8 Year old antifreeze and really old oil....

[boat]

We have Bubba's wife's 93 ATX, that Bubba and I have been working on little by little for the last year and a half. It sat for like 7 years before we picked it up, it has now sat for another year or so. Mainly due to life happening and both of us having a lot on our plates to get this done. A lot of little things have been replaced also. Headlights, tail lights, power window motors, got rid of an electrical drain and a busted off egr tube at the manifold.

Well anyway, trying to get it finished so his wife can finally have it. We have replaced nearly every suspension component except sway bars on the car. Did a full black leather interior swap from mocha. Now we are coming down to some final tings to be finished.

The oil cooler gasket is leaking and I plan on changing this tomorrow with a low mileage one we have in the garage. I was thinking while changing that, I would flush out the radiator from the over 8 year old antifreeze that is in there. Well, we don't exactly have access to a hose in the garage and it is too cold to be messing with hose water any way.

My idea to flush the radiator out would be to pour through the radiator about 3-4 gallons of distilled water collecting it out the drain valve out the bottom. Would this do a good enough job to clean out the old gunk from years of sitting?

Any other recommendations for flushing it out. Right now the car isn't drive-able, a rear brake line busted on it and has to be replaced.

Also, I suspect the oil is pretty old too, not sure how old, but yeah. Would it be sufficient to do a standard oil change or should I pour a thinner oil through, or a couple of quarts of cheapo oil to get as much of the old out as possible?

 

[SHOtime2511]

Just an FYI the oil cooler gasket is an oil filter gasket.

Oil and coolant should be changed for sure.
What does the coolant look like?

 

[Eric VerValin]

i know when I flushed my 10 year old rad.. it took a while with a hose.... let it run for a while, pressure was 75% of what was going in. flipped it over and blew it out the other way. GOt a little better, flipped it over and back a few times, and it got better a little each time, to a point... but it took more than just a few gallons..

 

[Off Road SHO]

Get it running first then flush the radiator. While you're running the car, add a quart of ATF to the old oil and let it run through the system for 20 minutes or so. Then drain the oil/atf mix out and refill with cheap oil of the correct weight. Run this for no more than 1000-1500 miles. Change filter and refill with good Castrol, Valvoline, Chevron or Shell.

Tom

 

[rubydist]

Just an FYI the oil cooler gasket is an oil filter gasket.

...

The oil cooler gasket is NOT an oil filter gasket, and although some people use the oil filter gasket for that, I found that the oil filter gasket did not work on my 92 (95 3.2) so I found an o-ring that was the right size and have that in there.

the oil filter gasket is not large enough outside diameter to stay in place consistently without leaking, in my experience. and its not really a good thing to screw with, since a serious oil leak at that point results in a dead engine speedy quick.

 

[boat]

Thanks for the tips guys. I will get it running then do the ATF thing with the old oil.

Given the colder weather, and the fact that I can't use a hose in the garage, If I did what I was thinking, the 4 gallons of distilled water, run it for like a few hundred miles then change the antifreeze again, would this be sufficient or should it be done a better/different way?

As far as the oil cooler gasket. We have a 60k mile 3.0 with one on it, and an 89k mile one from a 3.2. I will probably use the 60k mile one as it is still on the motor it belongs to. But I will wait to do this until the car is running.

 

[itwonder]

Flushing the radiator with a hose doesn't really accomplish much anyway. What you need to do is completely drain the system by first draining the radiator, and then removing both the front and rear block drain plugs. A lot of coolant sits in the block. There are some pictures of the block drains somewhere in my Photobucket SHO album IIRC:

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/itwonder/SHO/

Once drained, you can either refill with pure distilled water, run it around a bit, and then repeat draining it, or you can just call it good and refill with 50:50 mix of coolant and distilled water.

You can use a radiator flush compound if the coolant is very rusty.

 

[NotSoSlowSHO]

Just give the car a new radiator dude.



Its less than $100

 

[jimtash]

Just an FYI the oil cooler gasket is an oil filter gasket.

Oil and coolant should be changed for sure.
What does the coolant look like?

No it's not. Filter gaskets are too thick to seal properly when the cooler is tightened down. Learned this the hard way and almost lost an engine because of using one. Luckily I had another oil cooler and used that gasket with RTV and have had no problems.

 

[SHOtime2511]

Never had an issue with the one I replaced.:wave:

 

[Lightning]

Get it running first then flush the radiator. While you're running the car, add a quart of ATF to the old oil and let it run through the system for 20 minutes or so. Then drain the oil/atf mix out and refill with cheap oil of the correct weight. Run this for no more than 1000-1500 miles. Change filter and refill with good Castrol, Valvoline, Chevron or Shell.

Tom

* 2

an old trick I have used many times, never found a better way yet...

 

[boat]

We got it running pretty smooth yesterday. Although some issues have popped up from it sitting so long. There seems to be some bearing noise in the front engine pulley and belt area.

Exhaust leak after assembly
I think I may have put the wrong type of gasket in for the EGR tube (at the manifold end), I hear this exhaust "ticking" noise from the rear of the engine bay. Seems to get faster with a rev of the engine. I need to check this out. Also, I think maybe the exhaust manifold to y-pipe in the rear may be mis-aligned enough to get that "ticking". Checking into both some evening this week.

