URGENT - Help Needed on SPF w/ FE !!!!!
 

Hey guys. I have a situation with my side-oiler spraying coolent from the black overflow tank on my SPF. It acts almost as if something is clogged. I drove the car lastnight and everything was fine. Started the car today and got ready for a ride and noticed a puddle of coolent as I pulled out of the driveway. Pulled back in the garage and opened the hood to find coolent sparaying from the small hole located on the top of the black overflow tank on SPF's (not the puke tank). Temps were 100-110 range. Car has a 160 deg therm so right away we figred that was the problem (stuck). Removed the puke tank and pulled the therm and checked it with a lighter and it opened up fine.
Prior to removing the puke tank we started the car with the the cap on the puke tank removed. Pressure built to the point that coolent spilled from the tank. Bottom hose gets warm so it seems to be flowing from the radiator fine.

-Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!!! Thanks.

Although the information was a little lacking( what type heads,manifold, mileage etc.), I would start wondering about a blown head gasket. Pull the plugs and see if you see any coolant on them. If you do that would be where I'd start. If they are original heads and have been milled (maybe too much) you could have a cracked on. The previous ride may have escalated a developing problem. If they are aluminum heads, have they ever been retorqued?

Terry, can you take a quick digital photo of the "small hole" on top of your overflow tank?

Not sure what it all might be, but check these points first. Remember, the expansion tank on the engine should not be filled more than half full of coolant. It is there to collect air and allow the coolant to "expand" inside the tank without overlowing. If you fill it full, most likely it will overpressurize the expansion tank and dump into the overflow tank, and if that fills up, it will flow out of the top of it. As long as your engine is fine (head gaskets not blown and so forth), the only other thing it might be is a non-sealing radiator cap or the more rare event, the cap spring itself not up to the rated 13 lbs or more pressure capacity. If so, simply try a new cap.

MEATMASTER "...cooking sausages on an intake manifold is an art Martha Stewart couldn't even dream of..."

Edelbrock alum heads w/ Edel RPM alum intake. I think the gaskets are fine but we can check the plugs for coolent.

Patrick- I do have a digital cam but you probably don't have the same overflow tank on your ERA as I have on my SPF. The hole on the overflow tank is very small and was built into the tank (hole didn't just happen today).

Meat- You may be onto something here. I topped off the tank yesterday prior to taking it out (although I didn'y fill it completely, I filled it more than halfway). However, the car ran fine when I drove it afterwards. The problem just started today after firring it up and running about 10 minutes. Temps got hot much quicker than normal though (100-110)

Is it possible that a therm would work with the lighter flame but not work when in the engine? The flame is much hotter..........just guessing here at this point.

OK, that's what I was wondering (you're right, ERAs don't have that little hole). I'd still like to see a shot though if you, or another SPF owner, could post a pic of it.

I have a Stant radiator pressure tester kit. Not verry expensive. Was the coolant tank full of fluid when cold? are you running with an open or closed circuit cap? I'm running the front surge tank with a closed system cap and it's overflow routed to a 1qt. recovery bottle with hose extending to the bottom of the bottle. I can fill my surge tank when cold because expanded fluid is pushed into recovery bottle and when it cools fluid is pulled back into surgetank keeping cooling system full of fluid. If your expansion tank is a nostalgic open system you need to leave some space in the expansion tank for expanded fluid when warm. With my system I can place the tester inplace of the radiator cap on a full surge tank, start engine and watch as pressure climbs with temperature expansion. If it climbs too fast it may indicate a compression leak into coolant system. At that point I'd remove the tester and watch for bubbles with thew engine running. On your system you may want to fill that expansion tank enough to see the fluid surface from the cap area, Start engine and watch for bubbles in fluid. If you see bubbles that is bad. It should be a moving fluid no bubbles.
OH! another thought, that small hose connecting the intake manifold to tha coolant pump. That is the thermostat bypass. My brother inlaw had a 460( 84 Ford Pickup) that I found had a blister inside that hose, not evident from the outside. That would stop coolant the circulation in the engine so the thermostat wasn't seeing the actual water temperature in the engine. Once the water temp at thermostat was enough the fluid temp in engine was way too high. The thermostat would open violently and the supper heated fluid would be forced out under cap in his closed sysyem and actually blow the fluid out of the coolant recovery tank.. It would make a mess and coolant fluid level was low.

