Bubbles in coolant and running hot.

[krugford]

Well, it's not a Ranger, but I just picked up a 1994 Ford Escort 1.9L for a commuter. Good or bad, I picked it up for $800.

The problem:

Lately it's been running hotter than usual. Cruising on the highway, it'll run about 3/4 the way to hot (still inside "normal" range). Come into town and slow down and it starts to overheat. Come back up to highway speeds and it will cool back down a little bit.

There's bubbles in the overflow bottle, it doesn't burn coolant as far as I can tell. There no white smoke and no sweet smell to the exhaust. The oil is not getting any higher and looks good. The old plugs looked fine and I just replaced them anyways. I just flushed the cooling system and replaced the t-stat while I was in there. After driving for awhile and shutting the car off the bubbles will continue for maybe 5-10 seconds and then stop. The coolant will be a little low in the radiator but since I can't find any trace of it going anywhere, it may just be getting pushed back into the overflow, not sure.

The bubbles in the overflow tell me that I've got either a bad head gasket or a cracked head but I don't know squat about this car in general. I kinda figured that either one would result in burning a little coolant but like I said, there not an obvious trace.

Are these 1.9Ls prone to cracking heads? Do I just have a bad head gasket? I'd like to hear some opinions before I go pick up a head gasket kit. Could this be something worse?? I have not yet performed a compression check or a leakdown test.

Thanks in advance!

-krug

And now the mandatory I NEED HELP!!!

 

[odie1969]

well I do know that the 1.9 is a alum. head so if it did get hot at a one time you may have a warped head. I would go down to nampa and get a block and head tester. the one that causes bubble to rise and mix with chem. to change colors I think. but ya you should be able to 1.9 head at any junk yard cheap. also why you are there look for a shitcort gt with the 1.9ho motor it came with factory headers that should bolt right in. Ya sadly I spent more time in and under a shitcort. but that was my first car thing would of ran forever if I wouldn't pulled the motor and cut the car up. but It's ok the seat are coming back from colo and are goind into my 87 ranger. Got to have the seats from my first car in my first ranger.

 

[projectexplorer]

well with my experience. It sounds like a head gasket if you put a radiator pressure testes on it .It shoule only read around 15 psi if it keeps going up and up. I'd say your head gasket is leaking on the compression side and your piston is putting compression into your cooling system.

 

[Will]

Head gaskets don't leak without help. They are clamped down evenly with hellish force. Nothing could possibly get through. Unless something else fails that causes the clamping to weaken. Replacing a head gasket by itself isn't a repair. It's probably been seriously overheated and the head is warped.

 

[lifeissomething]

Bubbles are no good. Silly question, but does the fan come on?

 

[reno]

A air leak will cause bubbles too.

 

[JohnPi]

The bubbles in the overflow tell me that I've got either a bad head gasket or a cracked head but I don't know squat about this car in general. I kinda figured that either one would result in burning a little coolant but like I said, there not an obvious trace.

Maybe it's just that I don't know Ford 1.9L engines, but . . . why does bubbles in the overflow tell you that there's a bad head gasket or a cracked head? All it tells me is that the fluid is warm enough to boil (the overflow is not pressurized like the rest of the system, as far as I know).

The first thing I would check is that you've fully "burped" the system, and that there are no air pockets. You're symptoms are consistant with problems with the cooling system, not the head. Check hoses and make sure your radiator cap isn't bad. Check the simple stuff first, before heading to the parts store to spend more on head gasket parts then you paid for the car.

 

[shadetree]

Some bubbling in the coolant is normal. Usually you fill the radiator with coolant, leave the radiator cap off, and watch the coolant as it circulates for bubbles, not bubbles in the overflow tank.

You said that you are not losing coolant, and it is not showing up anywhere. The oil level may not rise, but there will be a milky substance on the dipstick, breather, or anywhere the vapors exit the engine if the coolant gets into the crankcase.

You said you flushed the radiator. How? Just running water thru it, or adding some of the flushing junk from auto parts will not clean the radiator. It has to be taken off and rodded out. If you can see the ends of the tubes, you should be able to see any build up.

Flowing into the overflow tank is normal, boiling out of the overflow tank is not. If it is bubbling and gurgling when you shut the engine off, check the radiator cap. It may be bad, or the wrong one. shady

 

[AllanD]

HEad gaskets don't cause the engine to burn coolant until they get REAL bad.

Head gasket leaks usually START with either a "combustion to intake" leaks (between cylinders) or combustion to cooling jacket I.E. cylinder and the cooling jacket (Bubbles like you are seeing)

It will gradually progress to COMPRESSION to cooling jacket
and as the failure progresses the leak gradually stops acting like a reed valve that lets the 100psi plus cylinder pressure into the 12psi water jacket and the engine
starts ingesting coolant on the intake stroke.

You appear to still be early in the failure progression.

The difinitive diagnosis is getting a combustion gas detection kit
and testing the gas content of the bubbles in the radiator filler

OR if you have an electronic combustable gas detector
OR a CO detector (an automotive diagnostic tool with a probe)

those will also prove it one way or another.

Replace the head gasket.
Have the head checked for cracks.
Replace the timing belt AND the water pump while you have the head off.

Your escort engine is a "Freewheeling" design, but you have to pull the belt to get the head off and you'd have to replace the belt to replace the water pump.

So do all three, do it right do it ONCE.

it'll probably be fine.

