Hey guys, a new problem arose today, pretty serious. After 3 days I replaced the water pump, thermostat, checked all tubes, replaced power steering fluid, and got everything back together very smoothly and cleaned as much as I could. I filled up the radiator with water, took a deep breathe, turn the key and a loud screeching sound comes directly from my car engine, I'm talking about a very scary loud screeching noise. Thought it was my air conditioner so I turned it off. Same thing. I don't think its my belts, but I'm not sure. I also saw a tiny bit of smoke/steam venting from my motor. I didn't want to leave it on to see the consequences so I can't speak for myself to say where it came from and if it was a continuous out put of smoke which I don't think it was. Any ideas what's causing this? I'm sure its some stupid/simple thing I did wrong.

Thanks guys, besides the death sound it runs pretty good and I think the thermostat was the problem. It wasn't literally stuck shut, just very very very hard to open.

 

On second thought, it might be the belts or something but all the pulleys seem to move fine...

 

My guess would be a belt slipping.. Check the tension and make sure they are tight enough.. Could have some oil/coolant on them that will make them slip as well..

If I were to guess I would guess it's the alternator belt that is slipping...

If all else fails, take the belts off and start it for a min or two.. If the noise is gone it has to belt or accessory related..

 

You were right on! I told you guys it was something stupid I did. :P What I did was put on the power steering unit in, a nut (the nut second is the problem), THEN the alternator arm which caused the nut to push it out 1/4th an inch which isn't good. I realized what I did, took the belt out, inspected it and it looked great, installed the alternator right and then my car started working great again.

Now all that's left is the check to make sure everything is tight, and the radiator fluid. Right now its full of water and the reserve fluid that was in the engine. I left it on for a few minutes, and I'll do my best to drain it out and put the radiator fluid in. I live in Arizona so I think I'll do 70% fluid 30% water. Just one question, how do I know how much to add if there's always some in the engine that I can't drain seeing as it doesn't have an engine fluid drain?

Thanks for all your help!

 

Good deal!!

Being that you are in Arizona I think I would do the opposite.. 70% water 30% antifreeze..

Water transfers heat much better than antifreeze, but has a lower boiling point and a higher freezing point.. I'm guessing the freezing point won't be of too muh concern for you however boiling point would be.. Not to mention transferring heat from the engine to the air would be a big must.. It takes less antifreeze to raise the boiling point of water than it does to lower the freezing point.. My math sucks, but I think if you get at least gallon of regular ole antifreeze in there you should be goldlen... What remains in the engine will make the mix a tad stronger which will be fine...

Here in Pennsylvania we can see temps from 15 below to 110 (sometimes all in the same day!! lol I swear!!). Not to mention we have humidity, lots of it at times... A 50/50 mix is generally adequate to cover our crazy temp fluctuations..

 

Well guys I'm very happy overall with what I did. I added the antifreeze but my belt started squeaking bad again. I took off the main belt (what is this belt called? its not the accessory belt...) and found out it was still the alternator. The deflection length was correct, so in an attempt of frustration and gallons of sweat I tightened it REALLY tight which actually made it stop. I guess the main belt must be quite a bit tighter then the accessory belt... but anyways, I drove it around for about an hour no problems at all. It sounded really good.

Seeing all of my hard work paying off and well, working really makes me want to do more for my car. Obviously the next most important issues is the ever more failing air conditioning system, and the oil leaking. I'll deal with the A/C next. I found some guys to help me out and convert it over with to the R-134A and replace the condenser and accumulator. I am very grateful for those nice guys I meet at auto zone. Perhaps I could start forming a parts list for my A/C project.

As for the oil leaking, I assume its the oil pans gasket. I'm guessing this is a pretty easy task to help save my dad's driveway and better the environment. My dad told me all the old cars oil pans leak and its nothing out of the ordinary. :P The oil pan doesn't sound to hard. From doing the repairs on the thermostat and water pump, I cleaned off quite a bit of dried oil and scum that I'm sure is leaking from the manifold covers due to bad gaskets. (I didn't even realize my power steering unit is plastic and orange colored until I cleaned it off!) I was thinking of replacing these and the gaskets seeing there both probably 18 years old. This will most likely be harder. I'm also guessing I'll end up taking out the spark plug tower :? and the spark plugs which will probably get a servicing to. Like I said, I'll probably take care of the A/C problem first because the accumulator gets worse every day. The manifold covers will probably be more of a cleaning project and finding broken/old spark plugs and other things I can find.

