REALLY REALLY bad day today.

[RICH MUISE]

Interesting.....I'll check into it. I don't recall even SEEING 5-20 oil in the stores, but haven't really looked.

[Ford Blue blood]

All the Fords (new) that I have run 5-W20 except the Shelby (it is 5-W50).  My 89 MKVIII was 5-20, the 10 F150 was 5-W20, the 16 with a 5.0 is the same along with the wife's Focus.  Readily available in Mobile I.

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks for the input, Bill. Not going to matter for quite a while now.

Took care of the thermostat rubbing the power steering pulley. Checked all the fluids and charged the A/C. Did an engine code read, and as expected, they were the same as the previous engine, only alot fewer of them except for one about the fuel pump always running. Hmmm never had that one before. I'm assuming it's with the key "on" but not started, as the computer will shut it down quick if the engine is not running. I'm almost deaf, I can't hear it run, but I'll have someone with ears listen while the key is just on to see if it shuts down after not too long. It did when I wired the car. Cleared all the codes and took it out for a 40 mile run. As with yesterday it ran really well until on my way home thru downtown.
I had my eyes glued to the gages the whole time. At a traffic light I noticed some smoking ( my hood is still off), and the temp gauge was climbing. Sheeeet!! When I got moving again, the temp stopped climbing. I've never had an overheat issue until one time last fall, I need to check to see if the fan is coming on when requested for temp. I know it is when the A/C is on.. Unfortunately, that was only one problem. When I got home, I immediately checked for leaks expecting coolant, but what I saw instead were TWO fluid drips. One was making a puddle from the bottom of the rack, so I guess it blew a seal. The worst one to see however was a steady stream coming from the tranny bellhousing inspection cover. I had put a new front transmission seal in when the engine was out, I guess I must have screwed that up. That one's not getting fixed without the tranny comming out, and I can't do it. Aside from the engine having to have most undone so it can move forward to get to the bellhousing bolts, I don't have the equiptment to handle a tranny removal from under the car. I'm broke and I'm disgusted.
My son lives in Florida and has never seen the car. We were planning on him flying into Amarillo in mid July and we were going to do our first father and son roadtrip up to the Thin Air Nationals in Colorado. Ain't happening.
Don't think any of these 3 problems are related. overheat/rack leak/tranny seal

[Ford Blue blood]

Dang Rich, sorry to hear the news.  The tranny seal is the most troublesome!  I suspect the interior would have to come out to access the bell bolts without having to move the engine?

[RICH MUISE]

This has totally blown me away. Everything was going so smooth, I had a smile on my face for that last 45 minute drive. Never even suspected anything but an overheat until I got home and was checking for coolant leaks (there were none, btw). So many questions...why the overheat? it was close to 100* yesterday on that drive, I did have the A/C on, my hood was off, but no boiling over, and no leaks, so why the sudden overheat? I suspect a cooling fan issue. I did notice when I was charging the A/C, the fan was coming on, but intermittently. It seemed to be cycling on and off. Shouldn't the fan be on steady when the A/C switch is on? I did install a new water pump....guess I need to verify that it's operational. Did not replace the thermostat.

Why the rack leak at the same time? I did have an issue with my hydroboost, wasn't sure if it was fixed, but after fixing an o-ring leak, it was working fine as far as braking and steering performance, and it was not overeating, which is the normal result of improper bleeding. I don't have a real good understanding of how a hydroboost works, but I believe it just passes the fluid pressure thru it to the rack. I don't know if there is any way a hydroboost can increase the pressure the PS pump puts out, even if malfunctioning. BTW, the PS pump is new also. Just a coincidence the rack decided to blow out at the same time?

Why didn't my transmission seal leak right from the start if I installed it wrong. I put 100 miles on the car before the leak became evident.
Right now I feel like selling my car and buying that Yugo I always wanted.

[hiball3985]

Good luck finding a Yugo that still runs
How hot does it get? Isn't the normal range between 195 and 210 on these engines? Did you replace the thermostat when you installed the engine? Maybe something broke loose and is causing it to stick? Aren't the fans temp controlled so intermediate running would be normal.

