I have a 93 F-150. Today, my daughter called me at work and told me that she was driving home from school and her truck started acting strange. She looked at all the gauges and they were fine, but the check engine light was flashing at her. I didn't know they ever flashed. I thought they came on or off. Anyways, she decided to pull over and stop. I went to check it out and didn't notice anything unusual except that the tack was all the way past 6 (truck off). I cranked it up and pushed the pedal and the tack went back to normal (don't know if this is related to problem, or not).

Finally, I got home and couldn't find anything strange. I made a stupid error and removed the battery cable to check codes and lost all history. Anyways, I noticed that it came up to temp. fine and then I turned it off. I found it strange that the radiator cap was not hot. It was barely luke warm (if that). The top radiator hose was extremely hot and very tight. Does this seem strange? BTW - I did check the fluid before I cranked it and it was full in the radiator.

Anyone got any ideas? I am wondering if the t-stat is stuck and the water isn't circulating properly. I am confused as to why the radiator cap isn't hot when the truck is at operating temp.

Thanks in advance for the help.

 

A tight top hose is not a big deal if the rad cap can hold that pressure and not blow off into the reservoir. Was the reservoir over full with signs of wetness or empty ? A flashing light is something that is "extremely wrong and driving further is not good". It could be as simple as a bad ground near the battery for the computer/EFI system ?
Phil

 

Thx. for the response. The resovoir is empty, but the radiator is full. I was just concerned that the cap was not hot. I guess it's just the way it works. I coudl have sworn that in the past my radiator cap was always hot. Anyways, I just spoke with my daughter again and I'm not sure the light was flashing. She just said that the truck acted like it was losing power and she looked down and the check eng. light was on. She started moving over to the side and thought she noticed it coming on again. I'm not really sure she remembers correctly. I just went and drove the vehicle again and had not issues. I'm just going to ask her to drive again and see if the problem duplicates itself. I'm wondering now it was some type of gas problem (fuel filter, fuel pump, etc). I guess we won't know until it happens again and I can pull the codes.