here's a problem for you mechanically inclined guys

jimmy_beaner · **here's a problem for you mechanically inclined guys**

my brother truck has a 4.6 liter v-8, it's a F-150.... 1997.... well, I passed it on the highway today ''broke down''... it still ran, just had no oil pressure on the gauge.. we took it to a Ford dealership and they said the gauge just went out and it was ok to drive home, about 30 minutes... I told him to stop at this local shop like 10 minutes away, so he did, and they said there truely wasn't any oil pressure, and that there was antifreeze in the oil. My question to you is this: what's your hypothesis on what the problem is?... I can tell you if you're right possibly tomorrow

Hoover · 08-24-2004, 06:20 PM

that the guys at the ford dealership need to pull there heads out there butts.
antifreeze in the oil, maybe cracked head or block. Just my theory.

jimmy_beaner · 08-24-2004, 06:49 PM

how would they crack? someone had said blown gasket... I really have no idea. I doubt it's cracked anything, but I don't know. Umm, my dad said the temperature gauge would go high, and then back to normal, and then high, and back to normal... yeah. The truck did last 147,000 HARD miles. We'd pull hay with it, like LOTS of hay... almost as much as we pull with out F-250 Heavy Duty... one time we pulled 8 of those big round bales at once. It'd burn off a full set of tires if you asked it to. And it got 22 miles per gallon. Simply an awesome truck. I thought my dad was going to cry when it started acting up.. lol. He got it 2 years old for $6,000, and yeah, that was a long time ago. got it at an auction, some guy went bankrupt

Hoover · 06:57 PM

its a small crack, its not like a crack you would see in an earthquake movie or something. Since your dad said the temp would go up then down and so on and so forth that isnt good. a crack develops when you have a lot of temp variations that are rapid from hot to cool. Like when you put an ice cube in a glass of warm soda and you here it crack, similar concept. If you had an overheated engine and then went and put cool water in it, or on it for that matter, the temp variation causes rapid contraction of the metal. A bad gasket can be the cause of this too, like you said seeing as you have no oil pressure, but that may not explain the antifreeze in the oil. Just my take on it, let me know what they say is wrong with it.

jimmy_beaner · 08-24-2004, 07:10 PM

how would said crack have started? and I don't know if my dad was over draumatizing it or if it really happened like that... I was the one following in the car that worked

Hoover · 08-24-2004, 07:30 PM

well it doesnt really start slowly, its more of a shocking jolt. here run a quick experiment. grab a hot mug of water basically where it is steaming, I believe water boils at or around 140�F take an ice cube and drop it in the mug and watch as the cube hits the water it will crack instantly and then melt. Now if you can imagine your car which is probably more in the range of 230� to 500�+ range and if the car was getting spurts of cool antifreeze the metal wouldnt be able to take the change very well from being extremely hot to cold. In science metal expands when heated, and when it cools it shrinks. the reason is due to the tiny little molecules called atoms that make up the material. It has been proven that when most things are cooled those molecules try to cram all together and get all close. and the reverse is true when something is heated, the molecules will expand and try to get further from one another. well when you have a hot engine and the molecules are expanding, and then you throw cold water on the engine, the molecules will try and react to that sudden change quickly, so all the molecules will try to pack together real fast while others may not get hit by the cool water. so you have some metal contracting and some still expanding and it causes a crack.

Falcon · 08-24-2004, 07:42 PM

hoover your idea is sounding really logical i think you might be right from what I am reading

SquirrelNutz154 · 08-24-2004, 08:12 PM

Yeah, I've experienced something kind of like that before with a buddy's car. Block was cracked for the exact reason that Hoover mentioned. I hope for your sake that the Ford guy was right or its just the gaskets, but its very likely the heads or block cracked.

jimmy_beaner · 08-24-2004, 08:15 PM

lol, hoover, thanks for going into depth for me, but it was kind of unneeded. I meant like what kind of thing would be spraying the cool onto the block... something of that sort. I've got 2 years of advanced college physics under my belt so I kinda know all about that other stuff, but it was still a very good explanation. Water boils at 210 degrees F. 100 degrees celsius (MUCH better scale). That's assuming it's pure water. Unpure boils at less degrees. Just like less pure water, i.e. salt water, freezes at a much lower tempurature, that's why they have you add salt to your driveways... that's beacuse of the ionic dipole moments found in the water and the NaCl atoms. Kinda going into my Chemistry for you, so I'll stop, but yeah, I got it.

