ok so i just recently picked up my 97 f150 xlt 4x4 4.6. im now finding stuff i missed when i first looked at it and i have a couple questions

1. engine will not warm up. it wont even get to the first notch

2. guy told me he got from a car lot and they put a new radiatior and motor in it. i believe him on the radiator cause it looks nice and shiny and new. however the cooland resevior looks like coffee with extra creamer... so i drained the resevior and tried to rinse it out as best i could and added half water half coolant. on the flip side i didnt notice any coolant in the oil. and trans seems to be fine im praying the repairs wont be to costley cause i spent all my dinero getting the truck

3. apperently they out new upper and lower A arms and talk about squeaky and fixes for that?

4. throttle respone isnt all that great like that feeling you get as you push on the gas and u know it should have shifted but it seems like i have to go alot further any ideas?

sorry to cram all into one but just letting it out and thanks in advance

 

1. Thermostat gauge would be the cheapest thing to check on first. The engine has to warm up if it's running
2. What do you mean by coolant in the oil? And you need to drain the whole radiator out, not just the reservoir. There should be a plug on the bottom of the radiator to drain it. Run water through it for a few minutes after all the coolant is out. Leave the plug out of the bottom and keep it full with the hose while the engine runs.
3. Not sure exactly what you mean. If they are squeaky, then the ball joints probably need replacing. Very expensive if a shop does it. About $200 to replace all 4 if you do it yourself.
4. Clogged up fuel filter possibly. If it's the original one, it definitely needs replacing. Only about $10. Could be something else causing this though

Spark plugs most likely need changing too. Unless you know they have been recently replaced

 

Curious how many miles on the engine and how many on the truck?

 

I would do a hydrocarbon test on the coolant. Sounds like it is possible there may be exhaust gasses getting into the coolant system through a head gasket. Or it is possible they had a leaky radiator before and used some stop leak. Then changed the radiator without doing a full flush so as soon as the new rad went in it recirculated the old coolant with nasty crap in it. You may also have a bad temp sending unit or thermostat stuck open. But even in the open position it would still read some heat on the gauge eventually.

As far as the engine being replaced, you can look for the build date stickers on the front timing cover or side of the head. They should match or closely match your trucks build date. Also, look at some of the bolts around the motor mounts, exhaust and other areas that might indicate they have been removed lately.

 

Truck needs to be gone thru as well...

 

Yeah I would change all the fluids at the very least.

 

truck has 140,000 miles on it
ok an update i pulled the thermostat. correction their was no thermostat some shady person cut the lower part of the thermostat off and put the top in place so i replaced it and it was still running cold..... by chance my buddy that was helping be noticed the upper radiator hose was colapsing. so apperently the guy who put radiator in was just throwing parts at it and noticed he couldnt fix problem so he put the half a thermostat in it so it would never get warm. a-holes, prolly charged the owner out the wazoo

now only issue is heat in the truck when flushing it aka i just ran water into the resevior and out the it seems to have alot of stop leak in it so no oil of anytype and i believe it plugged the heater coil cause it gets warm then cold is their anything i can run in the coolant that will eat that barnunn crap? to help unblock heater coil and motor

 

Disconnect both heater hoses and try to force water through the core CAREFULLY with a garden hose - do NOT turn it on full blast. I got a core in a Cadillac flowing again this way. Try both directions.

What you may want to do first is get a flushing tee kit to flush out all the crap you can from the whole cooling system.

 

im all about doing a pressure test on cooling system only thing im worried is right now its driviable if i do a pressure test and it is the head gasket then its toast it will blow out i will have to replace it and i really cant afford to do that im guessing it would run me about $1000 to replace head gasket and thats not even feesable for me at the moment i started it today and kept the cap off thinking it may just bleed itself out.... and it just kept blooping in the resevior and was lots of what looked like steam but when thermostat opened and level dropped the bloops seemed to stop until the thermostat closed and the level rose it would keep blooping i let it run for about 25 min watching this. i was hoping the plugged heater core is just needing bled so im gonna bypass it monday and see if it does the trick if the resevior quits blooping then i will do a pressure test but i want to exhaust all my options before head gasket.

 

Are you familiar with those buttons on the right side of the keyboard. They look like these , . ; ' and stuff like that. I hear they go between words sometimes

 

Sorry I do a lot of the responses with my phone.

 

Just a quick qhestion on this. If its only blooping when the thermostat is closed, would that rule out head gasket. When the thermostat opens the bloops stop.

 

ok so i unhooked the heater core hoses.... got my hose and water ran through both ways with out a problem and the water seemed clean. so i hoked the lines back up thinking i broke free whatever was stuck... i let it run and still fluid was noth passing through heater core, one line was hot while the other not so much. i figured i would bypass the heater core all the way and i did. im still getting big burps of ar into the resevior but heres the kicker it only burps when thermostat is closed i cant see any burps while its open and the fluid in the resevior drops. its only when you can tell the thermostat is closed the fluid rises(keep in mind while im doing this the resevior cap is off so i can see) but i let it idle with cap off for a solid 20 min. it is not overheating at all its staying at normal operating temp. WHY AM I GETTING THESE BURPS OF BIG AIR BUBBLES WHEN THERMOSTAT IS CLOSED. you would think if it was my head gasket it would do it when thermostat is open and air is maybe passing through channels in the head imm stumped. am i right in saying when the thermostat is closed the fluid is staying in resevior and radiatior?

HELP HELP HELP