1998 B4000 5spd 187K miles Cooling System Issues

[ndccpf1]

Replaced upper and lower radiator hoses w/ coolant in ealry September. All good till yesterday when coolant blew out on 8 minute COLD morning startup. Appeard to be crack near upper hose on radiator casing.

Replaced radiator with Ford radiator( $ 160.00). Did the fill, squeeze hose routine for air to escape. When running the temp guage is at the bottom of the C range (if I pull the sensor wire at top of T-stat temp guage drops down below C). Passenger compartment has heat....firewall hoses are hot....upper radiator hose is HOT...but lower radiator hose is COOL.

I remove radiator cap and coolant is at the top. Overflow is at the mid level. I did notice some coolant leaked at the lower hose area at the end of a 40 mile drive home so I re-checked the clamp tighness. Can it be the waterpump ?

 

[Stereodoc]

do yourself a favor and pay close attention to your cooling system. I have the same truck and I'm in the process of replacing the engine.

Your issue sound different than mine but pay close attention. You want avoid what I'm going through right now

For about a year I had intermittent and weird unexplainable cooling system problems. It would consume coolant with no evidence of leakage and just boil over too for no reason. My water pump was good but eventually it was determined that the engine had an intermittent leak in a head gasket which ultimately killed the engine with a catastrophic blow out. Also somewhere along the way cylinder #1 piston cracked. Which I suspect was a piece of a spark plug going through the cylinder since plug one was missing parts of its lower half some time earlier before the final crap out. I thought it was a stuck lifter at the time but turned out to be a spark plug failure. Also found out cylinder #2 exhibited signs of over heating.

For starters ensure your radiator is up to the task.

Check the system pressure and look for cylinder leaks. Stick your nose right up to the filler neck on the radiator and sniff for gasoline or exhaust fumes by watching for unaccounted for bubbles coming out of the radiator.

If you're getting heat to the heater and firewall hoses the pump maybe working. Idle the engine for a period of time with the radiator cap off. ater a full warm up top off the radiator and blip the throttle. If the coolant level goes down the pump is working. Be aware that the system will puke some coolant out when the engine idles down. The key thing is if the coolant level drops in the radiator. If it doesn't drop your radiator is plugged or there is some other obstruction like a stuck closed T'stat.

 

[ndccpf1]

I replaced the T-stat yesterday (had done it also 60K miles ago). So far now temp guage back to normal (middle ) position, no leaks from the hoses. Appears pressure may originally built up and forced coolant out of the upper and lower hose areas (I changed the factory clamps to screw-band type hose clamps). I added a bit more of a turn to secure the clamps although the radiator hose points are plastic and want to avoid a stress crack.

I may do the plugs again soon as I changed them too 60K miles ago.

many thanks for your post reply

 

[Stereodoc]

make sure you get all the air out of the system. if the coolant level gets to low the recovery system will not work. So monitor the recovery tank before and after driving. It should be low when cold and high when hot. If there's no change during driving the cooling system maybe to low to develop sufficient vacuum to pull coolant when cooling down.

 

[ndccpf1]

All is good now. Levels fine and operating temp guage good. Many thanks @!