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truckerfarmer 
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Joined: 26 Jan 2013
Location: Watertown, SD
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 Topic: Engine overheating conundrum
Posted: 08 Jul 2019 at 10:13pm |
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Spent the day working on my daughter's car. It is a 2003 Mercury Sable LS with dohc 3.0 liter engine with 128,000 miles. Replaced the thermostat, temp sending unit and the water pump. I believe I have all the air bled out of the system. Still wants to blow water out of the reservoir by the time I drive down the road about a block to pull on the highway. Get down the road a mile and turn around and it temp gauge heads for the red.
Anybody got any ideas what to do next. Google hasn't been much help. Did find one article that mentioned defective reservoir caps from factory.
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Looking at the past to see the future.
'53 WD, '53 WD45, WD snap coupler field cultivator, #53 plow,'53 HD5B dozer
Duct tape.... Can't fix stupidity. But will muffle the sound of it!
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baverwolf
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Joined: 24 May 2010
Location: SE Montana
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Posted: 08 Jul 2019 at 11:17pm |
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Blown head gasket or cracked head????
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shameless dude
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Joined: 10 Apr 2017
Location: east NE
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Posted: 09 Jul 2019 at 3:23am |
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plugged exhaust
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jaybmiller
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Joined: 12 Sep 2009
Location: Greensville,Ont
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Posted: 09 Jul 2019 at 5:27am |
Do you have one of those IR heatguns? Best $20 I ever spent! You can 'point and shoot' and get local temperatures.... Maybe the rads plugged ? it should be warmish all over, the IR gun will show . Stat in wrong way, or defective..stuck stat can cause problems.... 'bleeding' might be a painful proceesdure. I've heard some cars have TWO bleeders in the block... I'm surprised Google didn't find anything. should be good news...nothing 'serious' but PITA for you I'd check stuff, refill, keep cap off, run good 20-30 minutes in driveway to get good n hot, check level and temp of rad water. New rad cap ?? maybe it's bad ?? sorry, got no more rabbits in my hat.... please post WHAT did cause it though ,when fixed.
Jay
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3 D-14s,A-C forklift, B-112
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truckerfarmer
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Posted: 09 Jul 2019 at 6:57am |
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For now ruling out head gasket for now, as no exchange of oil or water noticed. Doesn't sound like this engine is really known for that. Might pull thermostat to double check I have bleeder at top. Luckily this uses an o ring instead of a gasket. Gonna try flushing the radiator next. Thanks for the input. Keep it coming.
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Looking at the past to see the future.
'53 WD, '53 WD45, WD snap coupler field cultivator, #53 plow,'53 HD5B dozer
Duct tape.... Can't fix stupidity. But will muffle the sound of it!
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Tbone95
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Posted: 09 Jul 2019 at 7:19am |
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Another quick check on head gasket, is feeling for pressure on the radiator hose, could be pumping exhaust gas into the rad, and you can feel the pulses in the hose and/ or the pressure. You probably knew this. Can you run it with no thermostat at all, (I'd think so). Can you check the heater core?
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jaybmiller
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Posted: 09 Jul 2019 at 7:58am |
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hmm..heater core ! could be a big slug of air in that line depending on how it's 'plumbed'. turn heater on ,see if it gets hot or warm, check hoses in and out,should be warm/hot...
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3 D-14s,A-C forklift, B-112
Kubota BX23S lil' TOOT( The Other Orange Tractor)
Never burn your bridges, unless you can walk on water
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Steve in NJ
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Location: Andover, NJ
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Posted: 09 Jul 2019 at 1:22pm |
If it has electric fans, make sure they're working. May have to replace the Radiator. POS plastic Radiator is probably plugged. My cousin just replaced his with about the same mileage as you have in his Malibu. He changed the stat and so on, and wound up tossing a Rad in it. Done deal. Behaves itself in the hottest weather with the A/C on...... Steve@B&B
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39'RC, 43'WC, 48'B, 49'G, 50'WF, 65 Big 10, 67'B-110, 75'716H, 2-620's, & a Motorhead wife
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Leop
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Location: California
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Posted: 12 Jul 2019 at 11:22pm |
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I had a blown head gasket that acted exactly the same. No mixing of water or oil either. Thats because combustion gasses are bleading into the water jacket.
99% sure its the head gasket. New cars with iron blocks and Aluminum heads don't need hardly any overheating to do this.
Pull each spark plug one at a time. One or more of them will be nice and clean. That's the cylinder thats leaking combustion gasses into water jacket. Usualy the ones in the middle of the head.
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fixer1958
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Location: kansas
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Posted: 13 Jul 2019 at 6:18am |
My bet would be a warped head. Fill it with coolant and let it run with the cap on till the pressure in the cooling system
makes the hoses hard and the engine is almost to the point of overheating. Shut it off and let it sit for awhile and cool some. If it idles rough on restarting you have coolant seeping in a cylinder.