Once again thanks for all your help guys. I am very happy with the repairs I achieved and I could not have done it without all of your wonderful help. You guys are awesome and I'm so glad I found such a nice, helpful community of great people.

~Stealthlead

 

Glad to hear all went well!!! (And easier than that starter job!)


Tht would be the accessory belt that was squealing.. These cars have 2 of them, one fo the alt and pwer steering, the other for the A/C and air pump.. You may find at some point that you may have to just replace the belt.. AS rubber get's older it gets sort of hard and brittle.. It won;t grip the pulley as well as a new softer belt.. But if it's working for now leave it be!!!

Glad you found someone to help with you A/C .. It's not a real difficult job to convert but having someone knolegable on hand is great if you are not familiar.. Not to mention of they have the equiptement as well..


AS far as your oil leak, it's best to work from the top down.. THe valve cover gaskets and the front and rear of the intake manifold are notorius for oil leaks on these cars.. They still used cork gaskets in these areas.. There are better gaskets availabe from Fel Pro (Permadry) that I woudl higly recomend..

The oil pan gasket should be a one piece rubber gasket.. An easy inspection of your oil pan gasket would be to look where it bolts to the engine block, if it looks like the gasket is popping out of there more than 1/4" at any place it could be a problem.. THe oil pan gasket can be kind of a pain to do.. Aside from having to work laying down, the cross member runs rught under the middle of the engine on these cars.. It usually requires one to unbolt the motor mounts, and raise the engine up a bit to replace it..

 

I second what max said about the oil leaks. the oil pan gasket on my 88 is fine, the valve covers on the other hand need to be replaced (eventually). they don't leak enough for me to worry at this point... maybe a quart over 3K miles. Also, once the oil pan is off the engine, it needs to be re-planed (bolt holes hammered flat) since the bolts tend to dimple the holes some and that can make seating the new gasket troublesome. (the same goes from transmission pans)

 

Yep I've read about that. I inspected it, they looked really good. Huh, I didn't realize they were both called accessory belts...

Just to clarify the intake manifold is the big slab of steel that says 'ford 5.0L' on the top of my engine, and the valve covers are the two boxes below the intake manifold that are covered in grease? I didn't even realize the intake manifold had gaskets let alone two of them! I'm glad to hear there are better ways to seal it up, my engine and car are completely covered in oil.

Ouch, I didn't realize I had to raise the motor. Unbolting the motor mounts sounds really hard, and seeing as I don't have a way to raise the engine yet, I'll deal with this later. I haven't seen 1/4th of the gasket popping out (Haven't looked yet) but just by looking at my oil pan you know its leaking.

I also realized today that my valve covers are probably just fine, its just the gaskets leaking. If that's the case once I inspect them I'll just clean them up, maybe paint them blue or something and just replace the gaskets. This doesn't sound to hard in theory. Is there anything besides the spark plugs/tower and manifold that will need to come off that I'm not listing to remove and replace the valve cover gaskets? Hopefully this is a job that I can do on my own, I think this will be the nearest project besides the A/C.

 

THe big slab of steel (actually aluminum) is the upper intake manifold (aka plenum) THe piece below that is the lower intake manifold.. There are actually 4 gaskets to that part.. The ones on the front and rear of the enigne are the ones that leak oil.. The ones on the side have been known to allow coolant leaks at the front and rear or the engine.. These would all ahve to be replaced at the same time anyhow.. The valve covers are indeed the two boxes.... Since the upper intake has to be removed to replace the intake manifold gaskets and the valve cover gaskets it a good time to do both jobs... The distributor also woudl have to be removed for hte lower intake..


THe biggest obstacle would be keeping track where everythign goes, and the position of the distributor.. Wires and hoses can be labeled (dig cams come in handy for this too!) You also need to take note of the position of the distributor and install it the same way.. It would also pay to check the ignition timing when reinstalling the distributor.. (You'll need the use of a timing light)

The reason we are mentioned doing the gakets up top first is that oil will run down and blow all over the place.. What might look like the oil pan leaking may just be oil leaking down from above... Not to mention the upper gaskets are a bit easier...

One other place that can cause an oil leak on the lower end of the engine is the crankshaft seals.. There is one in front behind the big pulley, and the more comon one to leak is the one in the rear.. Unfortunately the one in the rear requires removing big parts, (transmission usually) so start with the easy ones up top...

Here's the pic I swiped from 87_Crown_Vic, again, with some of the parts labeled to clarify..