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Good morning all! I'm new to this forum, but definitely a Ford fan! Had mustangs, trucks, etc.
I just purchased a NOT RUNNING 1990 F150 XLT with a 5.0V8 and 5spd standard. The problem was the fuel pump. I got it running, all the fluids (when checked) looked amazing.
I drove it a full hour and brought it back home, parked it in the garage. No overheating no smells no noises, runs GREAT.
However, after driving it a second time, I decided to pull the dipstick just to double check the oil level after my few trips. There was a little tiny bit of white stuff ON the dipstick. My heart SUNK. Upon reading forums, I guess it's fairly common to see this after a truck has been sitting for a while, HOWEVER, after I got it running I ran it for a few hours total before I noticed this.
With the truck running, I can see puffs coming out of the valve cover when the oil cap is off, and there was a little bit of white residue under the oil cover.
NO contamination with the radiator fluid -- bright green and looks great, SMELLS great (well, as good as coolant can smell).
The truck has under 70k original miles and runs like a freaking top. However, it also needs a pinion bearing, and a front radiator support (starting to rust). The rest of the frame and body are in great shape, but not sure its worth a head gasket too if that's the case... it's a classic, but how far do I want to go?
Can anyone give me insight or anything else I can check to see if it's a head gasket before dumping 1500 bucks into rear end work?
Please note: The exhaust is NOT steaming.
Thank you!!!!!
Josh Hard to see it but there's some white stuff on the dipstick This was one of the first pulls of the dipstick. That is the only time it appeared this much, other times oil is almost 100% clean.
That just looks like moisture that has sat in the crankcase from sitting. And you did say it had sat awhile before being brought back to life.
I wouldn't condemn it yet. Drive it. And drive it some more. Moisture can hide in every part of the engine and left for long periods of time, can take some time to burn it completely off.
Check it after a day of good long running and then after a few more days. I think you're ok and have nothing to worry about.
THANK YOU!!! I am worried about it, b/c the rear tranny mount is gone and it wore on the pinion so the pinion bearing is shot. PLus I have a broken leaf, so before I was dumping all that $$ into it (totally worth it in this cond tho), I wanted to be sure.
It has not been run since last fall, sat all winter and spring. Guy drove it from Colorado to VT and let it sit all winter then it wouldn't start in the spring. I have about 3-4 hours on it now. Afraid to drive it more now that I see it leaking rear end fluid and confirmed the pinion bearing is shot. However, I might putter around my property with it a bunch moving wood etc... get it hot drive it around the yard a bunch and see how it goes.
That doesn't look like a head gasket failure yet. My 88 headgasket failed and it was streaming water out of an exhaust eader port, and made a cloud large enough to envelope my whole street, and the oil looked like gray chocolate milk. It is possible you have a tiny breach in the gasket or crack, can't rule that out yet, but still unlikely. Head gasket job aint that bad either.
you could check junk/salvage yards, for a whole rear, and leafs, for way less than $1,500(wow!) to just replace pinion bearing, and leaf.
Nice truck, to save by the way!
Thank you! I thought so too!
Well, to be honest, the 1500 was a rough estimate on rear end work (pinion bearing, leaf spring, all new rear brakes, and rear transmission mount. Also I think they might have been planning on putting some new ujoints in while they were in there. Maybe a whole used rear end and some used leaf springs from a junkyard might be the way to go. I'll check into it, and ask the guy who's doing the work. Thanks for the suggestion!
You just add a special fluid sold separately with the kit (like 8 bucks) to that bottle, and hold it over the radiator after the truck is warm (be careful opening the radiator if it's hot, usually I let the truck warm up with the cap off, the thermostat needs to be open for this test). You then use the squeezy bulb thing and keep sucking vapor from the radiator through the liquid in the bottle. If the liquid changes color, you have exhaust gasses getting into your coolant. If it doesn't, then you know that at least that section of your head gasket is good.
I know head gaskets can fail in many ways (like 7); coolant mixing with oil, coolant mixing with combustion chamber, combustion chambers leaking to each other, combustion chambers leaking to oil, or any of those leaking outside) HOWEVER, it seems the most common failure mode for these head gaskets, and pretty much any head gasket I've ever dealt with is coolant mixing into the combustion chamber or oil.
That block tester kit will test pretty much the most likely scenario of a head gasket failure. I highly doubt it would have failed any other way, especially with the miles is has.
I'd also agree with everyone else, if it sat for that long, moisture was probably hiding in the engine. If there is no white smoke coming form the exhaust, you're probably safe. When my head gasket failed on my 94 351W, it was like a steam engine all of a sudden and smoked out the whole freeway!
Another thing, I got my rear end at a junk yard for 150 bucks. So if you're able to do the work yourself, it's worth looking into the junkyards where you pull parts yourself.
Thank you all for your input. Greatly appreciated, and already been able to help someone else locally based on some stuff I've read here on these forums (how cool is that?!).
The attached pictures are after a few days of making some short trips with the truck. I decided to chance the pinion bearing, broken leaf spring, and on-the-way-out fuel pump and drive it a little bit on some easier roads.
I did 2 10 mile trips, and another probably 10-12 mile round trip... I would say probably another total of 50 miles or so. I also ran it ALOT around my property until hot.
After all this, 90% of the time I pull the dipstick to normal oil. The other 10% of the time, its got a white blotch in it. Sometimes its hard to see it but there's a small streak of white, but that's seldom. The rest of the time pulls clean. I'm thinking its much less likely a head gasket now, since the antifreeze is also bright green, and has no abnormal smell to it.
I am taking it to a good mechanic to quote all the "other" stuff on Wednesday, we'll see how it goes. I'm assuming he also has a head gasket test, so I will ask him to do that.
Thanks again for all your help -- any additional input would be welcome also. I've got a little over 4k tied up into the truck right now, but being the relatively good condition it's in, that's not bad. If it had a bad HG as well as needing all the other work, I'd be a little concerned.
My 93 4.9l once in a while would do this. Depending on the humidity in the air. Short trips will do it. My solution? added a catch can to the PCV system so it isn't sucking the moisture and oil vapors from the crank case back into the EFI system. Only have to dump it when I change the oil. The catch can allows the air to pass thru and any fluid or dcondenstation will drop out of the air stream and stay in the can. I cleaned the inside of the intake manifold one time with some spray seafoam and got out as much of the crud as I could after 25 yrs of just normal PCV operation.
One of our long time senior users, which I forget his name, swears by Heet. All of the replies when mentioned are positive. Maybe some that have experience with it will chime in with their opinion. I have NO experience with it but check it out and see if it's for you. I also agree you don't have a blown head gasket. Sandy
