2000 5.4 Engine coolant loss.

[Expedragon]

Folks,

I have a 2000 Ford Expedition with some sort of coolant leak. When it first happened, It hought oh great, head gasket. I know the intake manifold is prone to failing, does anyone have pictures of a failed one?

My symptoms are funny, it uses coolant. But it doesn't overheat so long as the coolant level in the degas bottle is topped off. I am fouling number 1 cylinder. I am still doubtful that it is just the intake but when I did an oil change there was zero water in the oil. I just did another oil change recently and the oil looked a lil milky, but it wasnt super milky like other head gasket failures I have seen. I used regular 10-30 dino oil last time case i was short on cash. It has previously had mobil 1 in it, it's whole life. Truck just broke 100 thousand miles.

I can get you all a picture of the oil on the dipstick if that helps. Truck runs ok other then the tremendous loss of coolant and #1 cylinder fouling plugs.

 

[docraymund]

Check for whitish exhaust. May be better seen with the engine warm and revved slightly. Look at all plugs closely. See if there are ones that are extremely clean (steam cleaned). And check fpr other sources of leaks -hoses heater core etc.

 

[Expedragon]

See thats the funny part. It smokes on start up a bit but hen after driving it goes away. The one plug I pulled that is fouling did not look steam cleaned, rather, it looked oily. Could this be a cracked head? Is there any oil that flows through the intake manifold? It's really interesting. I don't know what the deal is. If I pull the plug and replace it the truck runs good and the codes will go away for a bit. It's very puzzling to me. I need to get the scanner on it and see what that says.

 

[docraymund]

Do a compression check on all cylinders. And a leakdown test too.