Pulled the Thunderbird out of the garage this morning and checked the pressure of the tires while letting the engine run for a bit. When I finished adding some air to the tires I noticed I was loosing a lot of coolant and there was a large puddle on the ground! I turned the car off and tried to see where it was leaking. All the hoses are in good shape and appear to be dry around all the clamps. The water pump was replaced about 2-1/2 years ago with a Motorcraft replacement just before I bought the car (I have a receipt for reference). There's no play in the water pump pulley shaft and no strange noises from the water pump. I did notice some pooling of coolant on top of the water pump between some ribs in the housing. I kind of thought a leak of this degree would be fairly obvious to locate but that's not the case. Has anyone else experienced this kind of issue?
5.0? Coolant on top of the timing cover is normally from the thermostat housing gasket leaking.
If it's a 3.8 I have no clue.
Leave it running and check.
I had that issue a couple of months ago. I had a bad gasket between the timing cover and block. I went ahead and replaced the gaskets and water pump since I had it all apart.
My car still has its original 5.0L engine. I'll check the area around the thermostat first and pray that's the source of the leak. If it's due to a bad timing cover gasket is it necessary to raise the engine or is there enough room to drop the oil pan without raising the engine?
Put a wrench on the waterpump bolts to make sure they are still snug.....you may need to remove the PS/AC braket to check. Everytime I've seen pooling on the drivers side it's been those bolts loose after the gasket settles.
John
I haven't moved the PS or AC out of the way yet but the passenger side of the engine is all wet below the valve cover. I'm leaning towards a failed timing cover gasket as the culprit. Any helpful hints from others that have performed this repair that would make this job a little easier?
If possible, dry your engine as much as possible. Check if your local auto part store has a cooling system pressure tester. Its a hand pump that attaches in place of your radiator cap. Pump it up to 15psi, then check for leaks. That should help narrow down where your leak is coming from.
X2 on the leaking timing cover gasket. My car has that too, I just keep it topped off with coolant.
If you DO decide to replace your timing cover gasket, you dont need to fully disconnect your PS just undo the bracket and hang it off the the side. Same with your AC compressor. The water pump bolts/stud arent all the same length, so keep track of where each one came from. You dont have to fully drop the oil pan either, but you DO have to remove the front 4or 5 bolts since they come up through the pan into the timing cover. There's 2 smaller bolts up top that secure the cover to the block. Once the cover is removed, you'll cut the front corners of your oil pan gasket and replace it with little cork material elbows. Might wanna little RTV on the corner to help seal it up (similar to lower intake manifold gasket).
-Kyle
Thanks, Kyle! I'll get a pressure tester to confirm the location of the leak. I've had a few drips here and there and would simply top off my coolant level too but now I'm losing too much to safely drive the car anywhere beyond my immediate neighborhood. This really sucks since we're having exceptionally mild weather around here and my car is just sitting in the garage.
I'd probably do the water pump while I was at it, unless you already have recently.
The water pump can stay in place, only the four long bolts that pass through need to be removed from the water pump side.
If you've got over 150k on it, you might eanna pick up a timing chain as well. Mine I could almost tough the chain together between the gears at 175k, but I am really hard on stuff. A cheap parts store double roller will swap right on vs the stock single roller. Some of our cars also had a nylon timing gear which can break.
I'd recommend dropping the whole oil pan if you dont want any leaks. Ive ended up doing it after the timing chain almost every time.
The better you clean stuff, the better it will seal.
My car only has 68K miles on it so I wouldn't think I'd need to worry about the timing chain yet. The original water pump was replaced with a Motorcraft pump about 2-1/2 years ago so I'd expect it to be ok too. I agree that dropping the oil pan would be better than cutting the exposed part of the gasket out and replacing it with a separate piece. That sounds like a leak waiting to happen. I'm guessing I would need to lift the engine off the motor mounts to get enough clearance to remove the oil pan? Is this possible with a floor jack? If so, where would the lift point be?
I've never understood why it's thought replacing just the end sections was bad... The lip seals that are separate from gasket are just as likely if not moreso to leak...
Believe me, if you ever tried to pull the oil pan on one of these cars with engine installed, you'll gladly cut the gasket... You'll double, maybe triple time to do the work... Properly cleaned and sealed with RTV, it won't leak...
Don't need to remove the pan, just drop it. If you have the reinforced one.....it can be a pain to cut. The last time I did this job....I loosened the pan only removing half of them from the front and let it hang. I didn't want to cut the nearly new pan gasket.
John
^^^^This X2. Did the same thing.
-Kyle
I agree. I did a water pump and gasket swap a couple of months ago. I snipped the center piece of the gasket and installed the replacement, no leaks. Made the job way easier as well.
Glad to hear others have had success without having to remove the oil pan! Thanks for all the feedback!
What's the end of this story? How did it turn out?
Nothing to report yet. Between work and holiday demands I haven't had much time to devote to the car not to mention we received a light dusting of snow last week that was met with a triple dose of salt on the roads killing some of my urgency to get this fixed. The car is garage kept so I'm not at the mercy of the elements and expect to have some time available closer to Christmas to work on it.
Thanks for the update. Don't forget to keep the reports coming as work happens.
I'm finally getting back to work on this coolant leak issue. I removed the fan and shroud and the water pump pulley and can see coolant resting on the top of the passenger side of the timing chain cover. I picked up a Powerbuilt cooling system pressure testing kit on loan from my local Advance Auto Parts yesterday. Unfortunately none of the adapters in this kit fit the radiator neck of my car. I'm a little surprised by this as I thought a 5.0L powered Fox body is far from exotic. Anyway, what kit have you guys used to diagnose coolant leaks on your cars?
you can add air presure if you still have the throttle body coolant lines,, just cap off the TB end, then put air into the hose you took off.
You could do the same on a heater core hose, just dead end one end and add air to the hose you have hanging off.
i dont know how much air to inject but my gut tells me anywhere around 15psi of presure should start to reveal a air leak noise to help you pinpoint.
you will want to pinch off the radiator kneck bypass tiny line that goes to the over flow tank,,
actually dont go over i guess 19psi which is what i think the stock motorcraft caps were stamped with, i have a few that say 19psi i think.