New guy. Here is my Cat

[Vovchandr]

31 minutes ago, Croc said:

Vlad - I think your car was originally sourced from Chip Bond.  He had a few of those red seats around.  No idea why only he had them, never saw them anywhere else.  

 

Indeed it has. I have all the original communication between Chip and the owner. Chip was very kind to share everything he had left over with me. I hesitate to bother him with something trivial like the seats and I'm not sure he'd remember having any issues with coolant even if he did back then.

 

33 minutes ago, panamericano said:

Vovchandr,

 

I'm not sure if the forum has a "Stiff Upper Lip" award, but I think you are earning it.  Carry on.

 

 

I honestly am thinking that most problems are related and are caused by a macro problem.

 

I have a feeling replacing a head gasket and then getting a new tune would get the car back into fighting shape for the next NJMP. I'm likely going to start buying parts and getting ready to do the HG fix as a hail-mary move regardless of what any of the immediate tests will reveal. 

 

 

[Croc]

Vlad - Be careful with that thinking.  I suspect you will pull the head and discover the bores are shot to pieces or the block is porous/cracked/warped.  Its never ever just a head gasket.  Last time I did one, I discovered 4 interestingly shaped pistons...the weird thing was the engine ran just fine. 

 

 

[bball7754]

I have to confess that for me this thread has become the equivalent of a daily soap opera episode.  Lots of twists and turns in the plot, characters fading away then making a comeback, new villains appearing. ☺️

[Vovchandr]

42 minutes ago, bball7754 said:

I have to confess that for me this thread has become the equivalent of a daily soap opera episode.  Lots of twists and turns in the plot, characters fading away then making a comeback, new villains appearing. ☺️

 

 

Marshall Gauges Co got back to me and said, I'm paraphrasing "We don't know either, but that don't look good. Don't use it. Here is a discount for a new one"

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by Vovchandr

[CarlB]

When you get the cooling system pressure tester it will help you get the air out of the system. Pressurizing the system will often push the air out. I believe you said the the engine overheats a low speeds and that cruising down the road everything is fine. Check the compression and the the cooling system ability to hold pressure first, but you might consider having the radiator flushed at a radiator shop. They put it in a bath and get all the scale out. They also can flow test it.   

[Vovchandr]

4 hours ago, CarlB said:

When you get the cooling system pressure tester it will help you get the air out of the system. Pressurizing the system will often push the air out. I believe you said the the engine overheats a low speeds and that cruising down the road everything is fine. Check the compression and the the cooling system ability to hold pressure first, but you might consider having the radiator flushed at a radiator shop. They put it in a bath and get all the scale out. They also can flow test it.   

 

Used tester today. New data! Who doesn't like data. 

 

I discovered that you can use radiator pressure tester can be used to test caps as well. 

 

Due to a plethora of reasons over my ownership I ended up with 5 total radiator caps. One from redline melted into a blob after being lost/left on headers. One what I think is after market got butchered to make the bleeding funnel attachment so that leaves me with 3. OEM came with cae, replacement redline and one more aftermarket? 

 

Only one of three has passed the pressure test to 12psi. I believe it's redline one. 

 

My last run out was on OEM which currently tested either 5 once or 0 after that. Regardless no good. Will continue with the 12psi one. 

 

Car system is holding 10psi. Is that good enough for Zetec? Anybody know oem pressure? Haven't found that definitely yet online. Some places said 18psi

 

 

Redline I believe. ~12psi

 

Aftermarket 

 

OEM

 

 

Car is holding around 10psi

Edited June 14, 2021 by Vovchandr

[CarlB]

I have never seen a number to use for testing. I use 15 pounds because it is in the middle of the yellow zone on the gauge I have.  I generally look for it to hold pressure for 15 minutes. If I t will do that when it the engine is cold, you do not have a leak.

[ashyers]

If you can only achieve and hold 10psi you have a leak somewhere. That system should hold  at least 15psi w/o issue for a LONG time. Hopefully you're able to track down an external leak. Time to get a flashlight start hunting. If you can't get the pressure over 10psi it's not going to take too long to find out where the leak is coming from.

