2010 blowing water when cranking ?

[Deesko]

Recently picked up a 2010 Exp Eddie Bauer 5.4 L Triton 4x4 w/ Tow Package for towing our travel trailer.

Has 98k miles on it and seems to run fine but I started noticing a ping/rattle a week or so ago, especially when accelerating at low RPM's (but interestingly enough, don't really hear it at idle) and while trying to diagnose it, I've come across a couple of things:

1. Whenever I start the truck, it blows some water out under the bottom of the truck. Just one quick burst, and it's not a lot, but don't remember ever seeing this before. It's water, not coolant or oil (from what I can tell) and it's hot & humid here so perhaps leftover condensation from AC running full blast but just seems weird.

2. Coolant in the reserve tank has a brown-ish tint too it. TBH, I don't remember looking at it when I picked the truck up so could be whatever brand of coolant they used but I don't remember ever seeing brown coolant ? Dipstick seems fine, no smoke, no coolant leaks etc so trying to convince myself it's fine but has me worried.

Since this is a tow vehicle, I'm thinking about changing the plugs, draining and flushing coolant and tranny just in case they haven't been done in the past but any ideas on whether this sounds like something more serious (blown head gasket etc) ?

Thanks!

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

Welcome to the Forum Deesko. It would be good to know exactly where under the truck you see the water dripping. If it is in the area underneath the firewall it could indeed be left over condensate from the evaporator that pools in the bottom of the drain pan and when you start the truck and the blower runs the increase pressure forced the water out.

If the water is clear, I wouldn't worry about it.

Congratulations on your new truck. Doing a fluid change at 100,000 miles is recommended, the tune up is a good idea too. I don't remember if the 2010 has the two piece spark plug but if it does you might consider letting a shop or the dealer change them. If they break they can be very tricky to remove. I'll let someone else give you the definitive answer on that.

 

[Deesko]

It's hard to tell for sure but it does appear to be coming from almost dead center of the vehicle and right around firewall or maybe slightly behind it.

To give an idea, it's probably the equivalent of 1-2 cups worth of water (and it only seems to happen on start up, it's not continuous).

Thanks for the info.

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

If you crawl under the vehicle look for something like a rubber tube with flattened ends like a duck's bill. This picture is look straight up at it but if you looked at it from the side you would see the flattened ends. More than likely it is coming from something similar. This is not a Ford or Expedition picture.

 

[bobmbx]

If its clear water, don't give it another thought. There are no sources of water on cars, other than rain or condensate.

 

[1955moose]

As far as the color of the coolant, sounds like you've got the red coolant, like I have in my earlier expy. Mine was supposed to have the green ford coolant, but the previous owner had switched it out. You might want to swap out the coolant due to the darker color or age. Not sure of the interval at changing on yours, but 3years/36k would be a safe bet. As far as the trans, flushing is always a gamble, but doing a pan drop only replaces about 5-6 quarts. I believe it was 2008 that Ford stopped using the two piece plug. You can check with the dealer on that one. You might have a drain hose from the A/C that's blocked or bent so it's dropping onto some pan rather than dropping straight down. Of all the fluids that's the only one that comes to mind as clear.


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[sjwelds]

Yep, early 08 on the plugs. I have a 08 expedition with the one piece plugs.

 

[Deesko]

Thanks everybody. Makes me feel a little better.

 

[docraymund]

If you want to know if its a head gasket issue, open the radiator fill cap one early morning, top it off with coolant then start the truck. If coolant spurts out, then you found your problem.

It could also be a good idea to start the truck briefly then turn it off and crawl underneath to try and spot the leaky area.

 

[Deesko]

Since I'm thinking about replacing plugs, air filter etc anyway (it's at 100k miles, figure it's due)...

Any thoughts/input on aftermarket performance coils, MAF and K&N FIPK Air Intake ?

I'm not expecting to turn it into a race car or anything but figure if I'm replacing them, why not replace with performance gear.

Even if it only gives a modest improvement in torque (+5 ft/lb), I'm towing a 6k lb travel trailer with it, it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra oomph.

Thoughts? Not worth it?

 

[1955moose]

As far as plugs stay with Ford/ motorcraft. Don't touch the coils, just change the boots on the coils, their little spark wires, their what wear most. A K&N slip in filter is your best bet. It's a drop in washable filter. The other items might help a little, but have to be retuned usually. As far as the cold air intake it would help a little on the mid and top end, but usually at a sacrifice in low end. Just my 2 cents.


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[Deesko]

Picked up Summit Performance coils, Motorcraft plugs, a JET MAF, a K&N cold air intake and installed them yesterday.

Total cost: $750

Took 2.5 - 3 hours to do everything, went pretty smoothly. No oily plugs etc, only a little white but at 104k, not bad.

After the install, idle was rough and had a couple of stalls, found some info on resetting the adaptive learning and did that.

