Hello everyone, very new here and here is my story, yesterday went with a friend to hang out and it was night with the streets clear so i decided to push the pedal to floor and just revved the engine down a street and after a quick stop we noticed a lot of white smoke, we just thought it was the exhaust and shrugged it of since it was a cold night, the we proceeded and after 5 minutes we stopped at a light and there was a ton of white smoke coming from the drivers side like i had a fog machine attached and it was going off, again we shrugged it off until 10 mins later i felt the car shaking and the overheating temp sign showed and the needle was all the way to the "hot" area while giving it some gas and thought something was off so we pulled over and to my dismay it wasn't the exhaust but the engine.

we popped the hood and so much smoke was coming from the middle area "the block" we called where the head gasket is located and we had no clue what just happened or what was happening and we called up a friend who had some knowledge and we followed directions and let the engine cool, it was very dark and hard to see what was going on at the time and did not know that there was antifreeze all over the engine at this time, we tried starting it and it wouldn't start; sounded terrible but we tried and tried and got it going after the 4th try or so while giving it some gas, immediately the whit smoke started showing through and 5 seconds into driving the temp needle went from cold to hot quick but we kept going as he lived about 5 minutes away and barely made it home as the car was about to stutter as we arrived in his driveway.

There was so much white smoke giving of a weird smell i cant describe when we opened the hood again and we left it to the next morning. the following morning we could see all the antifreeze everywhere and opened up the antifreeze container to find it completely empty!

well i was told it could be a serious of things that could be my problem and there's a high chance its my head gasket and he said it might cost me around $1000 to replace if that's it or worse, even more expensive depending on what else i might have damaged.

i was told the gasket is around $200 its just the labor that's costly and was wondering if i could do the process,(i have no mechanical background, just an 18 yo with neck high bills and no extra cash to pay for the fix) with a lot of patience and very careful and precise dis-assembly/assembly but then i was told something about how there's a chance of coolant in the pistons and i would have to take care of that and that's another story as i was told i could need to get the pistons realigned with my car or something like that, any suggestions or comments would be lifesaving, Thank you.

Fyi: its a 2005 Ford Mustang Deluxe 2dr Coupe 4.0L 6cyl with almost 123,000 miles

 

Welcome to the forums!

Now... not to be a jerk about things, but I don't suppose you could, I don't know, edit that so it's not one long run on sentence, and maybe make it a couple of paragraphs, so our eyes don't hurt?



But just from the first couple of... words... I'm going to go with..

um...

...maybe?

/Seriously, help us old timers out...

 

You have one of two choices as I see it. Fork out the cash and have it fixed or do the work your self.
It may be a head gasket but who's to say until someone digs into it.
A big factor is time and do you have the time. Also do you have a backup ride.
Even if you have someone fix it for you, your still going to need a ride.
The sooner you get it fixed the better. The longer you wait the harder it will be on you.
Do you have the tools?
You could sell it cheap and move onto a different ride.
Wish you the Best of luck.
Did it sound cool before it popped?

 

Check the oil. Is it cloudy? If a head gasket blew, there's a good chance that antifreeze and oil could intermix. You'd see this in the oil. It would look lighter than usual, and cloudy. I had an intake gasket fail on my '96 Monte Carlo and it churned the oil into a chocolate milk shake (same color and consistency). If your oil is contaminated it's a pretty sure sign the gasket blew. If the oil looks normal, it might not be your problem (but no guarantee).

You can rent a compression tester from Autozone or Advance Auto Parts. Another good diagnosis of a blow head gasket is one or more cylinders will be down on compression.

With all that anti-freeze everywhere....Any sign of a leaking coolant hose?

 

I have had them blow without much coolant mixing with oil.
A lot of white smoke, and then very clean cylinder was what I saw when I tore it apart.
The gasket had only broken between the cylinder and the water jacket, no oil involved except in the cylinder.

 

Yea it sounded cool , my plan now is to get it towed to a friends dad's dealer and get it checked out by some technicians and if its a reasonable cost ill pay but if its $500 plus fix (i was told it's $1000 for head gasket) i would like to do the work myself i have plenty of tools and can spare time,

yes i have second temporary ride, don't want to sell if i don't have to but if i do i will.

my only problem is I've never worked on a car and have been told its a timely process but I'm willing to do it if i can get the right guidance. (maybe video)

 

Interesting.. May i ask what was the cost of fix and the time you put in?

