Heater core or vacuum hose?

Topic: Heater core or vacuum hose? (Read 7346 times) previous topic - next topic

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #45 – February 14, 2008, 12:14:14 AM

with a bone cold motor
remove the rad cap
start engine
add throttle
rad water level should drop
when you release the trottle, water should near overflow before it drops back inside the radiator.

If you can,, with a bone cold motor.........
gather the correct tools to remove the header bolts to x/h/y pipe.
start engine and run for about 3 min
stop motor
let it cool a little but not too long
undo the header bolts and take a peek up in the header.
see if there is moisture up in the header/which header ect.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #46 – February 14, 2008, 12:20:44 AM

im coming full circle here again but your gonna have to figure out a way to put air presure in the block.

isolate the radiator as mentioned previously
isolate the heater core by looping the hoses

put air presure into a rigged up adaptor in place of the coolant temp sensor (single wire).
add air then listen
if you hear air at the TB or at a specific header then go fetch a wooden dowel
stick the dowel to areas on the engine with your ear on the other end.
the closer you get to the noice, your wooden dowel to your ear will tell the tale.

once you narrow down the area, you'll probably find the problem and be able to isolate the bank with the problem or the area on the intake ect.

If i were you, i would also plug off the egr ports to on the rear of each head just to isolate that.

Also, Plug off the water hoses going to the upper intake at the TB to isolate that as well.

Have you checked the interior hoses for the emissions piece parts to see if they are saturated? the smog will dump a lot of water back into the burn cycle if water is getting in that area. It wont be a good sign if thats the case.

one other thought that comes to mind,,,, try to tighten down the lower intake. If the bolts were tightened but not enough, you could have a minor issue with the intake gasket seal to heads. If thats the case, there should be water collection along the lifter valley as well as all the sucking going in in the head runners especially at the first or last piston of each bank.

one other thing that comes to mind,,,,,,,,, did you silicone the head bolts? I think the bolts along the headers on each side pass through the water jacket while the ones along the rockers do not.

just trying to help,,,,,,,,, I know its cold up there and cold weather does not lend itself well to getting a good and actual torque on ice cold gaskets. You should have went about 15-20% over on your torques just to compensate for that. The engine warms up and suddenly everything stretches. You may have to go and retorque with a warm motor on all the bolts you think may have been fuggered up.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #47 – February 18, 2008, 11:11:44 AM

Heater core was bad and was leaking coolant down through the weep hole...I didn't even know that existed? Replaced but apparently I still have a cooling system leak somewhere.

I still don't have as much heat as the car had years ago.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #48 – February 18, 2008, 05:45:14 PM

After reading here from different threads about a restrictor being inside one of the heater core hoses, I looked up illustrations from Ford parts and talked with a service person. The illustration shows a restrictor being used only after '94, as says the service person I talked to. So whats the deal with this? Is the hose supposed to have one in it or not? My old one did not.

Also, all the hoses with a restrictor had a clamp on the outside to keep it in place.

Edit:
I almost forgot, does anyone know where to get the vacuum "tee"(its more than that) that the hvac controls hook up to on the passenger side engine bay? Mine was brittle and busted off so I have a screw in it to prevent a vacuum leak. Vents are stuck on defrost. The one from Ford is $93.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #49 – February 18, 2008, 10:05:15 PM

you'll just have to look around for more. I'm sure you can find that vacuum manifold fairly easily at a junkyard, if not, i'm sure other ones could be adapted. Thow a 1/4" socket in the hose if your that worried about a restrictor.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #50 – February 18, 2008, 10:29:07 PM

As in another thread, after talking with a 4th Ford person in parts, the hose is available and will be at the dealership on Wednesday. The restrictor is for what anyways? Preventing too much pressure buildup in the heater core? Thats my only guess as its the hose going TO the core, not from.

I just don't want to ever have to pull the dash apart again. That thing was a PITA, especially when the sun went down and 5 minutes later, it dropped like 30 degrees to below freezing (car frosted over within 30 minutes)! The blower was the major pain though - getting those bolt holes lined up.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #51 – February 18, 2008, 11:25:20 PM

on member here was able to cut threes sides of a rectangle into the hvac box and open the plastic up as though it were a door. She was then able to extract the heater core that way and replace with a new one.

