Ranger project about to be a Scrap donor

[Dugan]

Discovered that today the so called condensation in my exhaust turns to be coolant. The water is not in the oil nor is the oil in the water, but the water comes out the tail pipe. So now just pissed because other then the heads and the dent i kicked in the already shot fender, i dont know what to do with this motor. It runs strong but I leak coolant out the exhaust.

What im going to do is take off the exhaust and figure out which side is leaking then check my donor motor to see if the bad side of my current motor is the good side of the donor motor. Other then this anyone have any ideas on why this would happen? Could it just be a head gasket or could I not be that lucky. We figured out the rad was gunked with crap after we drove the truck down the road a bit and the temp shot to the L in NORMAL on the gauge. But the water in the exhaust issue happened since I bought the truck and just thought the gas from sitting for two years had contained water.

Any input or options would be awesome thanks.

 

[tempforce]

head gasket leak...

 

[4.0B2]

1. fix the 2.9.. its just a motor, fix it. pure and simple
2. 4.0 swap it? lol.

honestly, i'd just pull the motor and tear it down, see what you find.

 

[Dugan]

Yea I bought this trying to not be a project... oh well the truck is too nice otherwise to let a motor ruin it but im just so devestated that its doing this. Is there a chance its just a gasket? All the cracks ive heard of are usually fluid to fluid

 

[Dugan]

Before ripping apart the whole block, a friend who has had 50 of these trucks said he has had some in the past that he ran a certain good stop leak in and never had an issue again. Hes getting me the name of it and I think im going to try the simple route first

 

[jhammel85]

Stop leak wont "fix" it forever..

I would just figure it's the heads. Try getting a hold of some 89+ heads to swap in and do it all. It's the best way to know its been fixed for good.

 

[4.0B2]

Stop leak is a band-aid... Not a cure.
Plus it's always just caused me other issues in the past. I'll NEVER put that stuff in a rig ever again. Idk how "good" it is or what brand it is.

If you decide to try it, I hope it works bc if not you have a lot more cleanup when you tear te motor down and you'll need a radiator flush and all... Been there, done that, won't touch it again.
Just remember bypass your heater core if you do it. At least you can save the heater core....

 

[Dugan]

Are the heads universal to side on these blocks? They bolt up to either side? If so I hope the extra head I have isnt cracked if the one I have happens to be. Well see I have a donor block that looks like it had some water in it before hopefully atleast one of the heads is good. Ill have to find someone to magnaflux them. Whats a good price to pay to have em checked out? 15 a head?

 

[Psychopete]

They are the same, you can put the R head on the L side and vise-versa. I'd be tempted to look a little further into it. A make-shift leak down test tool can be made if you have an air compressor, that would positively narrow down the condition and cylinder. Call your local shop for prices.

 

[Dugan]

Ok todays update, We removed the exhaust from the manifolds, started it and let it run for about an hour and a half. Got to full temp and the thermo opened and temp dropped. No leaking out of the manifolds. But the little air pushing into the exhaust was still pushing water out the exhaust. I believe that the two years of sitting the exhaust accumulated water and im just blowing it out of the muffler.

So After filling the rad, we started it and I had a leak behind my drivers headlight. So we took a look and moved the reservoir and it started dripping underneath. So I grabbed it and unbolted it and realized there was a hole between the top of it and the side of it that was leaking. I believe this is where my coolant was going. I never saw the drip before. So what I did was grab a large plastic bottle, orange juice to be exact, and cut a hole in the side and placed a pen body in the end of the overflow hose and placed these into the side of the bottle. I wire tied the bottle to the sidewall and placed the cap on it and fill it up a little above the pen base and also filled the rad. Let it idle for awhile and then let it cool down and nothing changed.

Finally drove it around a little tn and no change in coolant, just a fluctuating temp gauge. I might just wire up an after market underneath the dash to insure the real temp because my tach is also messed up and at 3200 rpms it says im at 6k

 

[Dugan]

Ran and flushed the truck a few times tonight and thought it was clean till it overheated idling out of no where. So I went out and got a new rad and put an e fan I had on it. Seems to run ok. I flushed it a few more times and got some brown water out. Idles fine and I guess temp is good.


The temp is between O and M normal. Is this the correct area?