Mike T
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 3, 2013
A while back my wife's F-150 had a "water sloshing" sound coming from the passengers side of the dash so I figured the evaporator drain must have been plugged. The drain was working fine so I put the problem on my "to do list". The truck had been to Ford for a couple of little problems and a random coolant smell but they could never find anything wrong.
A few weeks ago the truck was parked with engine running and I noticed coolant leaking on the ground from the passengers side of the engine ....I was aggravated because the truck had just over 36k on it and anything short of the powertrain would be on me. Got it home and couldn't find coolant anywhere but it was down about the capacity of the coolant recovery tank.
It has never gone over the half mark on the temp gauge but the hi fans have been coming on along with the random leaking and sloshing sound. The diagnosis has eluded me until a couple of days ago.
By accident while under the hood checking the coolant level I hit the lower hose on the coolant recovery tank and it sprayed coolant everywhere.
After a close inspection of this connection I found that it has a very sloppy fit from the factory. I took it apart hoping to find a bad O-ring but it must rely on a tight fit and a small cone shaped Teflon seal to hold pressure.
My quick solution was a few layers of Teflon tape to the OD of the hose connection before reinstalling it.
This has fixed the coolant smell /leak and also the "sloshing water" that I now realize was air trapped in the heater core.
The one thing that really derailed the diagnosis was the fact that coolant was only leaking on the passengers so I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the drivers side. The path the coolant took trough a series of obstacles and engine shields caused this.
Ford should been aware of this problem long ago and I should have never had to deal with this.
A few weeks ago the truck was parked with engine running and I noticed coolant leaking on the ground from the passengers side of the engine ....I was aggravated because the truck had just over 36k on it and anything short of the powertrain would be on me. Got it home and couldn't find coolant anywhere but it was down about the capacity of the coolant recovery tank.
It has never gone over the half mark on the temp gauge but the hi fans have been coming on along with the random leaking and sloshing sound. The diagnosis has eluded me until a couple of days ago.
By accident while under the hood checking the coolant level I hit the lower hose on the coolant recovery tank and it sprayed coolant everywhere.
After a close inspection of this connection I found that it has a very sloppy fit from the factory. I took it apart hoping to find a bad O-ring but it must rely on a tight fit and a small cone shaped Teflon seal to hold pressure.
My quick solution was a few layers of Teflon tape to the OD of the hose connection before reinstalling it.
This has fixed the coolant smell /leak and also the "sloshing water" that I now realize was air trapped in the heater core.
The one thing that really derailed the diagnosis was the fact that coolant was only leaking on the passengers so I didn't spend a lot of time looking at the drivers side. The path the coolant took trough a series of obstacles and engine shields caused this.
Ford should been aware of this problem long ago and I should have never had to deal with this.
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