NEED HELP: engine acting up

[NDsuperduty]

On my way home from work tonight I had to make several stops which ment turning the truck off and on, some with a 1-2 minute period. After making the last stop I noticed that my truck seemed to be abnormally load, kinda like it was tough for it to get air. I figured it was just the cold air or something mild and kept driving.

About 5 minutes later I notice that everytime I accelerate in the least bit it makes the same load noise. I happen to look down and notice my engine temp gauge is rising really fast almost to the redline. I immediate pullover and put the truck in park, turned the heater on full blast. Within 1-2 minutes the temp gauge dropped back to normal so I continued home since I was less than 5minutes from my house.

The temp did start to raise back up, but I let the truck coast when this happened, which let the temp drop back down slightly. I am kinda stumped on what is causeing this. The one really strange thing is that the heater was blowing ice cold air for some reason. I have never had an overheating vehicle blow ice cold air through the heater. I am going to check the air filter once the engine cools down, but if its not that I am stumped.

 

[bushpilot]

whats your coolant level like ?

 

[NDsuperduty]

I will go check. It should be good since they check that when I get my oil changed, and that was just done 2 weeks ago.

 

[NDsuperduty]

You were right on bush. The mother f'er was bone dry. Not a single f'in drop in the resovoir.

Since it got so low(empty), can I just add coolent or do I need to have it flushed? Also, is there a specific type of coolent you recommend

 

[bushpilot]

thought so...wish i wasnt the winner on this one.

I'd fill it w/ at least a 50/50 combination of distilled water (avail @
the grocery store) and G05 (gold coolant)...you can get the Xerex G05
at autozone.

hard to say how low it is...when you drain JUST the radiator it
takes about 4gal to re-fill (hopefully youre not that low).

once its REFILLED, itll be time to discover where the coolant is leaking.

DO NOT fill w/ COLD coolant/distilled water if the truck is even remotely
hot...fill thru the degas bottle and then start the truck and be prepared
to top it off (1/2 full on the degas bottle *IS* FULL) once the truck is running,
warmed up and the thermostat opens.

fwiw the maximum effective-ness (protection) is achieved
w/ a 70/30 mixture (G05/distilled water)

 

[NDsuperduty]

Now that I think back I can remember seeing overflow marks on the resevoir, but I guess it never clicked to check it.

I guess I will get some from autozone tomorrow. This really throws a kink in my plans for tomorrow. My wife and I are leaving for a party straight from work tomorrow, and I really wanted to take my truck instead ofher mini because of all the possible drunk drivers on the road.

 

[rgdillon]

. . .
once its REFILLED, itll be time to discover where the coolant is leaking.
. . .

If'n it was me - I'd just refill it with water right now until the leak was found. Otherwise you may just be wasting money on anti-freeze.


Ron

 

[NDsuperduty]

I may do that. Since its supposed to be pretty cold tomorrow it should not hurt it to much.

Update: I added water to the resevoir for tomorrow. It took about 2 gallons of water just to fill the resovoir.

 

[bigdogdiesel]

sound to me like you are experiancing possible headgasket issues if you arestill under warrenty or powerstroke, go to your local ford dealer and have them run the coolant leaking out of degas bottle tsb, will take 3 to 4 hours to do right, the ice cold heat was due to no coolant and the trail around the cap is due to egr cooler blown or headgaskets, if you have a programmer on engine head stud the thing this will prevent and other damage, for head studds go to arp, they run 600 dollars and are worth the money.

 

[melmount]

be careful if you just add water, dont want to crack anything if it freezes!!!