Ok from the beginning, I bought this car last summer. Ever since I bought it, it would leave a small puddle of coolant on the ground after driving. No big deal, it's 20 years old. Eventually it got bigger and bigger and a few weeks ago it basically started pouring out coolant from somewhere. I changed the water pump, thermostat housing, and all hoses thinking that had to be it, even though I never really pinpointed the problem. That did nothing. I first started to suspect the timing cover, because the area is soaked in coolant. But after getting under the car I realized that it's just collecting there and the actual leak has to be coming from further back in the engine. All I can tell for sure is that coolant is flowing down the right side of the oil pan and coming down by where the oil filter is. I have used compressed air to dry the area and started pouring water into the thermostat housing and within 15 seconds I see it coming down the right side of the oil pan at a rate of about half as fast as I'm putting it in. I can also see on the front of the motor where coolant has been going down the driver side cylinder head, but can't tell if it's actually coming from the head. I have no cross contamination in my oil and when it was running there wasn't any smoke out the exhaust that I noticed. The freeze plugs on the block are also dry. Could lower intake gaskets cause a leak that bad? This isn't just a drippy leak, it's a small steady stream. Could a head gasket cause a coolant leak but no cross contamination? I'm at a loss here and getting really frustrated. Thank you for any help.
95 5.0 I'm at my wit's end with this huge coolant leak I can't find
- Thread starter sn95GT302
- Start date
Rusty leaky freeze plug?
I checked the 2 on each side of the block and they are all dry. Am I missing some that are elsewhere? This is the first Ford I've ever owned so I'm not too familiar with everything.
So I looked at some pics online and found out there are freeze plugs under the heads on the front of the block. As long as I've had it, the coolant temp never got above 230 and it stays in a heated garage but it was already leaking when I got it so it could be a freeze plug. I'll go check it out again.
This is just my opinion, so take it for what it's worth. But personally, if I were stripping off the timing chain cover, I would go ahead and get the heads and intakes off, possibly do a refresh on the heads, or do new ones, do the timing chain, possibly a new cam, etc.
Makes the little project more costly, but you will for sure be eliminating the leak source, and end up with a little bump in power (or a big one depending on what sort of H/C/I you go with.
Makes the little project more costly, but you will for sure be eliminating the leak source, and end up with a little bump in power (or a big one depending on what sort of H/C/I you go with.
^^^^^i second this notion!!!!
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
^^^ im on board as well
I would absolutely love to do this right now. Especially since I'm already so close to the cam already. Unfortunately I just lost my job because the owner of the company is a 22 year old punk that knows nothing about trucks and thinks I'm responsible for a problem with the air brakes that cost 700$ to fix. Stupid ass punk kid. Anyway, I may go ahead and do a double roller timing chain while I'm in there. I got everything apart, just waiting for the gasket kit to get here and I need to get a puller for the balancer. Once I get the balancer off I just need to clean it all up, replace the gaskets, and put it all back together. Replace with fresh coolant and oil and she should be ready to run.
Although this whole deal has been annoying and irritating, I will say I'm having a good time working on this thing now that I know what the problem is. I could always change my own oil and spark plugs (even on a hemi ram...Biggest pain in the ass ever). I could do most repairs and maintenance relatively easy. I've never really had to do anything too major. I'm having a good time learning new things and keeping myself occupied with this little project. It's not so intimidating anymore at least. Now, if I get this thing all back together and it still leaks....Then yes I will be pissed. Hopefully that doesn't happen.
Mustangs are a piece of cake to work on!
