Ford 5.0 Oil caps collect water

Ford 5.0 engines in the trucks and Bronkos mainly during the 9X’s had a unique problem that would a lot of times get diagnosed as a leaking head gasket or warped heads. The problem was the PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) valve would get plugged up or more often the vacuum port that it was connected to would become blocked by deposits of carbon and oil sludge. What you would find when you changed the oil is a brown foamy mixture on the inside of the oil cap. You may even see water drops in the cap. Now every mechanic out there knows this is most likely just a plugged port but it is quite often reported to the customer that they have a leaking or blown head gasket or a warped head. The reason is simple it costs about $45.00 labor to clean the port and depending on the cleaner used $10 to $40 for supplies. Now head gasket jobs go for around $1500.00 to $2500.00 shop dependent.
There are two ways to tell if you have a serious problem or just a dirty engine. If you have the same brown foam in the over flow bottle or on the inside of the radiator cap then I am sorry but you do have a serious problem. The second way is to ask to have your engine block checked. This is done using a solution that changes color from Blue to Yellow if there are any combustion gases found in the coolant system. The mechanic will let the engine cool totally and then remove the radiator cap and drain enough anti-freeze from the system to prevent contamination of the test. He or she will then start the engine and place the block tester in the place of the radiator cap. As the engine warms up samples of the air in the coolant system will be taken and as long as the fluid in the tester stays blue you have no problem between the cylinder and the coolant system.
Now remember that I already said that if you had oil in your coolant your engine had serious problems so that is a primary check. Just remember that water under the Ford 5.0 oil cap especially clear water does not mean major problems. It needs to be checked further to save you from a very costly and unnecessary repair.

Tales From the Garage

OK this may only be for my own conscious and maybe one other reader but here is mechanics uncovered.
This is a possible horror story turned good by the use of a second opinion. A customer contacted my shop requesting the price for replacing the heads on his Bonneville. This car had a 3.8 liter engine in which the water pump had failed and the engine had overheated. The water pump was replaced however the customer was noticing that he was having to add coolant regularly. He took his car to a major franchise shop and was told the heads were warped and it would cost $2500.00 to repair the car. He was also told that if he kept driving the car he would blow the engine up and cost $5000.00 to replace the engine. Since he did not want to spend either amount he simply started using water in the cooling system instead of anti-freeze. The result was the engine started overheating again and the coolant was rust colored.He contacted my shop and I told him to put coolant not water in the radiator and asked him to bring me the car and I would check it out for him and give him an estimate. I met him as he pulled up and asked him to open the hood and the first thing I found was the system was not under pressure even though the engine was at or slightly higher than normal operating temp. I checked and found no water in the oil. This is just a visual check done by removing the fill cap and turning over and looking for what looks like chocolate foam on the underside. If you see any there you check the valve cover and see just how much has accumulated. The second part of this test is to check the coolant system for oil. If the heads warp a lot of times the head gasket will first leak from the water jacket into the oil passage. I aways check both the oil and coolant because I have found that if the PCV port plugs up enough moisture can accumulate in the oil to put foam in the cap. This is most often observed in the Ford 5.0 liter engine with the breather tube connected in the fill neck.Back to the car at hand. Both tests showed a negative result so I did a block test. This is done by taking a sample of the air in the radiator using a tube filled with a chemical indicator liquid. The liquid starts out blue but will change color to yellow if there is any combustion gases present in the radiator. Tells you without a doubt that you have a problem. Leaking head gasket or cracked head. Regardless if you get a positive here you have your work cut out for you. However I got a negative here also, so I asked the customer how the other shop had determined that his head was warped because the engine was running fine and it had no leaks other than the fact that the system would not pressurize. By the way it was the radiator cap. the gasket in the cap was torn. That was the first thing that I checked when I found the system not under pressure and no major leaking. The only coolant leak that was visible was at the overflow tank. He told me they had pulled two plugs out of the engine and they were wet so it had to be coolant that was leaking into the cylinders. For the record if you ever have coolant get into the combustion cylinder it will result in the most beautiful white smoke coming out of the exhaust that you have ever seen. It is also very sweet smelling since you are basically burning a sugar. I am not talking about the condensation smoke you see on a cold day I am talking a white cloud so thick that no one behind you can see where they are going. Or if you live in the south and have seen a fogger truck that is the smoke the engine will produce if the coolant gets into the cylinder.I explained my findings to the customer and told him that at most he may need a thermostat because of the rust buildup but the only problem that he really had that I could say for sure was a bad radiator cap and an engine that needed to have the coolant system cleaned out good to remove the results of using straight water instead of coolant.Now a little science content. Coolant is not just an anti-freeze. It has wetting agents and anti boil chemicals in it that keep it from boiling away in todays hotter engines. Also the coolant system must be able to hold pressure or even coolant will boil and not efficiently cool the engine. Long story short the $2500.00 repair ended up costing $50.00 for the block test, coolant system cleaning, radiator cap and new coolant. The system was tested and found that the thermostat was working, the fans worked and the system held pressure. It was run for twenty minutes and showed no signs of coolant loss, smoke or overheating.The customer did tell me that he knew nothing about cars what so ever and I warned him that in some shops that was not the thing to say. It really bothers me that anyone should have to be warned about that but the fact is that in a lot of shops that comment will triple your bill so don’t say it please. You don’t need to act like you know about the mechanics because the service tech will know the deception within two or three questions then it’s still open season.Good luck out there and if you find an honest mechanic that you trust stay with him and quite literally follow him from shop to shop. You will find that mechanics move from time to time.

