89 ford 302 engine... a rust colored sludge in cooling system. I was told by a Radiator expert of many years that this is caused by the 302 internal design in that these engine blocks where not coated and do have a problem with internal iron getting into the coolant causing sludge problems... a pressure test was done on the coolant system and after a complete professional flush the system ran sludge free for a short period of time but now is occurring again. Do you have any suggestions to help minimize this problem . Those 90 dollar flushes are a little expensive although effective .
Radiator sludge from oil leaking into the cooling system was an issue on some early Ford 302 engines mainly do to faulty head gaskets.
Try doing a compression test on each cylinder (with all spark plugs removed) and, a pressure test on the radiator, holding for an hour at the recommended pressure stated on the radiator cap.
Rust sludge comes from not running the correct mix anti freeze-anti boil inhibitor in the cooling system
engine blocks are cast iron and will rust from the hot water
the water at the cylinder walls forms tiny gas bubbles and as that is air , the oxidant rust is formed resulting in the rusty sludge
talk with an accredited radiator shop about running a good quality rust remover, removing the radiator and disposing it , pressure cleaning the block and head and then fitting a new radiator with the correct coolant inhibitor
radiators act like a filter and collect the rust sludge and block the cores
no amount of flushing can clean out the blocked cores
Leaking head gaskets can and do cause this, the combustion gases are very corrosive and rusts the heck out of the cast iron.
SOURCE: 1998 Ford Contour HEATING problem
replace the heat controls in the dash, just og to the junk yard and get a new one, you can actually replace this yourself.
where the unit is, you have to remove all of the botls around it, just feel around for them and unscrew them. this will loosin the panel, pull the panel off, adn you will see there is 4 screws holding the heat controls in, unscrew them, and pull the control out, you will have to unplug a couple of plugs and undo a hard wire form the top, it is frustrating, but you have to hold the hard wire and turn the control tword the pasenger side of the car to pop it out, it is possible there is a clip holding itdown, if so just push on the bottom of the clip and it will pop out. and do the same to put the new one in.
SOURCE: 1966 Ford Mustang overheating
try to run the water pump without hoses, and add water in the 'in' side, if is powers out the other side, then it's fine. how is your water/coolant mix?
SOURCE: Coolant Problems
Hi there. It sounds like you have done the most obvious checks and I can assure you by-passing the heater core will have no effect. There are three possible causes that you need to investigate further and you will need specialist equipment for it - you either have a hair-line crack in the head or cylinder wall or it might be that the head bolts are stretched and therefore weakened and so need replacement. To help you identify these aforementioned possible problems, you might need a specialist fluid that you put into the cooling system which changes colour when combustion chamber pressure enters the cooling system, you need to contact your local Ford Dealer for this - but then you still have the three possible problems to deal with - cracked cylinder wall/s, cracked head or stretched head bolts. Hope this helps, Scottech.
SOURCE: Engine Cooling problem 999 Ford Taurus 6 cyl
have u bled the cooling system ?warm the car and cut the car off right before the fans come on ,let sit for 30-35 minutes,see if the coolant drops in res. if so repeat process untill coolant stops droping ,then drive car regularly if overheating stops ,but monitor it because it will drop somemore/there has been reports of new and rebuilt water pumps nt having correct propelar mounted on them/ backwards etc. if this helps let me know [email protected]
SOURCE: transit cooling system over heating and cuts out.
Not sure what you mean by transit, but it sounds like something may be clogged, or it's possible that the thermostat was installed backwards. Try removing the thermostat all together and see what it does. Never let your car overheat to the point of dying. Moniter the gauges and lights, as soon as it goes too high, turn it off.
If it still overheats with the thermostat off, you may have a blown head gasket. Check for water in your oil, check for coolant smell in your exhaust. Either of these is an indication of a blown head gasket. You may have a weak water pump as well, the shaft could be broken and not circulating. When you remove the thermostat, you should be able to see the water circulate with the radiator cap off. If it is not, then your pump is bad. Normally they will leak before they quit working, but it's possible that it don't.
If you replace your pump, make sure that there are no broken fins on the impeller. If there are, then it may clog your cooling system, you will have to find it.
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I'm going to put this in the comments section in case someone else wants to give another answwer. I have not had any major problems with Ford engine cooling systems in my 40 yrs of being a mechanic. I would think you could add a couple of cans of anti-rust to boost the chemicals in anti-freeze and cut down on the problem. It does sound like something in the block has started to deteriorate.
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