I just got finished taking the upper/lower intake manifold off my 97 f150 4.2L. I pretty much followed the fan favorite youtube video which is unfortunately in really high speed but I'm glad I found it! With my truck I was pretty sure it was cylinder 2 because that was the one spewing water when I turned it over after pulling the plugs. Ya, I had tears in my eyes TOO. When I got it apart the gaskets looked like the old style plastic/rubber Felpro gaskets. There is another multi-part video that talks about the Hydro Lock TSB on this engine and using the metal/rubber Felpro gaskets, ms-98010 T-1 (I guess better?) which I plan on using.

Everything seems to be ok EXCEPT; His video doesn't really talk about having water in the engine which I do (see attached pics). You can see from my pics that the underside of the lower intake manifold gasket is covered in mud like oil (oil mix with water), as is the area below it (see engine block photo). I’m positive it’s everywhere in my engine. Is this normal with typical hydro lock and if so what are the steps for getting the water out in addition to changing the oil & filter?

 

mop out anything you can with a clean rag.... then blow out with air .... leave the drain plug out overnight to get anything that continues to drip...... After your back together, check the oil after 100 miles... If it looks OK, run till 1000 then change the oil and your ready to go... if it looks like crap at 100 miles, change it then......


water/ antifreeze will sink to the bottom, so at 100 miles, pull the drain plug and let a quart run out... No water = good .. Top it off and continue to run.


Don't let anyone tell you to wash it out with gas or diesel.. You already have it contaminated with antifreeze......... don't need MORE CRAP in it.

 

If it is indeed #2 cyl (middle one on pass side) that hydrolocked then the intake gaskets didnt cause it. The intake can only let coolant into #1,3,4 or 6 cyls. Also from your pics I dont see anything wrong with the coolant ports on the gaskets. When they fail the strip separating the coolant from the intake port breaks allowing coolant into the port.

 

Sadly, I think you're in the wrong spot. You need to go further and check out the Head Gasket. I could be wrong, but I don't see anything from the pictures that would make me think there could be water spewing from #2.

 

Sorry Guys, My bad. I got my cylinder number mixed up. It was number 6 on the driver side which brings me to another question. If you look at the lower intake gasket on either side you’ll notice that one end of the gasket’ coolant port is wide open while the other end only has a tiny pin hole. I don't know which way the water flows which is to say; is it coming in through the pin hole or flowing out that way?

What's interesting is that one of the pin holes was block by what appeared to be a piece of rubber that looked like a piece of spaghetti about an inch long. It had managed to get about half way through the hole and then got trapped blocking the hole. Now my though is that the coolant which is flowing under pressure couldn't get either in or out, whichever the case may be, and it force its way under the gasket causing hydro lock. This is just a working theory of course.

What I don't know is can I still do a compression check with the intake manifold removed???

 

I don't know for sure, but it seems like you should be able to...

If there's any water left in the system, I guess you'll find out which way it flows too


This is an interesting thread to me, thanks for the detailed pics man.. Mine is a '98, 4.2, 200,000 miles, and I think it would look similar if I opened it up... I never had hydrolock on mine, but I do have that same foam under the filler cap..

How does the oil in the pan look?

 

When I drained the oil I had what seemed like at least 2 quarts of water.

 

Yikes! ... that sounds like a definite head gasket, and hopefully nothing is cracked...

 

hooutoo, if you can still do a compression test, I'd be real interested in hearing the results man!

I'm a little concerned that mine might be getting close to the same condition...

 

I wonder if that might be a leftover from "Blue Devil" or some such thing..

How long have you owned it? How many miles?

 

I'm working all week so nothing to be done until this weekend. Don't know what "Blue Devil" mean but that engine only has about 20k-30k miles on it. I'm from South Florida (sorry most of you boys are pretty cold right now ) but I spend a lot of time in Dallas. A few years ago while in Dallas, the original motor blew. I got a short block from a re-builder in Dallas and since I was out of town (no tools) I had to use the guy he recommended to do the install. When this problem started I was at home so I decided I take it apart this time. Now I found out just how crappy a job the installer did. Most of the spark plugs were no more than hand tight and at least one I didn't even need a wrench. There were 2 or 3 mismatched bolts used on the lower intake and I think 1 on the upper. I'm talking bolts that the guy used a couple of over sized nuts on the bolts to make them sorta the right length. Saturday I'm headed to the junk yard to pull some replacement bolts so I should be fine there.

Anyway, back to the task at hand. The question is; can I still do a compression check? I don't want to pull the heads on an engine with only 30K miles if it's not necessary.

 

"Blue Devil" is a potion that gets added to the radiator, and it's supposed to seal blown heads. I've heard mixed reviews about it. A friend told me it worked on an old van he had, and the repair lasted for years. But I've also read stories where people opened an engine that had been treated with it, and the Blue Devil clogged up some parts of the water jacket (that was on an '88 Ranger with a 2.9L).

But if the engine was rebuilt, then I would guess that the little rubber spaghetti piece is just some permatex (form-a-gasket) that squeezed out when they rebuilt it. Maybe they used it on the water pump gasket...

Since all the moving parts are still in place, I think you should still be able to do a compression test... The valves still open and close, right?... With all the plugs out, just disconnect the ignition system at the alternator, and make sure to pull the fuse for the fuel pump before you begin. You don't want any gas spraying around.... Good luck man..

 

Well back to my hydro-lock problem with lots of updates. This is taking a while since I've now become so busy at work hadn't had a lot of free time to deal with it. Since my last update I took it apart, replaced all gaskets put it back together and the water leak immediately return. At that point I though... **** a blown head gasket. I've since taken it to a local mechanic thinking that I had done something wrong when putting it back together. He said he did a both a compression test and a leak test on the head and both came up fine. Supposedly no problem there! He did notice that the old lower intake manifold was pitted and worn near the area where he thought it was leaking water into the cylinder. So off I go again to the JUNK yard and pulled a lower intake and I can assure you that it was as smooth as cut glass where it meets the head. Well you guess it, it leaked again. Now he says he has no idea where it's leaking although it could be a hairline crack in the head and oh ya, I should just replace the whole motor. Again you guess it, a whole lot more money.
The funny thing is; before I was only getting a P1537 which is a problem on the driver side head and now I'm getting both a P1537 & P1538 which is a problem on both sides.
Further info:
Bubbling in the anti-freeze reservoir which he says is compression gas getting into the cooling lines.

Does anybody have and idea/guess where the leak might be or better yet anyway to positively find the leak? Is there any type of diagnostics or test to find where/what it is??

Any reasonable suggestions would be greatly appreciated!! Just hold off on the Ouija Board and Séance comments for now as it's not that dire just yet!