My wife drives a 99 Navigator. It currently has just under 108k. It runs great and drives great. A couple of weeks ago we noticed a strange sound coming from the dashboard/fire wall. It sounded like coolant gurgling/bubbling. Not so much like overheating but kind of sucking water if that makes sense.
Two or three days ago I notice a pretty descent amount of oil under the driver's side front framerail. Cleaned it all up but couldn't figure out where the leak was coming from. Today I found out where it was coming from. The cooland overflow had a ton of engine oil in it. The engine was also about 2 quarts low and another quart low after filling it up again.
I drained the cooling system to find more motor oil than I have ever seen get into a cooling system. It looks as if I filled the coolant with used oil. There doesn't seem to be any sign of water in the oil though? This is the part that is stumping me. I don't understand how it could have gotten in there. I can understand a blown head gasket or cracked head, but you generally have a rough idle or poor running engine in combination with the symptoms. I don't even have a code coming up on the computer besides a poor EGR flow reading that's been there for over a year.
I'm looking for any ideas or suggestions as I already can't afford to drive this truck with premium over $4 a gallon never mind the thought of trying to pull the motor to change some very pricey head gaskets/intake gaskets.
sounds like head gaskets to me, either that or you knocked a hole from the oil gallery into a coolant passage somewhere in the block, but pretty much the only way that would happen is rotating assy disinegration
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What's confusing me the most is the fact the PCM isn't throwing any codes? I would think with a blown headgasket I would get at least a random misfire code? If I threw a rod, there would definitely be some loss of power, engine noise, or misfire codes. My motor is still running nice and averaging between 14-17 mpg.
I was hoping for just an intake gasket leak but that should either let water into the oil or simply burn the oil. I'm still overwhelmed by the amount of oil in the radiator with a smooth running engine?
I do not know if it has an engine oil cooler. I do know there is an auxilary tranny cooler in front of the radiator from the factory. Where would the engine oil cooler be located? I would love to crawl around in there some more to check that out. Any possibility besides a blown head gasket is worth checking for. I don't have the time or money to fix a problem that bid.
On a side note, looking at that engine tucked so far under the windshield, I'm assuming the motor needs to be pulled or at least broken loose and brought forward to remove the heads? Or can they be pulled in the truck?
Ford dealers are repairing or replacing engines due to problems arising from a 1999 model-year revision to the 5.4-liter engine's head gasket. In defective units, the head gasket fails to seal variances in the engine block's surface, permitting oil seepage
I do not know if it has an engine oil cooler. I do know there is an auxilary tranny cooler in front of the radiator from the factory. Where would the engine oil cooler be located? I would love to crawl around in there some more to check that out. Any possibility besides a blown head gasket is worth checking for. I don't have the time or money to fix a problem that bid.
On a side note, looking at that engine tucked so far under the windshield, I'm assuming the motor needs to be pulled or at least broken loose and brought forward to remove the heads? Or can they be pulled in the truck?
Thanks again for the help guys!
Look at your oil filter and see if it has any coolant hoses running to it.
My oil filter has 2 hoses running to it, but they are relocation hoses to the outside of the driver's side frame rail where the filter is mounted. They run over the top of the frame rail and back towards the firewall where they meet up to the engine again. I didn't check if there were also coolant lines back there.
I also have a 98 Cobra which has a mess of coolant lines running to the oil filter flange. I was hoping to see something like that on the lincoln but it's almost midnight and tough to see anything on the truck right now. Guess I'll have to crash for a bit so I can get up at 5 for work. I'll check again tomorrow after work.
Well, I learned from the Ford dealer this morning that they were familiar with the recall on those engines but my VIN is not included in the recall. They were however, eager to let me know they were willing to take it right in and fix it for me for the meager amount of $2500 plus.
Looks like it's time to do some compression tests and verify the gaskets are gone before tearing into this motor.
I spent a few more minutes with the truck this afternoon. I now have water in the collant system instead of oil It took quite a bit of flushing and it's still foamy from residue but I wanted to check for white smoke from the exhaust now that there was water to get into the combustion chamber instead of oil.
When the truck first started, there was obvious white smoke coming out the tailpipe as well as water dripping. I'm assuming the water was mostly due to condensation. Once the engine started to warm up and reach operating temp. the white smoke completely disappeared and the exhaust is coming out virtually clear. No sign of any color at all? I'm pretty stumped on the symptoms of this one. I'm going to get ahold of a compression guage and check each cyclinder, hopefully this weekend.
Did you have a chance to do a compression test yet or figure out what the problem is? Do you also have coolant in your oil?
Do you change your oil yourself or do you bring it to a quick lube center? Maybe the person at the quick lube confused the coolant and engine oil fill hole LOL??
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So I am officially the worst procrastinator in the world but I did finally do a compression test on this engine. Cyclinders 1-7 180-200 psi but cyclinder 8 with several checks was only 120-135 psi.
I didn't perform a leakdown test on the cyclinders. I was basically performing the pressure test to confirm a blown head gasket.
What is odd is I still have no check engine codes, no water in the oil, and only oil transferring from the engine to the coolant. I'm assuming the higher oil pressure to that of the water pressure is why the oil is escaping into the coolant and no coolant is making its way into the oil. I'm amazed with the low compression I didn't throw any kind of code?
It took quite a bit of flushing and it's still foamy from residue but I wanted to check for white smoke from the exhaust now that there was water to get into the combustion chamber instead of oil.
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