Auto Air Conditioning

Air conditioning service is one of the hottest money makers that is available to the aftermarket service shops. For a mere $29.95 in most areas they will give your cars ac a checkup. Here is what that involves. A visual inspection looking for obvious leaks. Those are usually identified by oily dirt on the lines at connection points, turning the blower on and running it through its ranges and if it is an honest shop you will get a vent temperature reading.

If your system has any problem you should be advised that there will be a diagnostic charge and any other costs that you may incur before any further work is done.

Now don't get me wrong AC systems are simple to check out although since you are dealing with a gas it requires for the most part introducing a dye into the system and then with an ultra Violet light you look for the leak. This may require you to drive the vehicle until the AC fails then bring it back in for recheck. There are sniffers that can detect leaks in the heater box component of the AC (the Evaporator) but they are more than a little suspect due to the high false readings they produce.

Even though I just said that AC systems were simple that does not mean that I feel this is a Do It Yourself service. Yes if you already have AC knowledge by all means if you have the equipment do the work BUT AC systems are under high pressure and the gas used is also a liquid under pressure. If you get sprayed by it you will discover just how cold it is by way of being frost burned. This is the freezing of the skin and can be very serious and is quite painful. Yes I am speaking from experience because in the early days we vented the systems to the air rather than recycling the refrigerant so I have lost several layers of skin over the years.
I most strongly advise against the back yard mechanic approach when it comes to the AC system because it is not a case of it only takes what refrigerant it needs to top it off. The system can in almost all cases take on enough excess refrigerant that it will either blow out the pressure relief valve on the compressor or blow a line. Either of these events will I guarantee make enough noise to give you a heart attack or at least have to change your underwear. Not to mention that you will have this really cold spray coming out of the system somewhere.
Another thing to think about before running to the parts store or WalMart is that yes R134a is less damaging to the ozone layer than R12 it is still damaging and it is illegal to vent it into the air.

Mechanics Secrets

Ok this may only be for my own conscious and maybe one other reader but here is the second part in the mechanics uncovered.

