New Member from Northern Idaho

[Firekatt]

Hi everyone!!

I'm totally new to the Expeditions and just purchased my first used one. Picked up a '97 XLT 4X4 for $500 bucks. Going to be posting some questions as there are issues...especially at that price....but shouldn't be something I can't figure out with a little help. I am good at working on cars and trucks and very mechanically inclined. Everything from tune-ups to compete engine rebuilds.

Basically it has a weird overheating issue but I haven't started to work on figuring it out yet

Looking forward to getting to know some of you

 

[Habbibie]

Well welcome to the site, will this expedition be your primary mode of transportation or do you daily drive something else?

 

[Firekatt]

Once it is fixed, it'll be my daily driver. For now, I'm driving my wife's 91 explorer. I'll start troubleshooting the overheating issue tomorrow. It's weird, but it overheats only when driving...it can sit at idle forever and not do it. No water in the oil and nothing out the exhaust so I'm thinking something other than a head gasket for now. Maybe a flow problem, thermostat or clogged radiator. It does seem to have a miss while running but no codes set indicating a misfire. That's all I know so far.

 

[Habbibie]

Once it is fixed, it'll be my daily driver. For now, I'm driving my wife's 91 explorer. I'll start troubleshooting the overheating issue tomorrow. It's weird, but it overheats only when driving...it can sit at idle forever and not do it. No water in the oil and nothing out the exhaust so I'm thinking something other than a head gasket for now. Maybe a flow problem, thermostat or clogged radiator. It does seem to have a miss while running but no codes set indicating a misfire. That's all I know so far.

Sounds like a stuck closed thermostat. You can also do a compression test to make sure there isn't a crack in the block or a broken head gasket, $$$ money wise that's your two cheapest alternatives before you start getting down and dirty.

 

[ExplorerTom]

See if the upper radiator hose gets hot once the engine warms warms up.

Could also have air in the system.

 

[1997SCEBFEX]

welcome aboard.

 

[Habbibie]

Tom is right, Air in the system is also possible but for it to be enough to over heat the motor it has to be a big air bubble, otherwise usually youll notice that you don't have heat while driving but when idling heat works great or vise versa I can't remember.

 

[Firekatt]

Thanks for all the replys. I pulled the thermostat this morning and put it in a pot with boiling water. It cracked open but only about a 1/16 of an inch. Doesn't seem wide enough to allow good flow. Also had a lot of rust in the water, previous owner had straight water in it...didn't detect any anti-freeze or smell. It has one of those aftermarket flush kit adapters in the heater hose so I hooked up a garden hose to that and opened the radiator drain and flushed water through it for a little over 30 min. Started it up and drove a little bit while watching the gauge. The gauge went up to a normal range...which seems weird since it did not have the thermostat in it and never started blowing warm air out the heater. Not going to drive it any without the thermostat but I'm thinking that's what caused the overheating. Wondering if the temp sensor is bad and that's causing the gauge to not show correctly. Is there any way to check these without having to buy a new one yet?

Still runs rough but I also learned that it had been sitting for just over a year. Thinking a combination of bad gas and dirty fuel injectors is causing this issue. Going to do a full tune up and add some fuel system cleaner to the next gas fill up to see if that helps it at all. A tune up will also allow me to check the old plugs for anything unusual.

 

[ExplorerTom]

I have an UltraGauge. It will read water temp (among a ton of other things). The factory gauge sucks. It'll read "normal" when the UltraGauge is still reading like 120 degrees. And it'll continue to read "normal" as the engine heats up to 195 degrees.

With the UG, I can actually see when the thermostat opens. Temps can go as high as 210 before dropping back to 188. Normally it'll fluctuate between 192 and 198. All while the factory gauge remains dead still at "normal".

 

[ExplorerTom]

And pure water is not good. Coolant provides lubrication and corrosion resistance- as well as cooling.