2003 Ford E-250 Overheating issue
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Well well. I drove in to work very early this morning and the coolant warning light came on and the gauge was pegged on H. I thought you've got to be kidding me. Still overheating even with a new radiator. I had to turn truck off to use key to open the gate to the shop and when I got back in and started the truck back up, the light was off and the gauge needle was back to normal(mind range on gauge) Now it would seem to me that the sensor was the bad part all along and I'm the dummy who went ahead and replaced the water pump and radiator. I cannot figure out where the temp sensor/sending unit is on this 4.6 however. At this point I really hesitate to assume that's the issue because I drove it all day with AC on max trying to get it to overheat and the gauge never went to H again nor did the coolant indicator light come on. Hmm. Really odd. I suppose the sensor could be bad but only some-timey. Just an odd deal all the way around.
More Turbo
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When I went through this overheating business it motivated me to install a couple of redundant temperature sensors and a gauge.
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Steve
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Steve
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And the saga continues. Got done working late today and on way home, light comes on again and gauge is on H. I ignore it and keep driving. I got about 5 miles and the engine began losing power. I barely made it into the driveway. Under a load giving it throttle did nothing. In neutral it would rev. No ugly noises and after popping the hood it was obvious that the engine was not as hot as one would expect at all. I'm not going to fool with this thing too much longer but I now suspect that the catalytic converter is in fact clogged up and creating excess heat in the head where the sensor is apparently located.. I had this thing code checked a week ago and the guy checking it noted 'catalytic converter insufficiency bank 2' Did I understand correctly that bank 2 is on driver side of engine?
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I drove it again yesterday and after around 4-5 miles the coolant warning light came on and the needle on gauge was on H again. I kept driving and the engine finally began to bog down and lose power until I had to crawl it into a Wendy's parking lot. This time however, I got out and popped the hood but the heat emanating from the engine did not seem excessive at all. I got right back into it and started it up and the light was out, the gauge was right back where it should be and when I drove it off, it had power again and drove fine. After only being shut off for around 2-3 minutes would it run just fine like that if the cat converter was clogged?? It did show a code for 'catalytic insufficiency' but if the cat was truly clogged would it not still exhibit the same low power within only 2 minutes of being started back up? Something really weird seems to be going on here. Just wondering if bad O2 sensor(s) might be creating this condition and not an actual clogged up catalytic converter.
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I drove it again yesterday and after around 4-5 miles the coolant warning light came on and the needle on gauge was on H again. I kept driving and the engine finally began to bog down and lose power until I had to crawl it into a Wendy's parking lot. This time however, I got out and popped the hood but the heat emanating from the engine did not seem excessive at all. I got right back into it and started it up and the light was out, the gauge was right back where it should be and when I drove it off, it had power again and drove fine. After only being shut off for around 2-3 minutes would it run just fine like that if the cat converter was clogged?? It did show a code for 'catalytic insufficiency' but if the cat was truly clogged would it not still exhibit the same low power within only 2 minutes of being started back up? Something really weird seems to be going on here. Just wondering if bad O2 sensor(s) might be creating this condition and not an actual clogged up catalytic converter.
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It's not the cats at all. If it were it would not clear up so quickly. It's the head temp sensor. Anytime any of these sensors begin to fail they will send bogus info to the computer which will in turn make incorrect adjustments to air/fuel etc and the engine will not perform. We've figured this out just this evening. Even though I am not a mechanic, enough of what I do in my own line of work, functions very similarly and I should have recognized the same in this situation well before I started hanging parts on this thing and apparently this is a very common failure in these motors/sensors and causes this issue. Lesson learned.
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