Oil
As far as the oil, it was at least a quart and a half low. I think we had dry parts up in the heads, as we had replaced cam tensioners in both heads and chains. We added a half quart, and then added the 1 quart of ATF fluid. It ran pretty smooth. But by the end of the day of getting it back together, I was pretty wore out and decided to finish that oil stuff another day. Probably some evening or day this week.

Front 60k
The front engine bearing noise, it is almost a squealing, not sure what it is. This car is going to get a front 60k, and some nice low mileage idler pulleys from an 89k mile 3.2, an 1100 mile water pump from a car that I had wrecked, timing belt pulley from same 89k mile engine, an may need to source a timing belt tensioner. I needs a front engine mount (engine moved pretty good in the front when I revved it), as many parts as we can scrounge up in the garage from all the crap we have collected over the last couple of years. It has a new alternator and serpentine belt, and we believe about 98% there is a new timing belt in this car. We have already done a top 60k to it.

Coolant
It was a murky green color, I think it is just old. Car got nice and warm inside the car while we ran it that 20 minutes, and the temp gauge was in the right place, not spiking towards "N". Will flush out the radiator for now, money is pretty tight right now. Coolant hoses were pretty soft, we have some replacements for those as well, at least the big ones. Will try to source some of the smaller ones and get those replaced too. New thermostat, and radiator cap are going in as well. The radiator itself didn't look that old, looked reasonably new.

Other goodies
It will be getting a 94 ATX rebuilt trans with about 20k on the rebuild, and a DU41 computer from Bubba's long gone 94 ATX. It already got a clean newer EGR from said 94 ATX, and the DPFE. This intake got thoroughly cleaned out, all the nostrils and other little cavities that collect gunk.

Overall, sitting in the car while running, it was nice and quiet, car idled nice and smooth, after re-learning itself. I suppose we did some things right when doing the dash swap this last year, then the reassembly yesterday.

 

[boat]

Thanks for the link to the pics.

I know when changing the oil cooler, once that little hose is pulled it is like a water fall of antifreeze that comes out. How much more comes out the back once that one is pulled? How easy is it to get to with a fat ATX trans in the way?

Flushing the radiator with a hose doesn't really accomplish much anyway. What you need to do is completely drain the system by first draining the radiator, and then removing both the front and rear block drain plugs. A lot of coolant sits in the block. There are some pictures of the block drains somewhere in my Photobucket SHO album IIRC:

http://s2.photobucket.com/albums/y5/itwonder/SHO/

Once drained, you can either refill with pure distilled water, run it around a bit, and then repeat draining it, or you can just call it good and refill with 50:50 mix of coolant and distilled water.

You can use a radiator flush compound if the coolant is very rusty.

 

[rubydist]

it will drain until the coolant is nearly out of the block.

since you need the coolant out anyway, pull the radiator. then you have plenty of room to get to the oil cooler and you don't have to worry about killing the radiator by accident.... and, if you don't like to give the starter an oil bath, either put a plastic bag over it or pull it too.

 

[boat]

Yep, I planned to drop the starter. Radiator, not so much. I will definitely pull the fans from the radiator for more room.

Yeah, I did the replacement of the oil cooler on my red 94 MTX. It was a pretty gross job. Not one I really wanted to do any time soon, but I will to help a friend.

I remember making quite the mess b/c I didn't realize just how much antifreeze would come out. I will be ready this time.

What I pulled out of mine this past May. No wonder I had a starter coated in oil, the gasket was separating from the sides. Now my starter is starting to give me hard starting issues.

 

[Rubix]

This is #1 on my list aside from the head gasket. I've been needing to do this for years! Still wondering what to do about the gasket itself; oil filter gasket, rubber o-ring, or what. Thank yall both for the warnings about spillage, that would've messed my garage up somethin fierce!

 

[boat]

I will have a gallon milk jug ready to catch as much of the antifreeze as possible. Don't use the filter gasket fix. Someone might have a low mileage one sitting around. I'd say go to Ford, get them to look up the part. May be obsolete, but I think there is a parts source out there that Ford recommends. I think the place is called Green Parts, I had the number, but lost it.

This is #1 on my list aside from the head gasket. I've been needing to do this for years! Still wondering what to do about the gasket itself; oil filter gasket, rubber o-ring, or what. Thank yall both for the warnings about spillage, that would've messed my garage up somethin fierce!

 

[jayro]

Yep, I planned to drop the starter. Radiator, not so much. I will definitely pull the fans from the radiator for more room.

When I replaced the radiator in my '94 mtx it was one of those few jobs that was suprisingly easy and quick. As far as flushing the cooling system, they have that stuff you put in the radiator and then run the car with the heat on for 20 minutes. Then drain, refill and run agian. You repeat this a few times and then do the final refill with coolant. Not sure how well this stuff works, just know I have seen it on the store shelf.

 

[rubydist]

take the old gasket to NAPA and ask them to let you look through their o-ring collection - I found one there that fit great.

 

[jimtash]

take the old gasket to NAPA and ask them to let you look through their o-ring collection - I found one there that fit great.

And post the part number so others can have something to go by.