Noob starting at 19.6MPG in '00 Ford Explorer

[ecocruze]

Just had what I would call a record trip. If mpg display on dash is going to be consistent at 2+ mpg low like last tank trip from cold start was 30+ mpg. Previous tank at 27.6 the dic was reading 24.7 for the full tank. Hoping that will hold true. 30 mpg explorers are rare lol

[cajunfj40]

30mpg is really good! I still need to get a feedback device.

Me, I finally installed the front shocks and swaybar end links I bought a while back. In the process, I found that I've got more coolant leaks.

Passenger side looks like timing cover gasket. Dribbled down block and made a nice perfect little droplet on the end of that corner oil pan bolt. Driver side I can't tell as well - could be timing cover, could be water pump. Also making a droplet on an oil pan bolt.

Both could also be head gasket or lower intake manifold gasket, hard to tell, won't have a good chance to check from cold start until next weekend. Odd thing was, truck was dry when I parked it in the garage - but when I cranked the engine and ran it just long enough to turn the wheels to one side so I could get tools in better, I saw the leak. At least it isn't using much.

(I can't turn the wheels without the engine running or the power steering gets VERY unhappy and will randomly throw a death-wobble tantrum until the air is all bled out. Something to do with the Explorer power steering rack design.)

Poked at the rear O2 sensor wiring - found a frayed spot in the sheath over the wires, but nothing busted or cut. Couldn't find a worn spot in the wire insulation itself, either. Unplugged and replugged the harness, but haven't checked to see if it has woken up from previous constant 0.0V output yet.

At least the truck doesn't do the "bouncy, bouncy, bouncy" bad shocks thing over large bumps anymore.

Thinking real hard about using Bar's Leaks' "Head Gasket Repair" on this thing. Requires draining, flushing, filling with the stuff + water, bleeding out the air, going through a few heat cycles, then drain, flush and re-fill with coolant. Anybody have any experience with this stuff? It isn't the "drop in" stuff, so no major particulates or sludge-generators, but pretty much the highest concentration of sodium silicate you can get off the shelf unless you search out pure stuff. $12 or so, too, so not very expensive like some of the other brands.

[ecocruze]

Can't help in regards to the head gasket patch kit. Don't know anyone who has tried it. Hope someone can chime in and give u advice on it. I would say don't go cheap on it and look into the product as much as u can. Someone has to have some diy out there or words of wisdom. Glad ur suspension troubles are over though. Mine still needs some TLC from a wrench or 2. In regard to mpg I'm looking to try something I read earlier. Another X guy reported adjusting the parking brake out gained nearly 1 mpg over the course of 5 tanks after the adjustment. Worth a shot it's a pretty simple job from the looks of it.

[Xist]

Shouty Kilmore has several videos promoting stop leak products. Eric the Car Guy has one showing what happened when a customer tried it. It still needed a head gasket replacement, but now it needed the rest of the system replaced.

Some people swear by them, or insist one is good, but the rest are bad, but regardless of how closely you follow the directions, if it does not work, they insist you did not follow the directions.

I replaced the head gasket on my Forester. It was a pain, but I knew it would work right afterward. It cost me $500 in parts and tools.

There is much more evidence that it will do damage than there is that it will help.

[cajunfj40]

Well, I did at least do a compression check on cylinder 3. 150 psi cold, throttle shut, all other plugs still in. So the bore is probably still good, meaning it is likely a solid short block. Set of heads is $560, bolts and gaskets another $200, rocker arms and pushrods another $250, water pump since it has to come off, oil pump since I ought to drop the pan getting into it this far, etc.

I just need to go over the prices and figure out whether it's worth it to me (not on paper - this truck is worth maybe $500 since it has already been totaled) to fix it right, or to swap in a newer engine, just drive it, or just get something else. Honestly not sure what I want to do with it. Going to do something about the rear O2 sensor next, maybe try and find the evap system leak.

The real problem is likely something along the lines of "it isn't an FJ-40, but those don't have crumple zones, they cost 10x what they used to, and I've got a family depending on me." Adulting is hard sometimes.

[oil pan 4]

Head gasket patch is what you use to get the vehicle sold.
They don't work.
It's more of a temporarily repair till you can get it fixed right. This head gasket rear stuff doesn't stop the leak, it just slows it down.

Not fixing a bad head gasket as soon as possible will lead to cylinder wash down with coolant, which will taper it, then after you fix it you will be burning oil.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by cajunfj40

Adulting is hard sometimes.

Indeed!