The aftermarket service industry is any garage, service franchise, or independent car dealership other than the manufacturer of the vehicle you own. With that said, for the aftermarket service industry there are two major sources of information for repair and general service information that are in use. There used to be three but the third was named Chilton and they mysteriously just closed one day went offline and out of existence. The service information industry is also very cut throat however they call it aggressive competition. Regardless now there are only two major players or sources of repair data that are at the top of the heap. Odds are that if you go to a Midas you will be at the mercy of “All-DATA” a program that is actually quite good although I do prefer “MITCHELL ON DEMAND” myself. All-DATA is from if you are ready Autozone. Now I do not know if this is something written for them and their commercial market or if they purchased it after completion.
Autozone is not one of the highest quality parts houses out there but they are no worse than anyplace else in my book and as long as they don’t try to do more than read codes they can’t do any more damage than most ASE certified mechanics.
MITCHELL ON DEMAND is owned by Snap-on tools. They make and sell some of the best although highest priced tools for professional mechanics. You may have seen their trucks pull up to a shop or at least on the road from time to time.
By the way a professional mechanic may have $80,000. Or more invested in his tools and some of the tool boxes themselves can run $15,000. For the big roll around monsters that look like a walk in closet.
I can say this from experience because unfortunately insurance will only cover ½ of the cost of replacement for tools and my tools take up three boxes and were insured for $80,000.00 do the math and you will see that over the thirty some odd years I have a very large investment in tools. But no I don’t have the monster box just smaller roll around boxes that I modified to handle the added weight.
This is part of the driving force that blurs a young mechanic when it comes to adding a unnecessary service to a quote. Some of these poor guys have tool bills of $200.00 per week on more than one truck so when the owner says start pushing service sales they only see the dollars. Most shops have adopted the commission based pay for the mechanics that work for them. This is called flat rate and it is based on the time the book or the computer gives for any service job. So it stands to reason that under this pay plan the guy working on your car has all kinds of incentive to find as much as he or she can in order to pay their bills.
A few years ago a group formed a certifying organization and developed the Motorist Assurance Program or MAP. The service providers association jumped on it as another ASE type program and that means more money in their pockets. But surprise, these people were actually interested in the motorist not the business so after the members complained about being busted by a secret shopper the association dropped the program and did everything in their power to discredit it.
I realize that honesty is hard and its easy to say everyone is doing it but that is not changing the fact that someone that put their trust in you to tell them what is wrong and how much it will cost just got lied to and robbed. Parts and labor rates are high enough without stealing from your customers.
OK enough of my soap box now on to some of the clues that you are in the wrong place.
For the most part a car is very show and tell. Gee mister this is the broken part and this is what it should look like. Owners go crazy when I tell them to send the customer back because they know that sooner or later they will see that with very few exceptions the parts on a car that are failing or have failed are pretty easy to see if someone knows were to look and what to check for.
So first RED FLAG that you should have is a mechanic or service writer coming up to you in the waiting room and telling you well I have your quote ready. And as for saving the old parts to prove the repair was done I am sorry to tell you this but unless you know the mechanic you had better see that the part came from your car because a garage generates more scrap parts than a dumpster can hold in just three days. If it wasn’t for the junk men coming around looking for scrap steel every shop would look like a junk yard in a week.
Second thing that should raise a flag. The manufacture cannot and does not require any service on your car believe it or not, they suggest it.
Now that said please hear this especially if you own a Honda or Acura vehicle the timing belt should be changed at or shortly after the mileage they suggest simply because that engine is what is called an interference engine. That means that if the belt breaks the pistons will hit the valves and damage will occur. And this will be major damage so as expensive as it is get that changed for insurance if nothing else. By the way even the timing belt is not a required repair.
The point is this you own the vehicle not them so if they require you to have anything done guess who would have to pay.
It is the mechanics job to let you know as a customer how serious you should take the suggestion. Kind of a vicious circle I know and that’s why I feel so strongly about the honesty and quality roles the mechanic must adhere to no matter what the shop standard operating procedures.

By the way it is my personal belief that when a timing belt is changed the oil seals and, if it is driven by the timing belt, the water pump should also be changed. The reason is that the major cause of belt failure other than age is oil saturation. The belt is made from a petroleum product so oil breaks it back down pretty fast. The rest of the reason is economics if the water pump fails, and they do, you have the same labor cost as a timing belt and it could even damage the belt when it failed so don’t take the chance the time added to the job should only be about 30 minutes and the cost of the pump is usually under 45 dollars. As for the belt tensioner unless you are at a dealership the belt tensioner comes in a belt kit so the only extra cost would be for most applications 10 minutes labor.

So I hope this helps if not let me know because I will be adding to this and may even leave off my soap box on the next one.