Monday, December 3, 2012

Throwin' it out there...

Need f-150 help. 1997 f-150xlt 4.6l.

The weirdness: (excerpt from correspondence with known criminals)

 Hey Sastard, you ever get that truck figured out?- Du Keeps
; no there's still something fukkin' wrong. the thing it does is: 

 t-stat will not open at idle, i gotta drive it. top rad hose stays cold. seems like i can drive for 10 mins or more and the top hose stays cold. some times the top hose feels empty and flappy like a limp dick and i can easily squeeze the sides in.  sometimes it feels like a rock hard boner hose, and its quite rigid. so there's pressure in the hose. still cold. at this point the heater is blowing quite warm air but not hot. hoses to heater core seem right, 1 hot (to) the other(from) only warm.  so the heat will start to blow cold b4 the t-stat is open, i think. once it is open, it blows hot air.  when it does blow cold air, i have 5-8 mins i can drive b4 the temp gauge will start to climb. once it starts, it goes very quickly to "H". If I shut it off and on again 2 or 3 or 20 times eventually the heat starts to blow hot again and the temp gauge starts to come down as quick as it went up.  I noticed something today, when it started to blow cold, I pulled over and went to squeeze my hose. the top hose was still cold, and i had driven from my house halfway up lorne ave (almost 10 mins). Really t-stat not open yet? so when i touched the top hose and found it cold and rigid (zombiedick), i also opened my rad overflow container. (the only rad access i have) and with the engine running, it hissed and coolant started bubbling up. with the motor running i shouldn't have pressure there right? where the fuxat coming from? exhaust pressure sneaking past a head gasket?

I'm pretty sure i have all the antifreeze in there that i should. hard to day, cause i have to believe what that little plastic bottle tells me, but it never gets very low....

fuck and bugger. any thoughts?

*update*

I have come to realize that it will only perform this fantastic feature upon cold startup. once it has gone through the insufferable process, the t-stat will function correctly.

2 comments:

  1. I had a similar problem on a northstar cadillac and it turned out to be the head gasket puffing gas into the cooling system and cavatating in the pump causing the coolant to only flow sometimes. I hear that some dealerships have a coolant tester that looks for hydrocarbons in your coolant to see if the head gaskets are leaking but Ive never actually see this tool.
    Good luck

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  2. That makes some good sense. Sucks if its the head gasket.

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