So my car decides to puke coolant..

birch

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As I was driving home and then pulled into the garage, I noticed my temp guage was reading high. I opened my hood, and I have antifreeze/coolant all over the front of my engine. The radiator reservoir was empty..but still leaking fluid out of the bottom of the car. I had zero indications driving home that something was amiss. Heat exchanger and reservoir are fine, so I know there are no problems with that.

I really didn't get a chance to get too deep into it today due to higher priorities..but I looked/felt all that I could, and all hoses seem to be intact. I'll try to do a "antifreeze leakdown" test tomorrow to hopefully track down the problem.

For some reason I actually bought that extended warranty, so I may be taking advantage of it.

FWIW, car has 24k miles with no cooling mods.

Just thought I would share.

Vic
 
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racerat

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Had two cars in the shop this week with the same problem and talked to another owner who had it happen to him this week.
Two were bad radiator caps and on the other, the fan took a crap.
 

birch

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My cap was secure and shown no signs of fouling when I removed it..but jeez, I had coolant covering the blower, battery etc. Weird thing is I run with my hood vents open, and none of it came out of there onto my windshield or whatever.

Thanks for the reply Rat.
 
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birch

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Right on.

Hopefully that's my problem.
 
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TRBO VNM

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+1 with racerat. I have had 2 customers with just bad caps. funny story, one guy goes to a shop close to him and they did all sorts of testing and everything. they replace the cap with an autoparts store brand and it still leaked. they told him it was a head gasket. the guy had just bought the car used a few months prior and didn't put a lot of miles on it since it was winter time. he brought it down for that and some other stuff. I did my tests, saw the cap and put a stock cap back on. so far no problems. cheapest headgasket fix I have had. :beer:

basically, do a pressure test and see what happens. BTW, the caps are about $10-15 bucks from ford.
 

birch

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Thanks for the inputs! I'll go get a cap tomorrow, hopefully that will cure it.
 

fr03cobra

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thermastat stick?

Mine did that overheated and spit coolant everywhere

yeap mine did that away from home on my way to work. ford charged me 400 bucks to put it back together. :fm: they said the clamps and thermastat was bad. yea it would have been an easy fix for me but not known what was bad and no time on my hands I was trapped like a rat.lol
 
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jm@ReischePerf

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I wonder if the defective/warped reservoir issue that these cars are known for tends to create sealing issues with rad caps and is really the main culprit.
 

birch

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I did a "leakdown", and sure enough it's not just the cap (if so). I can only go so far under the car, but whatever that silver elbow is where all the hoses run into, it's coming from that area. The 1" hose that runs down from the top to that metal pump looking thing looks like the culprit. It's so tight in there, I can't get the hose clamp loose to see if the hose is not all the way connected. I'd pinch the hose and it would stop (somewhat) the coolant from draining. I'm sure not going to drive it anywhere, so tow truck it is.

Oh well, extended warranty ftw.
 

TERMIN8TR

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check all your factory hose clamps for damage, there was an issue with clamps failing on our cars. mine had 2 and one was on the bottom in the area you're talking about
 

birch

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Well, maybe my first hunch was right:

The 1" hose that runs down by the alternator pulley, is sitting right on it with a hole made by the pulley. That hose is also the one I said looked like it was not fully attached to the thermostat housing.

To answer an earlier question, I did replace my H/E two months ago and with guidance I found on this site, I *thought* that I successfully burped it, since I have been driving it for the past two months with zero issues. Maybe there was air left in the system and dislodged that 1" hose just enough to give it slack to rub against the pulley. Seems like if there was air in the system, this would of happened earlier, and not two months later. Who knows??

But, off to the dealership tomorrow. Hoping it's just a bad clamp, and nothing major.
 

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