat situation?

My old and much-loved 460 (and the previous 1979 carbureted version) just always soldiered on regardless of oil supply or water in the block. Such a tough block!

Thanks again for the help as I was very concerned that I was destroying this 4.6L as I tried to understand its plumbing.

Kudos to you LxMan1 for a great board!

 

A friend of mine that this problem last year. The intake manifold is plastic and will warp. Coolant would leak from the back of the manifold (fire wall end), run down the back of the engine and look like it was coming from the the tranny. I think it cost him 400 bucks for Ford to fix the problem. They replaced the manifold.

 

Thanks Sorrel. Hopefully this will help your problem.

 

Sorry for not updating this forum. It was posted at multiple sites and I thought I'd updated them all.
It turned out to be "another" corroded thru freeze plug. Behind the bellhousing. This truck also had a freeze plug fail due to corrosion two years ago behind the timing chain cover, dumping all the coolant behind the cover and into the oil. At first it appeared to be time for a Jasper rebuilt engine (Ouch! $7500 installed), but a post on one forum indicated a fellow found a bad freeze plug and after checking, and that's what it was. Saved me over $5K. I think that post alone paid for my broadband connection for a few years.

Thanks to all that responded. If you have a leak, check those plugs before you start pulling engines.