[RICH MUISE]

I did not replace the thermostat. And btw, 100* temps are common around here, and was not a cause for overheat in the past. The engine was running about 195, as my old one was. It got up to about 220 pretty quick when I came off the freeway. As mentioned, one time last fall it got up to about 225 in traffic. That was the first time, and that's what has me thinking maybe I have an issue with the fan or fan controllers. The car is set up with a trinary switch, which means the signal to turn on can come from two sources........either the A/C being turned on or engine temp. The A/C requiring the fan to be on, I believe is to pull air thru the condenser, and that's when I'm noticing the intermittent, on/off cycling. The cycling doesn't seem right to me with the A/C on requirement. I did install a new water pump, btw. Need to check that out.........I guess just watch for water circulation when (if?) the thermostat opens. Maybe with some of the powder coating I had done, a sensor is not grounding for the water temp? It may be the one the computer uses to know when to turn the fan on??

So many things swirling around in my head. Is the replacing of parts while things are easy to get to a good idea with the quality of parts we're getting nowadays? Even if they were working fine? My old transmission seal wasn't leaking, but......My old water pump was working, but......my power steering pump was working, but......
On the other hand, I did not replace the thermostat, maybe I should have. I did not replace the rack, maybe I should have. The rack thing is like Deja Vu, btw, When I first built the car, on one of my maiden voyages, I blew the rack out. Replaced that with a rebuilt and never had an issue. Could I be doing something/not doing something that could be causing that?
As mentioned, these are not things I'm expecting answers to, just stuff that's clogging up my brain right now.

[RICH MUISE]

more brain clog..maybe I should have replaced the oil pump also. I did notice the hotter the engine got, the lower the oil pressure. Driving out of the downtown at 30mph with the engine hot, the pressure dropped to about 35-40. It did get back up to 45ish on the last few freeway miles home.My thoughts along this line is lower pressure with higher engine temps would be normal because of thinner viscocity? I've also been thinking all along the lower-than-I had-before pressure might be resolved with a good seafoam treatment, and had been planning that for this week. I knew the oil wouldn't be in there long, so I just went with Quaker State high mileage 10/30 stuff.
On the tranny front seal, I had talked to my transmission guy on a seal recommendation. They use National, and that's what I went with. I did check the seal on the lubricated torque converter shaft before I installed it in the tranny, and it seemed a good fit. Anything I could have done wrong assembling the TC that would have damaged the seal? I was very careful sliding it in and lining up the splines with the back and forth rotational until it slid in on the the (3?) locations...2 splines and one flats if I remember correctly. Btw, I never drained the torque convertor, so it's not the drain plug that's loose/leaking.

[hiball3985]

Just a thought on the thermostat if you need to replace it and I have no knowledge of what they are like on these engines but I would try to get one from FORD before an some aftermarket POS.

The lower oil viscosity used in these newer engines isn't just for lubrication, it's for cooling also, lower viscosity flows more GPM. the faster the oil flows it can do more cooling of internal friction. Just my theory and I'm sure someone will tell me I'm wrong   

[gasman826]

verify, verify, verify!!!  Stop and take a breath.  Verify the coolant temperature with a known good device.  The gauge uses a one temperature sensor and the computer uses another.

[Ford Blue blood]

As Gary said, verify!  The 66 Falcon Ranchero I built with a 302EFI always showed high in the green as opposed to middle of the green with the stock 6.  Got out my trusty IR heat gun and verified the high green was dead on 195.  The temperature sensor that feeds the computer could be bad or not grounded properly.  The computer feeds it 5V, the thermistor inside the sensor then varies it's voltage back to the computer to tell it what the engine temperature really is.

Your install of the converter was correct.  If it was not your front pump would have gone south prior to getting out of the driveway.

The theory of oil cooling is correct.  Any given engine will run a different oil pressure then it's counter part so don't get wrapped around the axel with the pressure difference.  As long as you have pressure all is well.  The area of concern is has the pressure changed it's behavior at various running conditions.

I suspect the fan controller/heat sensor is the issue.  Either the sensor for turning it on (engine temp) is not good or the controller is bad.  The cycling on and off with the A/C is how it is supposed to work.  As the system pressure builds due to lack of air flow over the condenser the trinary turns on the fan.  As the Freon cools and pressure drops the trinary turns the fan off.  Sounds like the computer is never turning the fan on for engine temperature control.

Got nothing for you on the rack leak......

[djfordmanjack]

Rich, If I were you I would just leave the car well alone now for the weekend or so. you need to cool off, as needs the car. Not all is lost. Looking at your situation from my desk, it is not at all that bad. sure there are some problmes, but there are mainly 3 issues, which is nothing compared to the situation you started from a few months earlier.
It is true that oftentimes new components start trouble these days. I found it also true that mixing brand new with well run in components sometimes doesn't work.
Anyways, you need to get your head clear again dn then start going at each issue and each single faulty part, like Gary stated. Verify. I would leave the transmission leak alone for now. thin transmission oil could also be caused by overheated engine and coolant. or the other way around. trans fluid overheating the coolant ? does your trans have TV cable ? is it properly adjusted ?
I want to think that a transmission removal and seal replacement would be a job that you could locally source out at some point later.
must be possible to drop the rear crossmember and get access to bolts and slip the trans backwards on the lift in a pro shop.
Anyways, good luck Rich. Don't panic ! You'll be back on the road and enjoying the car !

[RICH MUISE]

Thanks for all the input guys! Although still depressing, I've got my head cleared now and have a plan that may actually work out to let me get my road trip with my son still done. I am broke from all the expenses I've run into the past few months with both my DD and the '57, but fortunately my wife isn't, and she wants me to do what I can to get the '57 ready for the July 20 Thin Air Nationals in Colorado. So...........
My friend at the speed shop is going to do the tranny pull/new seal/reinstall. I'll be working alongside with him in his shop to speed things along, or slow him down, not sure which, lol.. He does have a lift and a transmission jack. He's got a little over a week's worth of work in his shop now that's already committed, but the car should be in his shop the first week in July. A few days max and it should be good to go. The rack has got to come out for that anyway, so I'll have a new one to install  in it's place. We are thinking about reinstalling my old PS pump just in case the new one on there now is putting out too much pressure.........as Guenter said, sometimes issues come up just trying to mate old parts with new.....but there will be a new rack, so not sure if I want to put the old pump on. Kinda the same issue possibly, just reversed.
While I'm waiting to get the car in the shop, I'll start working on the overheat problem and see what I can find. Car has to be running for most of those checks, so today it's off to O'Reilly's for a new supply of fluids. Maybe another bag of speedy-dri, lol.
I just need to keep telling myself this is the same car I had 26K miles of basically trouble free driving, and one screw up isn't gonna change that in the end.

[oldave57]

Rich,

I'm glad to hear that you are pressing forward, particularly for the July event with your son.  That will make the final result even more satisfying when all the little glitches are corrected.

I had a similar installation with an electric cooling fan, trinary switch for AC and temperature switch for engine cooling on my previous 57 Ford (sold it about a year ago when I found a Skyliner that I had always kind of wanted).  On my installation (I'm sure yours is the same) the switches all completed the circuit for the cooling fan in the ground circuit, so the temperature switch, mounted in the intake manifold, had only one terminal and then the circuit was completed when the contact closed to turn on the fan when the temperature reached a preset (I think it was 180-190 F).  The one thing this arrangement needs is to have the engine have a good ground connection to the chassis.  This might be one thing you could check (probably already have, but worth mentioning) is to have a good ground strap connection from the engine block to chassis.  It sounds like your AC trinary switch (closes when the AC head pressures reach a preset pressure, opens when the head pressures are too high, or opens if the pressure is too low indicating an AC refrigerant being too low) is working just fine.

On my installation, I also added an underdash toggle switch so I could manually turn on the cooling fan (I really didn't need to use it because the engine temp switch worked just fine, but I kind of liked to have a manual switch so I could just double check that the fan was working from time to time).  It was easy to add and it gave a little "belt and suspenders" feel for me.

Good luck on your project.  I am sure you will be back on those Texas highways soon.

Dave

[RICH MUISE]

That's on my list to figure out then check. I have two coolant temp outputs. One is a two pole on the back head area and the other is a single pole that is mounted on the front coolant pipe/crossover. I had that pipe powder coated when the engine was apart. I didn't think to do any scrapping of paint when I installed the pipe, I had forgotten about the coolant electrical fitting. When I installed the fitting, I checked the continuity between it and the block and it was good, so I didn't pull it apart to do any scraping. That continuity is one of the things I'll recheck. I'm not sure which of the two fittings feeds what, hopefully there will be a note in the saved wiring instructions.