had 52K on it. In northern mn. One am was blowing cold air out while warming up. Started to drive and began to overheat. I stopped let it cool down and continued. Temp heated up but never in the red zone. I got it to gas station and checked coolant. Was way low. Am 15 miles from town. Filled coolant and drove on. No problem til i got to town. It just shut down. Never overheated in red zone, never blew excessive smoke out tail pipe(is winter here). Anyways had it towed and the station said that coolant was in oil pan...inadequte lub and i need i new engine. Ford dealer said too bad past warranty. They wanted $4500 to replace engine. Not an option. I ended up buying a used engine from a junk yard and put that in.....now i have heard of a '99 that apparently the same thing happened. Same mileage and symptoms as mine....The garage said that they are not certain what happened and it would cost $$ to figure it out, but looks like a blown head gasket and/or cracked heads....Has anybody heard of problems with the 4.0 V6? Is there any connection seeing that another truck in the area had the same problem? That truck apparently is being "taken care of" by another dealer...I feel like i got screwed...any suggestions on what to do in this situation. I have the original in the bed of the truck and feel like driving in the showroom of the dealer and pushing it out if front of a potential renger buyer........Any help, info, recall info etc. would be appreciated.....
Thanks stig......