Driving to work this morning my fan started blowing white smoke (highway speed). I turned off, and didnt' have time to inspect.

When I went back after it cooled down, I squeeze the upper and lower rad hose I hear air release. I cannot pinpoint the sound, except that it is on the drivers side of the van. Rad looks empty, a/f is all over so I can't find the source.

What Im wondering is if there is a common failure that I may be experiencing.

Thanks!
Warren

 

pour water in it and see where it drains out.

hose is usual failure with that much steam and fan spray
but side of engine air noise indicates block freeze expansion plug

 

Ill be filling it up afterwork and check it out. I am not seeing much in terms of hose breakage, but I am hearing the air noise when squeezing hoses *upper and lower*.

Its hard to pinpoint the area where the sound is coming from, but it almost sounds like it is right at the throttlebody area.

 

I filled up the rad, started the van, and there was a heavy stream of coolant coming out right below the throttle body portion of the engine...hard to tell, but it looks like the intake manifold to me.

 

there is a heater hose off the thermostat housing nipple, 2 temp senders, top radiator hose and thermostat housing gasket, intake manifold gasket that can leak in that area
also a freeze expansion plug at end of cyl. head that can leak

 

It seems to me freez plug leaks. To replace pass. side plug U need to remove alternator, dr. side - PS pump. Consider your weekend to be spoiled.... You will spend it with old lady.... a day of love under the hood.

 

Do you have an air compressor? if so, set outlet pressure at about 15 PSI take off rad cap & seal with palm of hand. Get assistant to blow down the overflow hose, while you check for the leak. You might need a tighter fitting hose or clamp on the o/flow port.

Aeroman.

 

Aeroman!!!

My 2 cent! his leakage is not so slight that it is difficult to find!!!!!

Warren! Just remove alternator and see what is goin on. U will see freezzzz plug ufter removing. That is all. If it is bad, just replace it.

 

Well some basic troubleshooting has indicated a leaky intake gaskey, or broken intake.

I haven't had much time lately to tear into it. Looking in at the engine, removing the air intake tube, right below the sensor that is there...the leak is very obvious...looks like a tough job to me. Might be better finding a low milage engine, and swapping out....haven't decided yet.

Warren

 

Change all your radiator hoses-

That, or change your coolant cap for one with a lower pressure. You've got to fix the hose that is burst, there is no getting around that one. You can reduce the pressure on your hoses by installing a radiator cap of lower pressure than Ford installs. This means that you have a greater chance of losing your coolant to boiling than would otherwise be the case.

My other car is a Porsche 928, and on this 286 cubic inch/SOHC 4.7 liter V8 engine I changed the 13 psi cap for one of 7 psi...and I have lost about 1 quart of coolant in the past year/2500 miles. On the Porsche forum, someone installed a pressure sensor and they were staggered to determine that the pressure in the cooling system rarely ever went above 8 psi. That's right- even after a hard run at 150+ mph, the cooling system only came up to 8 psi. Drive over to the Porsche dealer and you can pay $125 for a common $7 Stant cap that will fit nearly any car and is set to open at 13 psi. That's one way to make money~

Pep boys has them for the advertised $7; I suggest you take them up on it!

N~

I'm installing a low pressure cap on my Aerostar; Stay tuned-

 

No reason to replace the engine. More work and time. Just imagine a job of pulling out engine. So remove intake. If it is gasket, just replace, if it is broken intake, you can replace it ore fix with argone welding ore epoxy.

 

Has anyone of you ever done the intake? I did plug wires, that seemed bad enough! The manual is showing 8-9 hours for the job.

The engine has 242,000km on it, runs pretty good...just don't know if I want to do the intake on an engine that old/tired. I like the van, it has no rust on it, which is why I was thinking about spending 1k on a low mileage engine, and try to get another 5-8 years out of it. <laugh>.

Im concerned about the swear factor on this job...

 

I did. First of all draine water/coolant out.

http://www.autozone.com/az/cds/en_us...s.htm#hd1-1--3

check it out. Any quations? I'm rady to answer.... ICQ 322319089

 

Warren,

Do you know if your engine has been burning oil? If so, I guess replacing it with something newer seems more attractive. How is the gas mileage? What Pablo says is correct; replacing the engine is a lot more work than replacing just the intake gasket.

As a matter of fact, I am in the midst of doing that on one of my Aeros right now. (I don't think you mentioned what engine you have, but mine is a 4 liter v6.) I spent today removing all the old parts involved. I found that removing the alternator and AC compressor give me more room to get at the all the other parts. I am also going to replace the front cover gasket, so this will help with that as well.

However, you will need some special tools to remove the fan from the water pump. After that, everything else can be handled with conventional tools.

Once you remove the lower intake manifold, the condition of the mating surfaces around the coolant passages will help you determine whether you want to replace the engine or continue with the repair. If the surfaces are badly rusted or pitted, you should perform some kind of metal repair. It they're really bad, that's when you might want to consider replacing the engine, and you have not lost anything but maybe a day of labor.

 

I dont think so. There is enought room under the hood and there is no reason to remove alternator, belts..... I did it last year on my friends aero.