If it isn't find those vehicles were literally made by the millions and they
are common in the junkyards wrecked.

I have a '98 Escort myself that I am currently replacing both steering knuckles
on (noisy wheel bearings) I haven't driven it since Early december since the shifter cable broke.

On think makes it a PITA is that my Escort though a fairly option free 4dr
has one important option, it has ABS.... that makes it rather harder to find
steering knuckles in a low mileage car.



AD

 

[krugford]

The difinitive diagnosis is getting a combustion gas detection kit
and testing the gas content of the bubbles in the radiator filler

OR if you have an electronic combustable gas detector
OR a CO detector (an automotive diagnostic tool with a probe)

those will also prove it one way or another.


AD

I currently have none of the above, but my own sniffer tells me the vapor in the overflow tank smells more like gasoline/exhaust than coolant. I'll pick up a kit to make sure. The car has around 150,000 miles on it and I had planned on doing the timing belt and water pump soon anyway.

I am certain that I burped the system correctly after I had flushed it and replaced the tstat. By flush, I mean I ran the hose through the head/block for a few minutes, removed the radiator and washed all the crap out through all available ports and refilled the system. Can't really see the tubes through the filler neck because of the angle of the filler. Anyway, I was watching the gauge as I went down the road. It warmed up, then dropped a little as the tstat opened. It was actually fine until I got home and sat at idle in the driveway, at which point I noticed the bubbles in the coolant and that the temp gauge was slowly creeping up again. Radiator cap is a new motorcraft, same as the old one. Symptoms were the same before and after I replaced the cap and flushed the coolant.

I'll probably pull the head and inspect before I go buy parts. Ford made a few of these cars over the years and it might just be cheaper/easier to throw in a junkyard engine depending on how the cylinders look (visual micrometer only), etc. Might even get one with lower miles....

 

[shadetree]

You cannot flush the system with a water hose. The radiator has to be taken apart and "rodded" out. They physically run a rod down the tubes to clean out the junk. I just had it done on my Explorer. Ok down the road, heated up at idle, but I could see the junk in the radiator. shady

 

[AllanD]

IF the radiator is actually plugged it's probably cheaper to simply
buy a new one.

as for head gaskets "Failing" Will says they are clamped with "hellish force"
Well. not exactly and whatever force they are clamped with INCREASES
as the engine warms up from cold to operating temperature.

Therein lies a great problem....
an engine with an aluminum cylinder head CANNOT live forever without a gasket replacement. it's NATURAL, because even the best head gaskets will only tolerate a limited number of cold-hot cycles before the gasket becomes permanantly crushed
and can't expand to fill the gap as the engine cools.

I used to tell Saab customers that if they shwed me a car with 40k miles
since it's last gasket, I could take the engine apart and show them where
the current gasket was leaking.

I would tear the head off my personal car every 30K miles or so
(when it was convenient to ME, not to the engine)
but then again I was practiced enough at it that the
whole job only took 90min. and I wasn't using factory
bolts to hold the turbo on, etc...

You think that's fast? I could swap out the camshaft on
my personal car in 25min flat.
I cheated, I had three camshafts for EACH of my three cylinder head
and each camhad it's own set of followers and lash shims in a compartmented
container.

Hell, I still have TWO "Broken in" clutches packaged with
the Steel flywheel they were run in on for that car
(and of course they'll work on the Saab I'm building)
as well as another shiny new AP-Lockheed clutch still
in the factory box.



AD

 

[krugford]

Well, after my previous posts, I decided to park the Escort for awhile and finish up a couple of projects before I started another one. I finally got around to pulling the head off tonight, the head gasket shows signs of being a tad warm and the head is cracked between the valves in cylinder 3. On top of all that, one of the head bolts snapped off in the block. I got it drilled out (dang near centered too!) and need will run a tap through it to clean out the remainder tomorrow.

I'm also going to call the local junkyards and price both a head and a whole engine. As it sits, the engine is probably less than an hour from being out of the car.

As a side note, the timing belt that was on the engine looked like it had been replaced recently AND the cam timing was only about 20 deg retarded... apparently lining up a couple of marks is harder than it seems.

Nothing ever goes as planned..

 

[krugford]

Figured I'd provide closure to an already dead thread...

Got a "new" engine from the junkyard for $200, which is cheaper than finding a head + gasket kit would have been. Had to switch the intake and exhaust manifolds over from the old engine because the replacement didn't have EGR, while the car originally did. The new engine "only" has around 170k on it, but they gave me a 6 month warranty on the engine (to be replaced with another junkyard engine) provided that I don't overheat this one to cause it's destruction. The engine must have also sat for awhile because it took about 20 miles for one of the lifters to pump up and stop making noise. I was worried I'd be using the warranty sooner than expected and really didn't want to swap engines again this soon....because it is a PITA to pull this thing out. Once it quieted down, it's runnin' fine now. We'll see how it does in the long run. I can put a lot of miles on in 6 months.

So for about $1100 plus a lot of cursing and working with microns of clearance between the engine and body, I've finally got a DD that should get me better mileage than the Ranger, with only a moderate ding to the ego. I figure a flat black paint job will help that out. And I'll still drive the Ranger to work probably once a week so it doesn't get lonely.

 

[James Denton]

Sounds like head gasket ---put a can of K&W BLOCK SEAL IN IT ---if ain't to bad this will fix it.Could be the best $6.75 you will spin.