Another alternative is to take it to a shop that has an exhaust gas analyzer and check for hydrocarbons being emitted from the radiator (or where ever you fill point is). Anything over 75PPM hydrocarbons is a sure thing.
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truckerfarmer
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Posted: 13 Jul 2019 at 6:49am |
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This one has cast iron heads.
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Looking at the past to see the future.
'53 WD, '53 WD45, WD snap coupler field cultivator, #53 plow,'53 HD5B dozer
Duct tape.... Can't fix stupidity. But will muffle the sound of it!
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fixer1958
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Posted: 13 Jul 2019 at 7:13am |
Doesn't matter. May be a little tougher but still not immune to warping. The only difference may be that it will crack. Mostly between the valve seats.
Then again it may not be warped and it could have some erosion around the water jackets of the head gasket and over heating finished it off. Doesn't necessarily have to get coolant in the oil.
Another erosion point on the particular engine is the timing cover gasket. The timing cover will be pitted and the gasket blown out.
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truckerfarmer
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Posted: 13 Jul 2019 at 10:29pm |
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Plan on doing a pressure test on it in the morning. Flushed the radiator tonight after work, and didn't find anything. Starting to think it could be a head gasket.
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Looking at the past to see the future.
'53 WD, '53 WD45, WD snap coupler field cultivator, #53 plow,'53 HD5B dozer
Duct tape.... Can't fix stupidity. But will muffle the sound of it!
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Dave H
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Location: Central IL
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Posted: 14 Jul 2019 at 10:05am |
speaking of rads. Any decent rad shop can flow test a radiator. i don't think just flushing will cure a toasted rad, but I think a flow test should show whether it is flowing as it should. 
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DiyDave
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Posted: 14 Jul 2019 at 5:58pm |
I'd do the exhaust gas test, in the radiator neck, quickly will rule out if its a HG, or not, so you can move on to other things
[TUBE]x2f5qEhaFdk[/TUBE]
Edited by DiyDave - 14 Jul 2019 at 6:03pm
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Ted J
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Posted: 14 Jul 2019 at 9:06pm |
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Darwin, my first thought was just like Baverwolf says, head gasket or head. I had a 68 Buick Skylark that gave me fits just like you're having. Found that the head was warped.
Good luck! See you at Hutch!
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"Allis-Express"
19?? WC / 1941 C / 1952 CA / 1956 WD45 / 1957 WD45 / 1958 D-17
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truckerfarmer
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Posted: 14 Jul 2019 at 9:32pm |
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Gonna stop by mechanic after work tomorrow and we what they get to do head gaskets.
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Looking at the past to see the future.
'53 WD, '53 WD45, WD snap coupler field cultivator, #53 plow,'53 HD5B dozer
Duct tape.... Can't fix stupidity. But will muffle the sound of it!
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steve(ill)
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Posted: 14 Jul 2019 at 9:51pm |
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I have had REAL GOOD LUCK with a sealer called BARS COPPER HEAD GASKET SEALER..#1109 .... You pour it right into the antifreeze and run a little to build up pressure ... shut motor off and the pressure pushes it into the crack head or gasket... Let it cool overnight and startup and run a couple miles tomorrow and shut off again... I did this on a F150 5.4 V8 and ran another 50K miles with it..... I pour a cupful into a couple "B" motors that had either head gasket or liner o-ring leakage and it fixed both. ( not freeze plugs in head).
Edited by steve(ill) - 14 Jul 2019 at 9:51pm
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Like them all, but love the "B"s.
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Alberta Phil
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Posted: 15 Jul 2019 at 9:35am |
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That Copper head sealer is good stuff. I've used it successfully on a couple of engines that have had leakage problems with those new style composite head gaskets. They's not near as good as the old copper sandwich type!
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chaskaduo
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Posted: 15 Jul 2019 at 12:21pm |
steve(ill) "I pour a cupful into a couple "B" motors that had either head gasket or liner o-ring leakage and it fixed both. ( not freeze plugs in head)." Steve it says it will work for freeze plugs in the second sentence on their product page for the BARS COPPER HEAD GASKET SEALER #1109 https://barsleaks.com/product/liquid-copper-block-seal-intake-radiator-stop-leak Good info if in a bind time wise.
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1938 B, 79 Dynamark 11/36 6spd, 95 Weed-Eater 16hp, 2010 Bolens 14hp
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truckerfarmer
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Posted: 15 Jul 2019 at 10:04pm |
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I thought about adding a bottle of Mendtite, (I've had excellent results with it fixing water leaks), but the pressure is going the wrong direction.
Talked to mechanic tonight. Estimated cost of $1500-2000, so repair is out of the question.
Willing to make someone a heck of a deal on a low mile Sable with a nice bdy and excellent interior. And a 95 Monte Carlo with high miles and a blown head gasket.
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Looking at the past to see the future.
'53 WD, '53 WD45, WD snap coupler field cultivator, #53 plow,'53 HD5B dozer
Duct tape.... Can't fix stupidity. But will muffle the sound of it!
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