The other day I get in the truck, smell slight antifreeze smell and then it's gone....
Figure it's a bad heater core that's just starting to go.....

This am I see a wet spot under the motor/radiator area and lift the hood, antifreeze empty...

Takes a full gallon of mix....either bad water pump or radiator

And I gotta go to Maine tomorrow...

I hate spendin money on repairs especially the day before xmas :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af:

Xmas!! BAH! HUMBUB!!

i hear that,been under my frign tractor all week and this morn back to hammonds for a balljoint for the j-d .o joy.NOT

Remember at this time of the year especially Grampa Old Spook, I don't mean to kill off your good grumpiness, but alot of people would change places with you, alot of people aren't as fortunate that their biggest problem is a bad radiator!:uhuh: Count your blessings ya big grump!:af: :kewl: Merry Christmas.

SO? My wifes car has been running funny hesitating a little bit so I tell her put fuel injector cleaner in since it's not bad. Maybe it needs a tuneup. Well it has more than 70000 miles so we make appt. to get timing belt replaced and since then the sputtering has gotten worse and the fan belt was squealling, 2 trips back solves the fan belt but the hesitation is still worse than ever so I suggest again to the mechanic that it seems the timing is off. Made another appt. and had to drive her to work again and I was right , the cams were one click off. Now you would think it would drive right now, nope, still hesitates. I find out she has been buying gas at the United gas station :mad: I tell her never go there. So I change the fuel filter, what a pain in the ass that was. Nothing, still hesitates. So I tell her just don't stomp on the gas:rolleyes: I don't know what got F'd up but I bet it was that $#!^ gas. Maybe it will get better by itself:smash: :smash:

Mind if I throw in a little auto grum......last week had to replaced fuel tank, fuel pump and lines..$370 no way around it. I can deal with the smell of bad bait but couldn't deal with the smell of gas any more

Originally posted by Slipknot
SO? My wifes car has been running funny hesitating a little bit so I tell her put fuel injector cleaner in since it's not bad. Maybe it needs a tuneup. Well it has more than 70000 miles so we make appt. to get timing belt replaced and since then the sputtering has gotten worse and the fan belt was squealling, 2 trips back solves the fan belt but the hesitation is still worse than ever so I suggest again to the mechanic that it seems the timing is off. Made another appt. and had to drive her to work again and I was right , the cams were one click off. Now you would think it would drive right now, nope, still hesitates. I find out she has been buying gas at the United gas station :mad: I tell her never go there. So I change the fuel filter, what a pain in the ass that was. Nothing, still hesitates. So I tell her just don't stomp on the gas:rolleyes: I don't know what got F'd up but I bet it was that $#!^ gas. Maybe it will get better by itself:smash: :smash:

Not a Chevy by any chance, is it?

My ex's Lumina had the same thing---one bad load of gas and it ran like crap for the better part of a year. The mechanic never could find what was wrong and he tried everything--even a new fuel pump--both aftermarket and "original GM" :af:

It just went away on its own :confused:

Sorry Grampa Old Spook, I was talking to #^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&#^&! Count your blessings!:happy:

Slip, what model car is it and which engine? Sounds too me like the cam timing is still off. I work as a tech at a Dodge dealer and if one cam(Dual cam motors) is off a tooth it will hesitate on accell.

:af: :smash: :af: :af: :mad: :wall: :lossinit: :lossinit: :whackin: :lossinit: :fishslap: :rocketem: :devil: :nailem: :zup: :zup: :peessed: :peessed: :peessed: :shocked:

Hey salty, theres this gunk you can pour into your radiator that's supposed to fix minor leaks. You might be able to save some $$ by trying it out.

I poured some junk in my radiator and it fixed my blown head gasket. Saved me 600 clams.

yea but you don't do that stuff on a $8000 motor in a 60k truck....

Mechanic can't find the leak, doesn't know where all the anti freeze went in a day.....might be bad head gasket :af: :wall: :wall: :lossinit: :lossinit: :lossinit: :lossinit: :fishslap: :rocketem: :zup: :zup: :peessed: :peessed: :peessed: :peessed: :bsod:

If its smoking or if your exhaust smells sweet, its your gasket...

maybe bassmaster put some sugar in your tank:D

ain't a 302 ford is it?

Had one in my 1990 bronco, sounds familiar, symptom-wise...
bad intake gasket... got by for a few days on the old "snug 'em down" on the bolts.
kindof a pia to do with the fuel injected model....

8.1L gm big block in the van.

It smelled like antifreeze the other day when I got in it, but went away and figured it was the heater core starting to go bad and weeping, but not a few gallons of anti freeze or I'd be sick sittin inside it from the smell.

bah humbug if the things got a bad head gasket, that's a big job on this truck....BIG motor, SMALL engine compartment.