 

I'm not surprised you had a cap issue. I had the same experience and ended up replacing the cap and tank to get a proper seal. I had caps that would not hold the rated pressure and a cap/tank combo that would not seal well at the interface. I finally purchased a new cap/tank combo that had a newer cap design and that took care of that!

 

Hopefully you'll find a leak and once that thing holds pressure you can move forward.

[sf4018]

Could spray soapy water on the good tank cap to see if even that one is leaking air?

[Vovchandr]

Solid advice @ashyers & @CarlB and others.

 

Found a few small seeps from hoses and tightened them up. Holding 16 right now steady for a long period! Do I need to shoot/check for higher?

 

Also do I need to find a cap that holds more than 12 psi?

Edited June 15, 2021 by Vovchandr

[Vovchandr]

Steady holding 19 now for over an hour. Not going to try going higher than that. Will try the 12psi fuel cap on next run. 

Edited June 15, 2021 by Vovchandr

[ashyers]

I'd stick with 15psi. There's no reason to go much higher than that, you may do more harm than good. If you're holding 19psi for an hours you're better than fine.

 

The 12psi cap will kick up your boiling point to about 250F. This should keep the car from puking water when it heat soaks on a hot shutdown.

 

Progress!!

[Renottse]

There is some seriously learning going on here @Vovchandr I’m giving you an “atta boy” for grinding away at it.  

Watched the videos on the coolant. 
 

Apologies if you’ve already done it or have it on the list of to do’s. After all the disturbance and freeing up of gunk in your coolant system, I would definitely get the radiator out and back flush it. I would have it out so I can get it on different angles to allow the back flush flow to get at any deposits. The hole sizes internally in a radiator aren’t large and easily blocked/restricted. Mine (practically new) gets up to 98 degrees Celsius in a heartbeat in stop/go traffic (fans come on, they  turn off at around 90-92 degrees Celsius, temperature sits at about 75-80 when cruising) and if anything was blocked it’d be a loosing battle. 
 

Plug color, I agree with the others as to “The art of reading” you’ve got items ahead on the list that will change what’s happening in there, I’d add it to the list of things to update. 
 

I agree with @Croc about not opening things up yet, keep with the methodical system by system approach so you know what caused what or what affected what, that’ll be money in the future. 
 

Again, well done persevering and documenting it. Very useful for all. 

[Vovchandr]

9 minutes ago, Renottse said:

There is some seriously learning going on here @Vovchandr I’m giving you an “atta boy” for grinding away at it.  

Watched the videos on the coolant. 
 

Apologies if you’ve already done it or have it on the list of to do’s. After all the disturbance and freeing up of gunk in your coolant system, I would definitely get the radiator out and back flush it. I would have it out so I can get it on different angles to allow the back flush flow to get at any deposits. The hole sizes internally in a radiator aren’t large and easily blocked/restricted. Mine (practically new) gets up to 98 degrees Celsius in a heartbeat in stop/go traffic (fans come on, they  turn off at around 90-92 degrees Celsius, temperature sits at about 75-80 when cruising) and if anything was blocked it’d be a loosing battle. 
 

Plug color, I agree with the others as to “The art of reading” you’ve got items ahead on the list that will change what’s happening in there, I’d add it to the list of things to update. 
 

I agree with @Croc about not opening things up yet, keep with the methodical system by system approach so you know what caused what or what affected what, that’ll be money in the future. 
 

Again, well done persevering and documenting it. Very useful for all. 

 

Thats a good idea I haven't heard yet. Not going to hurt to back flush it. I'm starting to get brown deposits back in the pressure tank. Not sure if it's remnants of rust, current rust or blowby from HG at the moment.  

[CarlB]

This only works if the radiator is very clogged. When the engine is up to temperature check the temperature of the face of the radiator. If some areas are colder than others that is a indication tubes in that area are clogged.

[Vovchandr]

Updates:

 

Video editing: I'm getting quite good at it. Formatting, cropping etc. Practice makes perfect and I'm getting plenty of it

 

Cooling:

 

After pressure test passing and pressure holding for hours at 20psi, and cap holding 13 psi drove it today and yesterday.

 

Still runs fine at speed and still gets hot, over flows and spills when idles. I've witnessed a very rapid expansion earlier when was at the shop troubleshooting things.