 

Well car isn't with me at the moment so i cant check oil(still at friends, getting it diagnosed on Monday)

yes we checked for leaks in hose but found none, we could have missed it though.. I have my fingers crossed it isn't the head gasket and its something minor

 

I don't think the costs from 1981 would help you much.
I just took a day off from work and fixed it.
I am mechanically inclined, so even though I was young (older than you are now) I just followed the manual.

 

I think you are looking at a lot more than 500 labor- and 'never worked on a car' diving into a variable cam timing/overhead cam engine sounds like a less than ideal chance of success... hate to 'be negative' towards anyone with the initiative to grab the bull by the horns and get to work, but this is a kinda advanced thing to get into to say the least- at best find a buddy thats a ford tech/has done one before, a lot could go wrong resulting in a destroyed engine.

note- your V6 has three timing chains- these V6 engines have been made since 1965, and back in the late 90's they wanted a low investment OHC V6, so the german plant got revised castings they could mostly run on existing tooling... cheapest way was three chains- one runs a 'dummy' cam in the block, and a front sprocket off it runs one head...the rear of the engine has a sprocket that drives the other head, and that one requires pulling the motor to access- its not simple like a old pushrod V6 job- or even a typical front drive OHC V6... hopefully youll find its something simple- these engines are known for blowing their plastic thermostat housings, perhaps thats all it is- havent heard of many (at all) head gasket failures... good luck

ps- running the engine dry even 5 minutes likely hurt it at least to some extent...

unsure if the Cologne V6 has the same programming(check owners manual) as the GT, but I know the V8 PCM had the same ability as the old Caddy/Northstar to alternate firing every other rev to allow a 50 mile run without any coolant, and reduced output/blowing air thru would protect from severe overheating that ruins valvesprings/valves/piston rings/etc... but even then requires immediate oil change as at best it cooks the oil.

 

Probably the head gasket. Here is my issue though. If the car was hot, why would you try and drive it!? You may have gone from a simple gasket change to an entire engine rebuild.

 

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from...ngine&_sacat=0

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2005-2006-20...xWBGNi&vxp=mtr

 

i Totally Agree driving the car dry may have made it worse but i had no idea what was wrong and being incompetent of course is costing me big time!

Hopefully its not as bad as it sounds and if it is i might as well get another engine to replace for the cost of labor replacing that head gasket.

 

I really hope it is the Thermostat or a minor problem if not i might as well save for a while (more like months with my current situation) and buy another engine with lower miles to replace this one if it is very bad in the worst case scenario.

 

Thanks man i didn't even think about replacing the engine as an option (i might as well if the cost of fixing is about the same as another engine with significantly lower miles).

but...even if i buy the engine, how much will it cost me to get the engine replaced since (obviously) it's been pushed onto me that i shouldn't be fixing anything without experience as i could screw it up?

any estimate?

 

didnt mean to say you shouldnt be fixing anything- was just trying to say a 4.0 with its weird timing set likely would mean pulling the engine and a lot more work than just popping a head off a old pushrod version...

swapping the engine might sound like major surgery, but not really- just heavy stuff so you will need a hoist, but otherwise- basic hand tools and a weekend, a buddy or two and its not bad at all- even 'fun' maybe, and chances of success should be near 100% with just a little care...I was 16 first time I swapped a motor, and got away with it, had absolutely no idea what I was doing a few months later helped a friend swap a motor in his truck- learned a valuable lesson: make sure if its going in a stickshift application you add a pilot bearing to the big hole in the crank thats there on automatics...yep, damaged the tranny, had to pull it back out(4wd-not fun) and replace input shaft bearing and the snout...another buddy dropped a air cleaner stud(!6" long!) into his motor and DROVE it to my house so I could hear the knocking- we pulled the valvecover, found one valve stick(bent) pulled the head and saw the aircleaner stud stuck under a intake valve- like how in the heck he managed to drop THAT into the manifold when rebuilding his carb??? (of course piston was hammered all to heck) pulled the motor and dropped in a junkyard one the next day...

swapping a motor isnt as bad as it seems, just be sure everythings the same, and keep the ports taped up to prevent Foreign Object Damage...and dont forget to untape- a guy at work told me he had stuffed shoprags in his intake, when redoing a carb, missed one and put his carb on, fired it up, minutes later the rag got under a valve and ruined his motor... aside from stupid/'in a hurry' mistakes, swaps are not that bad at all

 

Yea swapping out a 6 popper probably wouldn't be bad at all. You can't plug anything in the wrong plug. Take pictures before starting and bag the nuts and bolts so you can identify where they came from later. You can rent a cherry picker.