Sounds like the "Jaz" tank. If so, it's an overflow tank, but often mounted too low to return fluid.

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...t_overflow.jpgThe one on the upper left?

Here's what I replaced mine with on SPF 1380

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...rflowtank4.jpg

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...p/P1010002.jpg
E

Not part off the problem, but when you get things all clicking, You may want a little more heat in a FE. 180° to 190°. FEs like it warm problem is you can't let the temps get too high or it will get out of hand and boil, then things get out of control. Remember the pump only moves fluid.

Eric- Yep, that's the tank that I'm talking about. The stock SPF tank is basically a black plactic bottle with a pin-hole on top (like the hole shown in the pic of your tank). The tank you used as the replacement looks great. It's hard to tell in the pic, but does it have a hose that runs from the bottm of the tank to the ground (to release the fluid)?
Do you have any contact info on where to get one / website?

Michael- You're right about the temps..........but I was talking 100 deg celsius not fahrenheit (the guage reads in celsius). So it was getting hot pretty quick, and acted almost like it just wasn't flowing fluid very well. It would start getting hot in the puke tank and head to the overflow bottle and start spraying out the pinhole, as well as going all over the floor from the hose.

That little hose, if blocked, can cause big problems. Absolutely no circulation in block. The coolant in the block and heads just gets supper heated . The layer of coolant next to cylinder walls will boil seperating into vapor that will rise to the highest point( the heads and the thermostat).
Will the system usually pull some of the coolant displaced into your overflow tank back into the main system once cooled.
You may want to fill coolant system at the surge tank, start engine and watch for bubbles. If you get bubbles only when engine is running you may have a compression leak into coolant system. You should see fluid start to rise gradually as engine warms and fluid expands.
Once everything is sorted out a thermostat with a small pin hole located at its highest point will help evacuate the trapped air when filling coolant system and will ensure an even (but small) flow past thermostat keeping everything at an even and optimum temperature. If you are using the usual FE intake manifolds as in mid sixties , the thermostat pocket will take the large diameter thermostat. Fords usual thermostat is a large disk with a small valve. Try a Mopar thermostat they fit and are availabel at most parts stores and available in upscale modles that are made so that if they fail they will fail in open position.

Make sure that the pipe that extends inside the tank to the bottom.. is the one that allows the coolant to flow back to the motor at the pressure cap . the one that is at the bottom is the drain.

It was the CVST-2 from Performance Unlimited

http://performanceunlimited.com/cobr...thertanks.html

You might be interested in what I put on my new SPF build
(FE)

http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t...Asp/57_010.jpg

It is also on that same link, has 2 quart capacity, and if mounted up high it will return fluid once the engine cools down.

Terry, my old 418 started doing the same thing, and for me it was timing to far advanced.

Hope this helps

E

Well, we put her back together and everything seems to be fine!
I'm figuring it was one of two things. Either the thermostat failed and it was in a closed position, or I simply overfilled the expansion tank like Meatmaster mentioned above.
Bought a new stat. (wish I would have read your post about the Mopar stat prior to buying mine though Mike), put it in, tightened everything up and SLOWLY started adding coolant / water a little at a time. Started it and let it get up to temp, then shut it down and add a little more collant / water......making sure to never keep too much in the expansion tank. Once the car started running at normal temps and didn't see anything leaking, I took it for a spin and everything is back to normal. -Whew!!!:3DSMILE:

-Scared the crap out of me for a minute there.:eek::CRY:

I want to thank everyone for their replies. It's these types of incidents that makes this site such a special place to belong to.
-Thanks much!!!:D

Antifreeze is no fun to clean up in the engine compartment.

I hated that dumb Jaz tank. One of the better up grades was to go to a return system, and eckologically sound too. ;)

E