[cajunfj40]

Hello oil pan 4,

Head gasket patch is what you use to get the vehicle sold.
They don't work.
It's more of a temporarily repair till you can get it fixed right. This head gasket rear stuff doesn't stop the leak, it just slows it down.

I'm thinking of it more for a cracked head vs. a blown head gasket. These Cologne OHV v-6's are apparently prone to cracking the heads (though less so on these last few years), causing coolant leaking into the combustion chamber. Symptoms are the same as a blown head gasket in that cylinder, except without the oil/coolant mix. With the other coolant leaks, there's more going on than just a crack, so I need to pull the head for sure. Any idea how much of a mess the sodium-silicate "water glass" based head gasket fix products make for the guy replacing the gaskets after it has been used? Not the drop-in stop leak goop, the stuff you have to do with water only, then flush out and replace with coolant after 2 heat cycles.

Not fixing a bad head gasket as soon as possible will lead to cylinder wash down with coolant, which will taper it, then after you fix it you will be burning oil.

Yes, I need to fix it. Trying to figure out how much it needs so I can do the right repair at the least cost. Cost-effective, so to speak. Unfortunately there's no way to check for a cracked head until it is off, and I don't want to spend ~$500 on new heads if the short-block is bad, nor do I want to put shiny new heads on a leaky old short-block. Doing all that work and still having leaks would really make me mad.

So, still working on this thing. Drives nice when it isn't missing. Never overheats. Starts easy.

I tried to do a leak-down test this past weekend. Half a day spent swearing and getting bruised and scratched in the garage and no reliable results. I need to get at a minimum new o-rings for my cylinder adapter, as I strongly suspect I am not getting a decent seal there. The late-model 4.0 OHV Cologne V6 heads take a long-reach 14mm, with the threads in the bottom half of the well, so the regular adapter doesn't fit and my slightly longer one probably engages 2-3 turns at most.

I'll probably try picking up a spark-plug non-fouler to use as an intermediary. It will provide a taper-seat seal to the cylinder head, and an easily cleaned surface for the o-ring on the leak-down adapter to seal against. Then I can mark the harmonic balancer so I can get the engine on TDC properly for each cylinder's compression stroke. I know I got it close - I hooked up the adapter, put a longer hose on it, climbed under the truck, put a ratchet on the nose of the crank and turned it over until I felt/heard compression out the end of the hose. Then kept turning until I couldn't get more air to come out. Problem is, I believe it rotated backward until a valve opened whenever I tried to test it, because I got hissing out the intake at 15psi input on cylinders 1-3, all I had time to do. Gads is it painful to pull and replace plugs/plug wires on this engine! A/C reciever/dryer and lines plus heater lines and valve and blower housing on the passenger side, A/C lines and EGR lines/valve plus brake booster on the driver side.

Pretty sure I did confirm a connection between at least cylinder 3 and the water jacket. I built pressure in the system and pushed out at least a cup of fluid. No bubbles - just a bit of pressure release when pulling the cap and an "upwelling" of fluid.

After I ran out of time, I put the plug from Cylinder 4 into Cylinder 3 and put a new one in 4 while buttoning things up. I was just going to swap between 3 and 4 and see if the misfire moved with the plug from #3, but I preferred no miss (at least for a while) to a moved miss. Plugs look pretty evenly clean except #3, which is tannish/reddish. No fuzz, just colored. ~2,500-2,800 or so on the plugs. No oil-soaked plugs.

The possibility of a cracked head is worrying, mostly from the perspective of "if I plan to just swap the gaskets/head bolts and I find cracked head(s) I'm without a truck until I get un-cracked head(s) and find time to work on it again". Plus I can't replace the pan gasket with the engine in the truck unless I at least drop the front diff. I also don't want to put a bunch of new gaskets/new or rebuilt heads on a worn-out shortblock. Been pricing used engines locally. U-Pull is ~$260 with warranty, $160 without. Other pre-pulled yards are ~$300-$800 "ran good" or "tested" or "150 all" with 150-250k miles on them. Thinking about trying to get a shot at a decent shortblock I can tidy up in prep to swap in, and 2 more heads that might not be cracked. Any warrantied engine I get a chance to test at home and take back if it is "bad" beyond their warranty conditons.

Hard part is getting the heads crack-checked. Maybe I can get lucky and be able to pressure-test a used engine and it doesn't have blown head gaskets. I don't want to replace the head gaskets twice just to check for cracks, and if I take the heads in to get crack-checked, they need to be cleaned, and they ought to have the valves done, etc. and pretty soon why didn't I buy new heads?