 

I believe we got a positive ID on exhaust gasses in coolant but I'll double check to make sure it wasn't a false negative. 

 

I also got a thermal scan of the radiator to look for hot/clogged spots. Seems fine to me and I still have the thermal gun to play with for a couple more days in case there is anything else obvious I can shoot with it to help diagnosis. 

 

I did the coolant test strips but not sure if they really reveal anything while testing water. 

 

Gunk in reservoir doesn't look pretty.

 

@CarlB @Renottse

 

 

 

 

It started to turn yellow/green. Lots of bubbles going through it throughout the experiment while getting hotter. Started to turn towards the end before overflowing. 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by Vovchandr

[Vovchandr]

Decided to test the theory that running lean is what was getting me hot. Doesn't seem like it. Ran hot while being rich. 

 

Long video but I knew it was going to happen. This was after a 20 min drive on the highway parking at the shop. I knew it would run hot while sitting at idle.

 

Skip around to see the temp climb and car shut itself off when it got hot. 

 

 

Edited June 18, 2021 by Vovchandr

[Vovchandr]

I also found that @FE07 had similar issues in the past on his Zetec when his head gasket was blown

 

  

On 8/13/2017 at 8:56 AM, FE07 said:

Well- appears my head gasket is blown and has probably been slowly leaking for at least a year or so. Symptoms- on track- a combination of heat and revs (more revs) lead to pressurizing of the coolant overflow tank and spitting of coolant.

 

 

  

On 7/21/2019 at 5:53 PM, FE07 said:

 

As last time- it's leaking exhaust gas into the overflow bottle which then pressurizes/spits and then overflows. No oil mixing into the water jacket.

 

 

Anyone else had similar issues with head gaskets on their Zetec?? Looking for any other potential causes to look out for when rebuilt.

 

 

[Croc]

8 hours ago, Vovchandr said:

I believe we got a positive ID on exhaust gasses in coolant but I'll double check to make sure it wasn't a false negative. 

 

...

 

I did the coolant test strips but not sure if they really reveal anything while testing water. 

 

Quote

Gunk in reservoir doesn't look pretty.

 

 

There are two types of head gasket leak.  Coolant galley breaches and Exhaust rings.   Test again another two times on the exhaust gasses - a day apart.  You are right to be suspicious of a false positive.

 

Coolant strips should still react - they are supposed to react with the presence of oil.

 

That gunk in the coolant is key to the diagnosis as it keeps coming back when it should not.  There are only two things it can be but you need to prove which one. 

 

Also, please don't look to others and assume you have what they had.  Leverage their decision process to diagnosis your problem but don't jump to the end step without going through the intervening steps.    You may both have head gaskets fail but the reasons for failure are radically different and so the cure will have some subtle but still critical differences in the rebuild approach.  For example a coolant galley breach means I always test for a block that may have gone porous before the rebuild commences.  

[yellowss7]

Vlad,  it was painful to watch you go through the process and as much as I wanted to comment as I went through a somewhat similar learning experience.  I held off commenting for the reason Croc stated.    I had a pressurization issue that would only happen on track.  Car ran fine but would puke thru the cap eventually durning an on track session.  My engine is a duratec so not apples to apples and mine would idle lol Day and not get hot. 
 

But I tested at least twenty times with that coolant gas test and NEVER got a change in color.  
 

I replaced everything, water pump, radiator, thermostat, pulley bearings, and moved the coolant expansion tank to the highest possible point.  
I still would get.  After all that. No change.  I would notice after being out on track that if I winched my car backwards up the ramp of my trailer to get the expansion tank at the highest point that air bubbles would start rising into the tank and the coolant level would return to normal and I could run the next session and not have it over heat.   

 

I finally figured out that it had to be the head gasket after I ran successive sessions on track starting at 3000 rpm and not going over 3000 rpm for the whole session. Then bumping it up by 500 rpm in the next session.  And so on.   Results were that I got NO pressurization until I reached the 5500 rpm level.  That clinched it for me that the gasket must not be able to hold at that pressure.      
 

it was a mental relief to finally admit I had the problem that I danced around for so long.    I’m glad you have apparently reached that point now.  
 

Get R  done and come on down to NJMP to give it a good test run.  Tom