i have been away for sometime, and still not home yet. just over a month to go on deployment. My younger brother was driving my 94 f-150 inline 6/300, when it overheated, and shut off before he could get it to the side of the interstate. would not restart, but did start later in the day. now it idle's very rough, but settles down as soon as you give it some gas. has not been looked at by me yet, but have been told so far that there is no water in the oil, it being told the water pump is actually pumping water around.
I have several things that need to be done to it, and one of the first ones i am doing is putting an thermal sensor controlled electric fan. something doens't seem be put in right, as the fan is too close to the stock radiator that i have recently installed. either the fan is wrong, the clutch and bell pulley is wrong, because the fan has hit the radiator once already.

anyone who knows of a good electric fan and the thermal sensor controlled unit, please let me know. would prefer the kit if they have it.

also anyone who has a good idea on what is causing the engine to idle rough, please feel free to post. i am fairly sure i will be replacing a head gasket on my return to the states from deployment, but would like confirmation before i open it up.

thanks.

 

If you have an Auto Zone in your area, you can put a small deposit down and rent their Stant radiator pressure tester. When you return the tester they will return your deposit.

You install the special radiator cap and using the hand pump, pump the pressure to around 16 psi. The pressure should hold for 24 hours. If the pressure drops, start looking for the leak.

If you do have a bad head gasket, antifreeze could be leaking into one of the cylinders so when you start the engine, the antifreeze in that cylinder is burnt off which could cause a rough idle.

If you remove the spark plugs and antifreeze is being burnt in one of the cylinders, the electrode of that spark plug will have a steam cleaned look to it.

The 300 six is a cool running engine. The factory clutch fan is adequate. No need for an electric fan. The overheating could be a internally clogged radiator, leaking water pump seal or bad clutch fan.

 

I figured that was a possibility with the head gasket, but i know the radiator leaks, got hit by the fan, that is why i think one of the parts is incorrect. one of the reason i want the electric. i think the clutch fan is too close to the radiator. when i replaced the old radiator, with the new factory one (from napa) the new one is easily 2x as thick.

 

well so far the word is the water pump works, so it looks like i am having my brother take out the radiator and take it and have the hole brazed over.

 

Good point from F150xlt. I would also be inclined to do a compression check.
Not sure on the electric fan but you could check out jegs.com although I remember someone on here got a car one cheap from a breakers.
Good luck.

 

If you go with an electric, be sure to be mindful of how much juice it pulls! Since the 300-6 cylinder runs fairly cool, you can probably get away with running a smaller fan unit. Your location as far as State and such should be considered too.
The electric fan that I had on my Mustang pulled a ton of juice, BUT it would cool the motor down really fast on 100* day! I only ran it in slow traffic, and at a drive thru or something. Mine was a Black Magic with an adjustable sensing unit on it... Worked like a charm, because when it was hot I could turn it down some, when it was cold I could turn it up some... Something to consider.