So I have a coolant leak

mustang1 · Mar 14, 2010

So i just found out by looking under my hood and under my car that I have a bit of a coolant leak. I dont think its much of a suprise that something

under the hood would go wrong after 152,000 miles. Now from what i have been reading here for a while this could be because of the head gasket

failure and i guess what im trying to ask is how hard would it be to change out the heads myself. I have came across a set of heads from an explorer

and the intake to that as well. I was thinking about getting these new parts sent away to get them worked on a bit. I know i dont need to change

out the intake but i might as well...right? I would like to think i am mechanically inclined but I dont know if the swap would be hard for me or a just a

headache more than anything. Any suggestions or "heads up" would be awsome.

94Snake · Mar 14, 2010

you shouldn't have any problems breaking the top end down yourself if you're mechanically inclined. get a haynes just to help you. how much are you paying for the heads/intake and then how much do you plan on spending on having them worked? point is you may end up spending more to get these parts reconditioned as opposed to just buying new better performing parts.

oh since your car has that many miles and you're breaking it down enough to get heads on then you might as well do a cam swap too.

last thing, are you sure it's the heads that are leaking coolant? i'd hate to see you do all the work and not fix the original problem.

CC'S95GT · Mar 14, 2010

94Snake said:
last thing, are you sure it's the heads that are leaking coolant? i'd hate to see you do all the work and not fix the original problem.

+2
I'd be looking more at your water pump and hoses first for the coolant leak.
Upgrades are good but new heads may not fix your problem.

mustang1 · Mar 14, 2010

I think i might have found the problem in one of the hoses but the little pin size hole seems to be too small to be causing the mess that looks like it

may be from something other than the hoses. I also forgot to mention whenever i get on WOT there is a cloud of white smoke not too far behind me

which lead me to believe that it might be the gasket in the first place. but as far as buying new heads and intake and now a cam, dont we all want to

believe something like those things are going wrong just so we could replace them? Im all for reparing and trouble shooting for the small stuff first but

dont think i will tear apart the top end until something is going wrong up there. Mmmmmm im loking at some AFR's right now

ivan12 · Mar 14, 2010

Where is the coolant puddling up? One tiny hole in a hose or a loose clamp can make a big mess because of the amount of pressure they go through. It's also not that hard to do the head swap if you're mechanically inclined and have a reference book. You also have to take other things in consideration other than the heads, you're going to need new fluids (oil, coolant, parts cleaner) as well as a good set of head gaskets, head studs, most likely intake gaskets, spark plugs, oil filter, and a little extra cash for unforseen broken parts or new tools like a good torque wrench to put everything back together. Air tools will make your life a lot easier . AFRs are nice, that's on my to do list.

mustang1 · Mar 14, 2010

Yeah, I just replaced the upper and lower radiator hoses and i will see tomorrw if there is anymore puddling going on around the air filter mostly but in

other areas as well underneath the car. Yeah there will most def be some carefull planning going on on my part to make sure i dont have to run down

to autozone 20X if I did the HCI swap. And to answer your question 94 snake, I would be paying 450 for the explorer heads and intake and I wasnt

too sure on what to spend on getting them cleaned up but I see what youre saying on just getting new parts if I went that route, and i totally agree

with you on that now. What would explain the mysterious smoke coming from my exhaust at WOT? Thanks again

94-427 · Mar 19, 2010

the white smoke coming from exhaust is steam from coolant or water in radiator runing through engine Via head gaskets
Or posibly craked head whit smoke can also be un burned fuel [ car would be running very bad and smell like gas

jthorn9 · Mar 20, 2010

Head gasket leak will generally cause sever problems such as the engine to run quite poorly and sever amounts of white smoke to come out the exhaust depending on how sever the leak is. I'm betting a small leak at the thermostat cover, timing chain cover, or water pump. They are hard to find, you'll have to look for the green dryed residue left on the engine.

Doing the work isn't hard, just yesterday I changed a blown head gasket on my 5.0, it took me 2 hours to get the head out, however took 4 hours to rebuild everything, the build is what takes time due to all the torquing that needs to be done. You'll need a lot of tools to do a full engine tear down (to the heads anyways). A few specialty tools you'll need is a pulley puller/press, fuel line hose clamp remover, and several varied length socket extenders for the headers to mid pipe. You'll also need a full tool set stockets and wrenches.