You should see what it takes to change the plugs on this thing....2 from up top after you take all the chit off the top, 3 from down under and the other 3 from inside the engine compartment :af:

They discontinued this motor after I bought it in this truck...wonder why :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af: :af:

Wifes' car is 1999 mazda 626 with a 2.0 L engine.

Salty, if your head gasket is gone and you have antifreeze in your oil, consider the main bearing shot to hell :( Maybe it is leaking form the timing chain cover gasket, those leaks are hard to detect sometimes.

nope no water in the oil we checked that...

I had a 1.5' "wet" spot on the ground this morning, it was not wet wet but something made the spot.....can't find nothin that leaked, but there was mucho antifreeze gone.....

No bad hoses, no holes in the radiator, no wet spots no where in the truck....that's what leading me to believe it's a bad head gasket.

Truck has been running COOL for the last month or so....similar to a problem I had when I first got it where the thermostat was broke inside and the piece eventully jammed and made it overheat....luckily 1/4 mile from the dealer when it happened. Thing was up to like 280 when I seen the gauge...but I've put 65k miles on it since then so that not part of this problem.

Slip, does that have the dohc? If so, them cams is still off a tooth or 2.

Salty, have your mechanic run the pressure test from cold block to running temp, then shut it off and let it cool, sometimes you have to let everything expand and contract for it to show.
Is there anti-freeze in the oil? If so, then it is the HG.. go for a remanned crate motor at that point, or trade it in quick!

if it's the intake, you are burning ia lot of it off, and will only "leak" when it's shut off, till it cools off...

already talked about a pressure test today and he said it's a waste of time cuz the hoses were already hard so it showed they were pressurized.. and holding pressure. No way to tell how much though.

Well, I cheat... I pump it way the hell up, and see if it will hold a while :D

Pressure test is way to go..Like karl said pump it up & look every where..Its leaking somewhere...Check the oil..If its white milky on the dip stick it usually means head gasket..

Nocturnal emissions Salty?:laughs: sorry.:af:

Salty - still pressure test...

Next thing (you'll need access to a shop & emmissions equip) , with the radiator cap off, start and warm the engine, wave the emmissions tester wand over the radiator fill (BUT NOT IN OR WETTED BY THE COOLANT) . If you have a leaking headgasket, often the hydrocarbons from the comubtion will be mixed in with the antifreeze and tester will pick that up. The theory being that exhaust under high pressure will leak out of a gasket easier than uncompressable coolant can leak in.

3RD - rarely will a blown headgasket get enough coolant in the block to ruin the bearings - they're most likely OK...

Oh yeh, take the wife's new truck to Maine

Slip - contact the service manager of the shop (is this a dealer? If so who?) and set it up so he can have his best mechanic / shop foreman drive the car home the night before and road test it, THEN have that same foreman / top mechanic diagnose it the next day. Odds are that they effed up the TBelt install...

Have you checked the water pump?? The pressure weep hole leaks a small amount of anti-freeze sometimes long before giving out or even making much noise

Yea we added dye to it the other day and checked it today with no leaks. Everytime I lift the hood after running it with the remote starter for 10 minutes you smell antifreeze. We've changed the thermostat too now JR.
Thing is pissin me off.

Originally posted by JohnR


Slip - contact the service manager of the shop (is this a dealer? If so who?) and set it up so he can have his best mechanic / shop foreman drive the car home the night before and road test it, THEN have that same foreman / top mechanic diagnose it the next day. Odds are that they effed up the TBelt install...

Thanks John, but the wife brought it in to Mazda dealer and had trans serviced and had them put it on the puter to diagnose and for 90 bucks they concluded that the intakemanifold gasket is leaking causing the trouble, The timing belt install was fine. Plugs were replaced and it runs better now but still has the gasket leak. Gonna get my mechanic to fix that next week for alot less than 375 that Champion wanted. I guess we just forget about tune ups and stuff since the cars these days just start up and you drive them away and take for granted. Gotta keep better records now.

Salty, is it a Ford?

Have you tried putting a clean sheet of card board under the thing, that way you can narrow down the area to search by the water spot.
Doesn't take much of a leak to give a smell. pressure test showed nothing?? Maybe a small leak on one of the inner cores of the radiator??

only had spot on ground for 2 days, then one day I looked under it and seen a orange drip on the front corner of the block, but once it gets into them it's all gone and nothing left as evidence, that's why we did the dye the other day so we can start tracking the flourescence.

Sell the truck!:D

I'll trade you my Bronco for it :laughs:

:soon:

Originally posted by JohnR
I'll trade you my Bronco for it :laughs: