Disappering Coolant: Fixed!

My testing harness for dashboard warnings lights, which, incidentally can be used for transportation, presented me with a coolant low light.  And, in fact, the coolant was low, so the sensor was accurate.  (I've always been a little frustrated when the first response to an irregular reading from a sensor is to replace the sensor itself rather than the problems being reported by the sensor.) The next question was, where was it going?  A little investigation revealed it was leaking out of a pipe that ran along the bottom of the radiator, connecting the overflow tank to the radiator and pump.  This was less of a mechanical problem and more of a plumbing problem.

I was disappointed in myself because I saw this dodgy pipe while fixing the water pump and thought to myself: "If it's not broke, don't fix it" and just because it looked dodgy didn't mean it actually was dodgy.  I'm guessing that once the system was running at proper pressure, a weakness in the pipe developed into a leak.  Mechanical systems seem to wear as an entire system, so replacing a part exacerbates the wear in others.  After replacing this pipe, the next-weakest part of the pressurized cooling system are the hoses, then radiator and then the engine block itself.

Locating the part itself was a bit of a hassle.  It was only available directly from Ford -- but when you order from Ford you effectively get overnight delivery to a Ford dealer and it so happens there's one just on my way to work.

Out with the Old

Fixing things was straight forward.  I drove the car up onto ramps, no need to lift using a jack and place jack stands.  Drained the radiator into a bucket from the petcock and found my second Imperial fitting on the car a 1/2inch plastic nut serving as the valve for the petcock, gave it a turn and I didn't get that much coolant.  I could still feel the liquid in the other side of the tube so I'll be ready to catch the coolant when I remove the rubber hose. Curiously, I replaced my dishwasher the week before, all of the fittings, hoses, nuts, bolts were Imperial as well.  Maybe the Crown has a lock on plumbing fixtures as well as socket ends?

To do this job, I got a new toy^Wtool. It's a tool specifically designed to open the clamps on radiator hoses.  It was about $18 on Amazon and a bargain at twice the price.  I figured I would need to remove and replace at least six clamps, and some were not easily reachable.  Having the wired extension made removing the clamps easy in that it was able to open them enough to have the stop tab keep them open.  After opening the clamps, removing the hoses was remarkably hassle free. Without this tool, it would have been much more of a struggle.

With all of the clamps opened, I removed the lower hoses, careful to catch the coolant still retained in the system. About another gallon of coolant exited from the bottom of the radiator. Even with my fancy tool, I had trouble reaching the clamp on the lower hose, so I unhooked the oxygen sensor and pulled the pipe still attached to the coolant return hose upward, looking as though I disemboweled my Freestyle.  The last hose clip could now be reached with ease. 

Failed Clamp

Once out of the car, it was also clear that the section of the pipe closest to the water pump took the brunt rust damage.  When tried to remove the fitting around the hose with my tool, I noticed that is was nearly rusted in half and had adhered to to the rubber.  While I didn't
test, I would be surprised if this didn't hold the rubber to the pipe with enough pressure, resulting in yet another leak.  With very little effort I was able to pull the two parts of the clamp away. The nice straight seam in the metal was a bit odd in that I didn't see anything the fitting was resting upon to cause this indentation.

The pipe's integrity was greater than anticipated, as I expected the pipe to simply collapse into pieces, or fracture where they meet the rubber hoses.  Instead, I needed to scrape a little to find the problems: in two places the rust gave away to expose holes in the pipe.  For comparison, I've included a side-by-side picture of the old part and its replacement.

I'm going to guess enough metal remained to hold liquid at STP but not at running conditions.  With the system no longer leaking at the water pump, the system was under much more pressure than before, thus forcing the liquid out while the car was running. The leaking had also corroded one of the hose clamps, reducing it's ability to hold under pressure as well.

I got everything taken apart and the clock struck eleven bells.  Being a work night, I decided to clean-up and get ready for bed.  I was working in garage and it was a warm evening, so I decided to leave the door open and I pushed the bucket of coolant under the car so the cats wouldn't be tempted to imbibe and it would be out of reach of the kids (worried about them kicking it over), as coolant can be re-used.

In with the New

The next day, a little bit of dish soap on the ends and I "test fit" everything back together again, putting a little soap on the ends to make adjustments easier: 

Auto repair isn't my forte (if you've been reading the blog, that's painfully obvious) but plumbing...  I've done enough plumbing to not make the obvious mistakes.  The process of test fitting lets you understand how sets of fittings will work together before actually welding/sweating them into place, making it easy to fix problems.  In the illustration, I've circled the two fittings I needed to turn the other direction so I could reach the bolt head to tighten them.  Here's what it looked like once in the car and I realized I needed to flip things around:

The air filter housing blocked access to the hose going into the water pump, so I removed the 8mm bolt and pulled it from its rubber grommets.  With that out of the way, I reattached the water pump hose, radiator hose, and return hose -- the soap making it easy to position the rubber hoses.  Just like the dishwasher I installed earlier, I "test fit" all of the connections before clamping them into place.  This works so much better than tightening fittings "as you go" because mistakes can be fixed easily.  In my test fitting, I found that I put the bolt heads on the new clamps facing the wrong direction and I needed to twist the hose heading to the water pump about 90 degrees.  Once lined-up I tightened the various clamps (using an 8mm socket) to fix the replacement part into place.  The picture shows use of the hose clamp tool -- it was a real frustration and time saver.

Finishing-up!

It was now I reached for my used coolant and spied a frog, dead and floating about.  I'm pretty sure my cooling system didn't contain any frogs, so this unfortunate amphibian hopped in overnight and couldn't make its way back out again.  I've heard that coolant was supposed to taste good, so much there's an additive to make it less attractive tasting to kids, I wonder other animals can't taste the additive or maybe my garage attracts less fortunate frogs.

Makes you wonder about the prevalence and abundance of life -- it's simply everywhere.  I wonder what bigger livestock has made its way into my garage when the door is left open?  Given the sheer number of deer, raccoons, groundhogs, turkey, squirrels, mice, owls, small children, pheasant, snakes, dogs, and cats spotted in an average week wondering about the yard, I'm betting an open garage attracts more wildlife than I want to know.

State Inspection Complete

Quick update: State inspection is done, along with two tires and an alignment.  Total cost: $397.57, or about $100 shy of the cost of the car.

Here's how we got to that number:

- Two Mastercraft Tires: $215.18
- Installation (balance, disposal, tax): $18.00
- PA State Inspection: $32.00
- PA Emissions Inspection: $35.00
- Alignment: $75.00
- Governor’s Share: $22.39

The inspection was a mere $67.00, the rest of the bill being the tires and much- needed alignment after replacing the outer tie rods.  As you can see in the outer tie rod post, the front-end of my Freestyle sported poorly aligned, well worn, front tires.  These would have needed a replacement for inspection and during that time the shop would have (rightfully and I wouldn't have questioned, as I trust this mechanic) insisted on the tie rod replacement as well.

Mastercraft Tires

Cooper Tire makes the Mastercraft line, where Mastercraft is the "down-market" or discount brand.  Cooper Tire, based in Findlay, OH, due south on I-75 of Corporal Klinger's home town and Tony Packo's base of operations .  Cooper Tire, no longer a public company, was purchased by Apollo Tyres of Gurgaon, India. Despite foreign ownership, my tires were made in the US:

I've had Mastercraft tires on a few of my cars and haven't been all that impressed.  But they're inexpensive and I'm not sure how much longer my Freestyle will carry on, so I'm not sure if the additional tread life of a better tire would be a good bet. Tooling around on them, they ride quiet and the alignment has taken an uncomfortable shake out of the steering wheel and no more squealing as we go around corners at low speed.

Ugg, Marketing

Stay-Puft Michelin Man

The big question is, however, would I really come to the same conclusion about the subjective performance of the tires if they were labeled differently, or even the objective performance?  When somebody from the Marketing Department talks about a "product", it's not just thing itself (called the device), it's all of the advertising and how that information has been interpreted by the consumer and then applied to the device. 

Alf's edible cousin

I've never seen a Mastercraft commercial, so I don't know what to think about this brand, but I have seen lots of Michelin tire adverts.  Michelin tells me their product makes my car safer and that I should trust a cartoon character constructed from tires selling tires the same way I should trust an anthropometric animal selling me food, like a jolly Ameglian Major Cow.

Thinking back on my other tires from Mastercraft, even if they performed the same, would I held a differing opinion if I was primed to view the brand differently?  I feel better about the Continental tires on my VW (also US made), but I don't know if they're objectively better than any other brand. 

Disappearing Coolant

Coolant low light

I got a new light on the dash, this one for low coolant.  It seems like my car is the best test harness for warning light testing on the road today.

Checked the coolant reservoir and it was, in fact, empty, so at least I know the sensor's accurate.  But I didn't see a stream of coolant exiting the car.  The cooling system in a car is of the recirculating variety, so the coolant has just the following places to go:

1- Dripping out of the system
Maybe I did a poor job with the water pump and there's a leak.  But why am I not seeing a puddle of coolant?  Maybe the dripping is slow enough or it's making contact with something hot and evaporating?  But where's the steam? Could the leak be occurring at higher pressure, so when the car is stopped idling at slow speed, no leak?
2- Mixing with the fuel, going out the exhaust
This would be worse.  I'm not seeing the white smoke normally indicating this problem.  The oil looks good as well, this would be milky, as the water in the combustion chamber would mix with the oil causing it to look cloudy.  While I've never done a head gasket, this is the fix for this issue.

Better than out through the tail pipe

I went through about a gallon of coolant over a few hundred miles, each time, before filling, looking for a leak and I didn't see anything dripping.  Then, after a nice drive, I pulled into the driveway and found the coolant overflow reservoir yet again empty.  Looking down, my driveway revealed what was hidden to me so far: a nice deposit of fresh coolant.  Not much, so I know the leak is small, probably worse at speed, as this issue as cropped up as I've been taking the car out for progressively longer trips.

Not much of a leak, but enough...

The top of the engine around the water pump was dry, but under the car I see some drips from under the radiator support.  That's probably where we need to start looking.  When I purchased the car, the prior owner told me it was leaking from radiator, but this didn't seem to be a radiator leak, as this part was dry.

Corroded pipe

I filled coolant reservoir at the end of the day and the next morning it was empty.  There's a hose leading away from the reservoir and it joins with a metal "T" joint that looks to be in bad shape and leaking.  The T joint joins the overflow, bottom of the radiator and water pump inlet.  Why something that could corrode like metal?  The parts counter guy and I were discussing and we think it's due to the proximity to the exhaust manifold.  This makes sense.  The reason for using such an inferior material like regular steel probably boiled-down to cheapness on the part of Ford.

Here's a close-up from under the car.   I needed to remove the air dam, held in place by some 8mm bolts and those dastardly plastic screw rivets.  Once removed, I could get a clear line of sight on the problem.

The most leaking seems to be on the end of the pipe heading to the water pump, but the amount of moisture on the pipe itself seems to imply leaking from several spots or it has become porous.  I ordered a replacement (about $40 from FordParts.com, the "official" Ford site seemed to be the only place I could get this) and I should have things back together in a few days.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to State Inspection

My Freestyle's due for PA inspection.  In my county, I'm required to get both a "safety" inspection and an emissions inspection.  The Freestyle was in need of new front tires due to very poor alignment and problems with the outer tie rods, so I had that done at the same time.  I take my cars to a local, trusted mechanic -- his guys do a great job when I need repairs when I don't have the time, tools or ability to get them done myself.

My car was finished -- but the dead battery resulted in the engine not being ready for emissions inspection.  Apparently, the way dead battery resulted in the emissions information being cleared from the computer and I hadn't driven it enough for the engine to accumulate enough data for the emissions testing equipment. This problem was easy to solve, I just needed to drive the car a bit.

That Burning Smell

And that's where my troubles began.  As I rolled up to a red light, I could smell something burning and that's when, in the still morning air, I could see the smoke pluming from the right side of my hood.  And the smell, it wasn't oil, it wasn't electrical components burning it was... I just didn't know. So I parked it and headed off to work.  That night, when I started it, the battery light was on and no power steering. A little more riding around and the smell and smoking returned.

Sniff again.  I've oft heard smell triggers memories better than any other sense.  Thanksgiving's

Not the problem

melody of sage, rosemary and pepper, the cheap perfume cacophony of your grandmother's friends at her funeral, the scent of your wife's hair on your wedding day: just one whiff transports you there, like it was yesterday, like it was the present.  The scent of a car's electrical system self-immolation puts be back in 1998 when, with a toddler and a two-week old, a flashing check-engine light and a small puff of smoke preceded the one-alarm destruction of our trusty Mazda Protege.  This smell was similar, but new, and not the odor of impending flames. Maybe.

Overflowing Power Steering

Leaking power steering
reservoir

Once in the garage, I popped the hood and noticed first, the power steering fluid was leaking from the cap.  Then a close look at the accessory belt made it clear the source of the problems: it was broken.  The belt drives the alternator (resulting in the battery light) and the power steering pump.
Without the power steering pump running, the fluid overflows the reservoir and leaks over the top of the engine (according to the experts at myfordfreestyle), producing the burning smell and smoke.

Broken Belt

Removing the belt was easy enough, just grab it and pull.  But... before doing that, I made a diagram of the belt's route around the various pulleys. Since the belt was broken, I needed to guess a little, but with most of the belt in the right position, not much was left to the imagination.

The access to the front of the engine would be excellent if it not for an air conditioning line running over the top of the engine, so I don't think I could install the new belt from the top, I would need access from the bottom of the engine.  The next best way to get enough access to the pulleys would be through the wheel well on the passenger's side.  So up went the car and off came the tire.

Easy as 1,2,3!

Plastic Rivets: Defeated!

To get reasonable access to the pulleys, I would need to remove the inner fender, affixed to the car with my nemesis fastener. This time, I would not succumb to frustration and decapitate them, but I would figure out how to remove them -- there must be a way.

After a little futzing, I had an answer: slowly back out the screw, pry under the screw head to pull it away from the fastener base, then pull the fastener out by the base.  Some of the road grime made this a little difficult, but I managed to remove them all in this manner, saving me a few bucks at the auto store for a new set of fasteners.  Not sure if this is the "official" method of removal, but it worked.

As the Pulley Turns

Inner fender removed

Inner fender out and with access to all of the pulleys, I tested each to see if they spun freely, with the exception of the crankshaft pulley.  Alternator was OK as well as the power steering pump.  The AC however didn't want to budge and this was cause for concern.  If the AC unit's pulley froze, that would have broken the belt.  Depending on the AC unit, even if the compressor clutch is disengaged, the pulley takes more force to turn than expected.  I just hoped this wasn't the problem and went ahead with the belt installation, which lead to the next problem.

Belt diagram I made earlier

To install the belt, it looked like the plastic guard over the AC pulley needed to be removed. The bolts wore 8mm heads, easily reachable with an extension. Started turning, and turning when it became clear the bolts were stripped.  The bolts ran through plastic and the prior mechanic just kept tightening until the threads disappeared.  That means, I should have been able to apply some pressure to the back of the bolt and it would slip out, but for me, no luck. Strange. I tried wedging a screwdriver between the two plastic pieces secured by the bolt, no luck there either, this was sort of weird, I wonder what's holding that bolt in place?  When I reached for a cutting tool I knew it was time for a break. So I went biking with my kid on the Butler-Freeport Trail.  Did all 42 miles! 

Belt Installation, No Cutting Required

Looking at the problem with fresh eyes, I saw enough room to push the belt between the pulley and cover, using a prying tool to do the job. Then it was on to the rest working counter-clockwise: power steering, alternator, crankshaft and then a slack loop held by the tensioner. 

Getting the belt around the the camshaft and tensioner proved to be somewhat difficult.  The tensioner is a pulley on a spring, that applies force to keep the serpentine belt taut.  When changing belts, you need to push against the tensioner's spring that effectively reducing the length the belt needs to travel, giving slack for installation or removal. I have a tool designed for this purpose, a 1/4in square drive end on a thin piece of metal.  I drafted my youngest kid to apply force so I could loop the belt over the tensioner and camshaft, but the new belt was tight enough that I needed to use the back my pry bar to slip the belt over the crankshaft pulley. Done!

Mark on AC pulley

Fired-up the car, and listened for the squeal of a stuck belt.  Turned-on the AC, heard the clutch engage and the extra load on the engine, no tell-tale stuck-belt squealing.  Just to make sure, I stopped the engine and put a little whiteout mark on the AC pulley so I could see if it turned.  Engine running again and white dot gone, I convinced myself the old belt just wore-out at an opportune time.

Put the inner fender back into place, with some satisfaction that I was able to re-use the fasteners and back on with the tire.  Took the car out for a few rides, let's hope it has enough miles for the emissions test to be run.

Dead battery

While in my garage for a few days, I left the map lights on in the car.  The result: a dead battery.  Not just a "sort of dead battery" that has enough current to run some of the electronics in the car, it was a "really dead battery" that didn't have enough juice to do much of anything.

Push then Jump

The Freestyle was in the garage, head first and my jumper cables couldn't reach from my running car to the dead battery.  To get the Freestyle within jumper cable range, I needed to push it out of the garage, which meant I needed to put the car in neutral.  For your safety (no sarcasm, this is a great safety feature), cars include an interlock between the brake and shifter, requiring your foot on the brake before you can shift into gear.  The interlock is a switch and a solenoid on the shifter to release a pin to allow the shifter to move -- a classic design requiring electricity to work, and, as it happens, my car was absent enough electrons to do the job. 

Sure, disassemble the dashboard

No problem!  Cars include an override for just this event.  Most of the time, it's next to the shifter accessible with a valet key or screwdriver, kept under a little panel held in place by coffee and Cheetos residue.  After searching, and searching, I resorted to an act of true desperation: I read the manual (gasp!).  Whereupon I found instructions on page 198 that seemed to be telling me to disassemble the center console.  Really?  Yes.

Here's what I needed to do.  Took about 15 minutes, about 14 minutes longer than it should have.

1. Safety
Before you start, belt and suspenders!  Apply the parking brake and put a chock on both sides of a wheel.  This keeps the car from drifting forwards or backwards.  This is the wrong time to discover the slope of your garage/driveway faces the house/pool/orphanage as two tons of car rolls about uncontrolled.  If stuck on an incline, this is one of the times I'd recommend seeking professional assistance. Also, I feel the need to point out once the car starts rolling, just get out of the way, you're not going to stop it, you'll just get run over.

2. Removing a trim panel from around the shifter
For this job, I deployed my Harbor Freight nylon prying tools.  There's a set for just interior trim, but the "all purpose" set live up to their name.  

3. Removing the console (use two hands, pull upwards!)
Looks dirty under there.  I also found some receipts and a debit card hiding in this area. Not really sure how these got to their final resting spot, there's not much of a gap between the console and the rest of the dashboard.  But stuff has a habit of getting where it doesn't belong.

 

A bunch of plastic clips like what you see below hold the center console in place, they look like they're designed to tolerate occasional removal, so somebody in the depths of the engineering department expected this to happen over the life of the car, or maybe this is what they had in the CAD system's collection of fasteners and the valued engineering resource responsible for this part just did a cut/paste before heading out to lunch.

4. Loosening a screw to remove a safety cover over the switch, press button
The safety cover with a screw underneath the center console seems like the result of some regulation, or lawsuit, or maybe I'm witnessing some serious over-engineering.

There's the button!  Just press while also pressing the release on the gear shifter and we're in neutral.  From the pictures, you might notice it being a bit dirty, this picture fully documents the crud hiding in the center console gear shift:

I sprayed with liberal mounts of LA's Totally Awesome Cleaner I used for the rest of the interior and put my best efforts into making this cleaner.  

Off we go

Removed wheel blocks and pushed car out of the garage after releasing the parking brake.  This is a two person job, have somebody sitting in the car ready to press the brakes. Jumping the car was uneventful.  (Yes, I was very careful to attach the last cable far away from the dead battery.)  Re-assembly didn't require much effort and my car's just a little bit cleaner as well. Might want to stash a cheap Phillips head screwdriver in the glove compartment, just in case you need to do this in the field.