This is an intentionally low-dollar vehicle. I'm paying myself in tools to the tune of what the labor estimates are to get various things done, it's the only way I can justify putting any money into it at all. It won't get a $1650+ remanufactured long block, that's for sure. A used "ok" engine, a good gasket set, pick-the-best of what I have for valvegear, manifolds and heads from the two engines, though? Maybe. Might even fool around with seeing if I can clearance an intake manifold to drop straight down over the cam sensor. Pain in the butt to have to drop it down to 1/4" off touching, then scooch it back 1/2", then drop it the rest of the way onto the thick beads of goop that seal the valley. Or use the cheaper 1-piece gasket that's got steel carriers.

Hard to justify much when there are less-rusty and more importantly less-totaled trucks out there for <$2,000. Sunk costs are going to eat me alive on this thing if I don't take a step back and make a plan. At least after the initial spend most of the cost has been tools I get to keep.

[cajunfj40]

Hello all,

OK, so I'm still driving this thing. Averaging around 18mpg commuting. Gets about 2,500-3,000 miles before it starts to intermittently miss and idle rough, then I change the spark plug on #3. Last time that happened, I tossed a spark plug anti-fouler on it, now I get an odd noise that seems engine-speed-related. Could be pinging? Dunno. Need to get some round-tuits together and yank that anti-fouler to see if it changes. Ran great for a while despite the noise, now it's rough again - and sooner than last time.

Found a slight coolant leak around the thermostat housing, tightened the bolts, stopped it. No more coolant smell. Doesn't seem to be using any coolant right now, which is odd if it has a crack in the head. Burning oil smell seems gone, too - guess what was leftover spillage after I redid all the manifold gaskets and valve cover gaskets finally burned off?

Picked up a 1997 Explorer, also a manual trans, including renting a truck and tow-dolly, for under $600. It has about the same mileage, and the engine is a drop-in swap except for some sensors and such. Fully compatible with the stock computer, Y-pipe, etc. Has reciepts for a new clutch, new hydraulic throwout bearing and master, resurfaced flywheel, new front hubs, new brakes all around, new shocks all around, fresh fluids, etc. Think it also has a new EGR valve, too. Has a bad transfercase, is why it was so cheap. Plus it's got no rocker panels left and a crappy flat-black rattle-can paint job. It also has freshly rebuilt axles with 4:10 gears, new seals, and an LSD in the rear, plus a set of lift rear shackles, and a set of basically new Kenda Klever MT 32x11.5R15 mud tires on new black steel rims with the right backspacing. They fit the wheelwells nicely, only a bit of rubbing evident. Some extra tightening of the torsion bar adjusters in front was done to level it out and clear the tires.

It was cheaper to buy the whole truck than all those new parts would have been - the tires and wheels alone would cost about that!

Bought it to get the engine so I could refurbish that one, and then just do a like-for-like engine swap over a weekend. Being able to work on the engine on a stand outside the vehicle will be much easier than trying to swap heads in the truck. Plus I can get to *all* the seals, so the darn thing won't leak at all. Not sure whether to splurge for new rocker arms/pushrods while I have it apart - these things have bad rocker oiling, so they wear the pushrod sockets and tops of pushrods out, making for a ticking noise that sounds like a lifter that hasn't pumped up yet. Hopefully this shortblock is sound.

No success on doing a leakdown test yet - mainly because no time to do it right. Too much going on, and it is a royal pain to get the sparkplugs out to do. Anyone have any experience with a good swivel or universal type 5/8" spark plug socket? I can get a "plain" one - standard universal joint type connection built into an overall ~3" long socket so I can get a wrench right up and personal with the socket, or add extensions as needed. Then there are the beefier "impact" style ones, an inch or so longer, that seem to be a ball and socket type joint that can't flex as far. Then there's the "magnetic swivel" ones, basically the same as the impact ones but less heavy duty and a bit longer - minimum is I think 4", but have 6" and 11" ones.

Added it all up a few weekends ago - net all-in including fluids and chemicals and gloves and whatnot, not including tools, I've got about $3400 into the pair of trucks. Sunk costs, but this is supposed to be a "hobby restart" - if I could find time to do anything. House projects piling up, etc...

Lots of plans. Too many plans. Need to simplify. This isn't really the "right" truck, so it isn't worth sinking a lot more money into, but it is cheap, and I already have it. I just need to plan out the build to get it done with a minimum of hassle and additional part spend. I have all the right parts to put together a midly lifted beefy mud-tire equipped truck, with an LSD rear and proper gearing for the tires. I only need to spend on some bushings and gaskets and rubber parts for engine mounts and the like, plus maybe a few trim pieces. Got to test the power steering pump to see if it is less noisy than mine, and if it is, it gets swapped in, too.