Afterwards, drove about 40 miles with no issues.

Going purely off seat feel/perception, low end feels a *little* stronger and it doesn't stutter/stumble under hard acceleration like it did before. Sounds like it's running smoother, not quite as noisy in general except under hard acceleration and then you can hear the air intake sucking air in w/ a bit of a howl. Under normal driving you wouldn't even know it was there. TBH, hard to know whether it actually picked up a little extra torque or if it's the placebo effect.

Who knows. What really matters is it is clearly running smoother/better than it was (mostly thanks to changing the plugs I'm sure).

Gas mileage seemed comparable but was in a lot of traffic so hard to tell, will let it even out over the week and see how it does.

The trailer towing test will come next weekend.

Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[Deesko]

At risk of "told ya so"...

After doing the upgrades above, the truck started running rough, knocking and seeming to get slightly worse gas mileage.

Did some investigating and the common thought was it was running too lean and the only real suggestion was to either remove the intake and MAF and go back to stock or pick up a chip/controller that would allow you to remap the computer so it would take advantage of the extra air from the intake.

Picked up an Edge Evolution CTS because it had a specific setting for the intake and had a specific setting for the K&N intake.

Hooked it up, tried to remap with the setting for the K&N CAI and the truck wouldn't even idle and was running WAYYYYYYY rich using any one of the three available maps.

Changed the setting for the intake back to the stock setting and the truck would eventually learn to idle but it would take a looooong time to finally get there and after about 60-80 miles of "learning" the truck would eventually settle down into it's map and still run lean, knock etc.

I basically ran through all 3 maps in the Evolution with and without the intake setting on and the truck just never felt like it was running right (or wouldn't start at all).

Just took the CAI and MAF off and replaced it with the OEM intake & MAF, remapped it using map #2 (Towing) and it's running the way it should be running. The Edge definitely gave it a boost on the low end, throttle response feels a little better and shifting feels a bit better and acceleration is definitely better. Will have to give it a couple of weeks to see where the mileage goes.

I should have just saved the $450 and not bought the CAI and MAF.

I may try to put the CAI back on with the stock MAF and see if maybe I got a defective MAF or if the Jet MAF just screws up the adaptive learning and causes it to run lean, just for the sake of trying but at this point, the CAI and Performance MAF look like a bust.

 

[Neilster1]

There's nothing wrong with a little experimentation.. especially if you're willing to approach things scientifically and go back to the way things were previously set up if necessary. Your experience will no doubt save someone a bunch of time and money. Good on you for sharing your result.

 

[Deesko]

There's nothing wrong with a little experimentation.. especially if you're willing to approach things scientifically and go back to the way things were previously set up if necessary. Your experience will no doubt save someone a bunch of time and money. Good on you for sharing your result.

That is exactly why I shared it.

There wasn't a lot of specific feedback on these types of mods online so I figured I would share my experience.

TBH, I think I just underappreciated the extent of the computer mapping/control on these vehicles (I haven't modded a car since 1992-ish), how embedded they are to the overall performance of the vehicle and how something that throws it out of it's normal tolerances or expectations can have such negative impacts.

I could "probably" use the CAI and MAF with a chip that would allow precise control and manipulation of the fuel delivery but at that point you're trying to override the entire system by hand and that's going to eventually bite you in the ass one way or another, it's going to cost you $600+ for the controller and all of that for an extra 10 hp on a 6500 lb truck?

 

[ExpeditionAndy]

I'm not a big fan of the CAIs. They look good if you want open your hood and show it off but from what I've seen on the dyno testing videos it doesn't add much if any extra HP and the engine gets louder. I like the idea of using a programmer/chip to better performance. I'll be curious to find out what you find works best.

 

[Deesko]

So after playing around with every combination of CAI vs. Stock, Aftermarket MAF vs. Stock and Programmer vs. Stock:

The knock got progressively worse until it started sounding like an exhaust leak. Took it to a shop and they are saying the passenger side catalytic converter is bad so it's entirely possible that the vast majority of this playing around and testing has been for naught as the cat would greatly impact performance AND the knock I was trying to track down and eliminate had nothing to do with the CAI, MAF, re-learning process or programmer.

I think I know exactly when the cat started crapping out and it makes sense as the noise started up right after that and has gotten progressively worse. Weird part is that it hasn't thrown any codes, but apparently there are specific circumstances with a cat where it wouldn't.

The shop quoted me $1300 to replace the cat so I'm looking at replacing the entire system from the cats back using aftermarket parts. It looks like I can replace the entire system (both cats, pipes, muffler and tip) for around $1400 if I don't use OEM Ford parts. If I do, it jumps up to $2500.

Will see where it goes from here and post more updates.

Kinda looking forward to verifying the exhaust fixes the original issue and then throwing the CAI, MAF & programmer back on it and seeing how well it runs.