coolant leak 4.6

I am posting this more to see if anyone else has had the same issue. I pulled the car from storage now have a big coolant leak at the rear of the engine. Everything is dry from the bell housing forward. I pull the dust cover off the trans (auto) and you still can't see anything. It is dripping and following the steel plate down and into the bell housing then onto the ground. I have looked all around, both sides of the block from the pan line up and everything is dry. It looks to me like I am going to have to pull the engine....

It’s been so long since I had a NA engine, I’m pretty sure there is a heater hose/ coolant connection under your intake manifold that is more than likely the cause

I was hoping that was it. under the intake is dry but I will look again. thanks

deleted, double post

ok, it is the intake or the coolant tube under the intake. Looking from the front you can see it is wet under the intake....looks like fun.

It’s easy to pull the intake just google it, someone will have done a video on it

Once I have that much off it I may just pull the motor, it needs an oil pan gasket also.....always something to do every year. thanks

You don't need to pull the motor to replace the oil pan gasket but you will need to lower the K member.

It is likely the heater coolant tube o-ring. Leaks into the valley of the engine block and leaks out of a small 1/2 inch hole in the webbing on the rear of the block right above where it mounts up with the transmission. The fluid finds it way into the small vent holes on top of the bellhousing. Then it drips down and finally out of the inspection hole on the bottom of the bellhousing. I'm not sure about the auto, so if there are no holes then it will just drip down and around the bellhousing.

I cut and sectioned both heater coolant tubes and replaced with heater hoses and worm clamps. Never will leak again. It's a pretty common and easy fix and actually you have to do this for some twin screw installs. Once you put an intercooled twin screw in the valley there is no room for those metal tubes.

I was wondering about that, thanks for the tip.

I just pulled the intake, wow was that easy, took about 20 minutes. The o-ring looks good but the plastic retainer that holds it in there tight is broken apart. I'll just cut the pipe and put in a hose, autozone has one in stock. I also need to replace the oil filter adapter, I am hoping that is the source of all my oil leaks. New cars are so much easier to work on, it takes a lot more messing around to pull intakes on my chevelles.

onestout said:

I just pulled the intake, wow was that easy, took about 20 minutes. The o-ring looks good but the plastic retainer that holds it in there tight is broken apart. I'll just cut the pipe and put in a hose, autozone has one in stock. I also need to replace the oil filter adapter, I am hoping that is the source of all my oil leaks. New cars are so much easier to work on, it takes a lot more messing around to pull intakes on my chevelles.

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Last car I had before my 06 mustang which I purchased in ‘12 was a 68 firebird 400 vert which I sold in ‘89 and used to buy my first house. I also was flabbergasted at how easy and CLEAN it was to work on these cars!

Badd GT said:

It’s been so long since I had a NA engine, I’m pretty sure there is a heater hose/ coolant connection under your intake manifold that is more than likely the cause

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This ^
Specifically, there is a plastic elbow that started leaking on mine. It connects the coolant tubes for the heater to the cast aluminum bridge near the front of the valley, just behind the alternator. Was a pain to get to and then replace, as I remember.

During the process of trying to separate the elbow from the metal fitting, the plastic elbow just crushed and disintegrated on me.

If it turns out to be the plastic elbow, here is the part number:
Motorcraft KT-92

onestout said:

I just pulled the intake, wow was that easy, took about 20 minutes. The o-ring looks good but the plastic retainer that holds it in there tight is broken apart. I'll just cut the pipe and put in a hose, autozone has one in stock. I also need to replace the oil filter adapter, I am hoping that is the source of all my oil leaks. New cars are so much easier to work on, it takes a lot more messing around to pull intakes on my chevelles.

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Glad to hear you are making progress. For what it's worth when I did this I cut and sectioned both tubes and replaced with heater hoses and worm clamps. IIRC the bottom pipe that feeds directly behind the water pump has an oring and that's where mine leaked. Cut and section and replaced with heater hose, problem solved. The top pipe/hose that feeds into a plastic elbow that connect to the coolant crossover tube has a problem with the plastic elbow cracking/breaking. I got rid of that elbow and spliced in heater hose as well. I wish I had a picture of what I did but it isn't hard to visualize once you get the intake manifold off and can see things plain as day. I've been leak free for a couple years now.

It looks like Dayco 80412 will be a perfect fit, premolded 90 hose, the 80411 I picked up last night was just a bit short.
I am finding 3 different torque values for the intake, which should it be? It is the stock plastic intake.

onestout said:

It looks like Dayco 80412 will be a perfect fit, premolded 90 hose, the 80411 I picked up last night was just a bit short.
I am finding 3 different torque values for the intake, which should it be? It is the stock plastic intake.

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http://iihs.net/fsm/
this is the Ford online service manual, It will tell you everything you could ever want to know about your car

The plastic piece the holds the pipe in and keeps the o-ring compressed was in about 5 pieces. I cut the pipe and put a preformed .75" ID heater hose in it's place and double clamped both ends.

When I pulled the oil filter adapter I ran it across some sand paper and you could see a high spot across one of the oil ports, it lasted 100k that way, I guess the gasket just wasn't flexible enough to seal anymore, hence my oil leak. To make matters worse the previous person that changed the oil thought the filter was leaking so their solution was to see how tight they could put the filter on......some people should take theirs car in for service and not try it themselves. The 600 grit I started cleaning it with wasn't enough to remove the high spot so I went to 400, once it was gone I went back to 600 to clean it up, looked pretty good when I was done. light oil on the gasket to help it seal, torqued in place and everything is good.

Cleaned the heads up with soap and water where the intake seals, then to brake clean to finish it off, cleaned up good. Blew it off, vacuumed out the intake runners, removed all the rags from each runner, put a light oil film on the sealing surface and in each bolt hole and installed the intake. Finished up the oil change, filled it up with coolant and done.

I put about 30-40 miles on today so far and it is so nice having a vehicle that doesn't leak anything anymore, now time to drive it.

I'm still really bummed out that I had to cancel my FI deal....no Supercharger for it this year....darn Virus.

Thanks for everyone's input and the link to the manual for the torque specs.