Hoover · 08-25-2004, 12:05 AM


Quote: Originally Posted by jimmy_beaner lol, hoover, thanks for going into depth for me, but it was kind of unneeded.

I figured it might have been, sorry I have a tendency to explain things like I am talking to a 10 year old. Only cuz I have to put up with them a lot, sorry.


Quote: Originally Posted by jimmy_beaner I've got 2 years of advanced college physics under my belt so I kinda know all about that other stuff, but it was still a very good explanation.

ok, now your just makin me feel bad

it's ok though


Quote: Originally Posted by jimmy_beaner Water boils at 210 degrees F. 100 degrees celsius (MUCH better scale).

Now you are makin me just look bad.

Now I atleast know


Quote: Originally Posted by jimmy_beaner Kinda going into my Chemistry for you, so I'll stop, but yeah, I got it.

feel free to go into all the chemistry you ever wanted, I understand that. same with the metric system 10's are so much easier to deal with. Just like you "SCIENCE IS FUN!!!" I like it.

did that car ever just recently get filled with new coolant or have some type of flush and fill of the coolant system? I had a car once that I flushed and filled the system on it and the radiator flush I used ate some of the head gasket and it caused my coolant to slowly get boiled out of my engine. then it did the hot then cool then hot thing, and I eventually had to replace both the heads cuz they cracked. the reason I beleive was that it built enough pressure to finally fill the radiotor up witht he hot coolant and push the cool stuff in the engine, and it just happened to be cold enough to cause a crack.

that and also on a side note, the regular green coolant if mixed with that Dex cool coolant (the orange stuff) will cause the mixture to become slightly acidic and will also eat through gaskets and such.

jimmy_beaner · 08-25-2004, 01:59 PM

lol, I had a discussion with CarQuest on why NOT to use the orange... I was like, what's this? NO.... hahaha, you can NOT use that. I especially like the little picture on my radiator overflow with the different colors, quite pretty :P, hahaha. yeah, he said it forms a jelly that eats the linings of everything. Did GM make a deal with Preston? I guess the truck has been using a lot of antifreeze recently, and my dad just kept putting it in. Never told me about it, but I guess has just been filling and refilling it. The shop said there's antifreeze in like the entire engine, and they were going to take it apart and look and see if they can't find what's wrong.

Hoover · 08-25-2004, 07:12 PM

actually from what i heard, the orange stuff is meant to be better for aluminum radiators, i hear the green stuff will have a tendency to make the aluminum flake off and clog stuff. Not sure why but I'll trust what the guy had to say about it at NAPA, atleast till I hear differently. So when are you taking this truck of yours to see what is wrong with it?

jimmy_beaner · 08-25-2004, 07:37 PM

it's there now... been there since yesterday. They're taking the engine apart.... from what my mom tells me anyway... but yeah, they want to get down to what's really wrong... today they said there's antifreeze throughout the entire engine

Hoover · 08-25-2004, 08:51 PM

GOO! sorry for the luck man. On a side note, antifreeze tastes good

and no I didnt drink it.

Rick0636 · 09-12-2004, 11:35 AM

That's what they say, that is why dogs and cats sometimes get poisoned by the stuff.

**MonteCitan** · 09-12-2004, 12:12 PM

Bad head or intake gaskets would be my guess, especially if itd' been losing antifreeze for a while

Coolant makes a bad engine lubricant - it includes some oils to keep the water pump lubed, but that's it... I would assume he's bent a few connecting rods, maybe damaged some bearings.. that is if he didn't go so far as to crack his block, which isn't likely but possible, depending on the distance driven with the antifreeze in the oil..

About the guy at NAPA.. Ethylene glycol (the green or gold color coolant) works JUST fine, flushing or even draining and refilling the system at scheduled maintenance intervals (every 30k miles or so) works plenty well enough - there's no need to use dexcool (orange), the biggest idea behind dexcool is you don't need to service it for ~100k miles, if I remember right from my last GM.. but it tends to sludge up with age much worse than the green stuff does. I've heard of more people switching from dex to the green stuff than vice versa, it doesn't cool any better as far as I've seen - and whatever you do, do NOT mix the 2, it basically forms a sludge, that cannot move through the engine efficiently enough.

I would also send the bill to the ford dealership when all is said and done, and tell them that it wasn't just the gauge.. That's just my opinion of course

jimmy_beaner · 09-12-2004, 01:31 PM

ok, what was wrong is: plugged frost plug, radiator... no blown gaskets... no real idea why the antifreeze was in the oil, but we have to get all new gaskets now anyway, the engine is completely disassmebled... so it'll get all cleaned up and nice