Duct tape sealed the HVAC box back.

you go this thread running in circles,,,lol. I thought you were still having trouble even with the heater core hoses looped back.. Confussing as hell.,,lol

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #52 – February 18, 2008, 11:48:31 PM

Heater core wasn't the problem with the cooling issue and its still there it seems. We put a 180 degree stat in (basically to help it run better/cool earlier for the time being), another radiator cap with a pressure relief lever, a new belt, and a lower hose with an actual coil inside and still having the problems. I get ~1psi drop in the cooling system after 20 minutes, pumped up to 15psi. I also pulled the sensors and the heater core tubes on the intake and rtv'd them back in to make sure it wasn't messed up the first time. Now its down to testing the motor and testing the radiator. I can't hear anything leaking though and not sure how to separate the radiator/motor to test each individually.

Best I can think of is pulling the upper intake and spark plugs, then using a hose to listen around more inside.

As for everything else, I have like 20 things going on with this car at the moment and working on fixing them all as weather permits. It was a clear/blue sky weekend so the heater core/blower motor was this weekend's main project. I still need a few hours on a nice day to replace the drivers side power lock and put the rest of the interior back together. I hope to have most of this worked out soon so I can rest and get ready for the suspension/rear end/brakes when it warms up a bit...then repainting the car again in middle-late summer as I don't like the thickness of paint/primer thats on it now. It'll be a "panel by panel" job so it can get to show quality, being wet sanded and everything. I'll likely stick with enamel as urethane sucked too much DIY.

Oh, and my replacement headlight wiring should arrive tomorrow as they're already here in Vancouver somewhere. I can finally get my passenger side light working again after being down for a week.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #53 – February 20, 2008, 10:03:06 PM

New symptom - now when I relieve the pressure, both hoses collapse until I turn it off again and restart. During this, it still doesn't take any more water. Whatever was collapsed in the hose gets pushed into the overflow, then it sucks it back in after relieving the pressure and starting the car again (edit: and it runs for a few minutes)

Air being sucked in at the water pump gaskets? Any other big possibilities I should check before looking again at the motor itself? Everything has been rtv'd other than the water pump and intake gaskets so its quite possible that BOTH are giving me issues. Of course, the head gaskets are gasket only. I'm pretty sure I didn't miss rtving any of the lower head studs.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #54 – February 20, 2008, 10:06:27 PM

Have you pressure tested the system?
I'd do that before anything else.

You can rent the tool from Autozone.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #55 – February 20, 2008, 10:27:22 PM

Yes, its leaking out somewhere at 1psi/20-30 minutes. I haven't checked the pressure when running though (my tool's not here at the moment).

and as a correction, the lower doesn't "collapse" exactly as I have a coil in there now, but I can see it pulling inward. Upper is as thin as it can get.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #56 – February 20, 2008, 10:39:10 PM

I done told you how to seperate the motor from the radiator.

GOLF BALLS!!

go back and find that reply of mine.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #57 – February 20, 2008, 10:39:14 PM

I'm also curious why the vacuum its pulling isn't sucking from the overflow. I should check to see if that hose is collapsing somewhere, as it isn't kinked. The overflow level is at hot/high when this happens. Even with an air leak somewhere, this suction should pull in from the overflow? It does eventually but not for like 5 minutes after relieving the radiator pressure.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #58 – February 20, 2008, 10:40:45 PM

Quote from: jcassity;205361

I done told you how to seperate the motor from the radiator.

GOLF BALLS!!

go back and find that reply of mine.

Oh yeah, completely sorry. I forgot about that. I wouldn't think they'd be quite tight enough though? The dimples in the golf balls aren't the most desirable for plugging something.

Oh, and about the cold vs hot motor thing - I lose pressure in the system when cold so whatever it is, it isn't exactly minor. I think there's a good bet that whatever testing I do from here on out can be done with the motor cold. The coolant temperature sensors are also good places to watch for bubbles when doing a leakdown test. as they sit on both sides of the intake.

Heater core or vacuum hose?

Reply #59 – February 20, 2008, 11:17:42 PM

Seek.. Those rubber freeze plug replacements with the steel washer on top and a wing nut to tighten them would make excellent radiator hose stops.