Ecomodder-related content: When I swap out all the bits, I'll be draining and re-filling fluids, so I'll get to do a synthetic swap! I also have a spare radiator and fan shroud, so I can cobble together and test-fit an electric fan setup in the spare truck that'll be easy to drop in when I do the engine swap. Parts Truck came with a reasonably OK fairly new DVD-player type stereo that has bluetooth, and speaks iPhone, so it will display whatever app your phone is using. I can get one of a number of vehicle gauge applications and a dongle and have a good screen for gauges, if at radio level. Or craigslist it and put the cash towards a ScanGauge and a phone cradle.

At some point I should dig around and find a cheap 12V power steering pump, just enough to keep air out of the system to avoid deathwobble. Then I can try EOC.

Aeromods - I can probably remove the roof rack easily enough. Parts truck has all the factory skidplates my truck lacks, so those will go on and provide places to hang coroplast or similar material "full-length skidplate templates" AKA aero belly pans. Question: any advantage to a "high in the rear" rake vs. level for aero? I have found that the rear air "helper shocks" my truck has need about 40-50psi in them to keep the truck level - I think someone twisted the front torsion bars up for a lift. Swapping from the helper shocks to a lift shackle will make for a non-pressure-dependant 1 to 1.5" lift in the rear vs. stock. Some kind of quick-disconnect airdam could be in the offing, too. Might be interesting to test A vs B with an airdam for my commute.

Already running at ~40-42PSI on the tires. Due to the hard ride, I had to stop driving on the dirt road, though, even though it was an effective shortcut of relatively constant 35mph vs. stop and go on the 55mph paved road. Right rear leaf spring shackle is cracked in two spots and bending a bit - best to keep from hammering it so it can last until I put the lift shackles on.

General eco-driving, well, not doing much of anything right now. My schedule is totally messed up, watching tenths of an hour, so I'm "going with the flow" instead of setting the cruise. Should be able to fix that in about 3 weeks or so, at least. Oddly, it hasn't affected mpg that much, if at all. Even with some hard pulls out of my subdivision to get up to 55mph ahead of traffic. I know putting the lower gears and heavier/wider mud terrain tires on will sap some efficiency, so I'll have to put some work into eco-driving to get that back. Should be an interesting game.

That's enough yammering for now.

[cajunfj40]

Ok, so update on the 2000 Explorer (Green Truck).

Back in May, I lost the clutch slave cylinder pulling out of the parking lot at work. Drove home without a clutch, parked it, and borrowed the MIL's truck for the rest of the day. White Car's battery was stone dead, so put it on the charger overnight. Next day, was able to shuffle the vehicles around a bit and started driving White Car again. Lucky me, didn't get around to selling it.

Drove White Car for ~4 months before I got all the good parts swapped over from the 1997 Explorer (Black Truck) to get Green Truck going again. Black Truck donated a resurfaced flywheel, new clutch master and slave, new clutch/throwout bearing, functional rear O2 sensor, front part of the muffler pipe (flange on Green Truck was rotting off), misc. nuts and bolts to replace rusted/busted ones, etc. Pulled all the rocker panel trim off Green Truck and could not put it back on - rust had consumed necessary mounting holes. Cleaned up a few bits in front and painted them a non-matching green I got free at the local Re-Use center. Managed to put a nice cut in my scalp by dropping a driveshaft on it while putting loctite on the bolts I hadn't put into it yet. Swapped over a few misc. slightly better parts off Black Truck, too. Got it going and it smoked like mad burning out all the crud that went into the manifolds and pipes while working at getting bolts loose. Once all that cleared up it ran fine. Running RWD/2WD for now because I left the front driveshaft off - busted bolt in the front mounting flange, with a busted-off EZ-Out in it. Pay someone for an hour and a half of labor to swap on a better flange and hope the bearing preload turns out OK, or wait until I "have time" (ha ha ha) and just swap over the rebuilt axles from Black Truck?

Drove Green Truck for about a month like that, Check Engine light went on for a bit after the smoke and then went out and stayed out - no more rear 02 sensor code! Figured out something, too: my mpg tank to tank varies a lot partly because those air shocks in the rear are extremely inconsistent in terms of angle the tank sits at - and thus how much gas is in a tank when it is "full". Only getting about 16 something MPG or so average. Not horrible, but not great either.

Monday morning before driving to work I lost the rear brakes - after it being fine while moving the vehicles around to shovel the driveway on Sunday. Haven't taken a close look yet, but it looks like the hard line on the rear axle has developed a severe leak. Black Truck has a completely new rear brake system on a rebuilt rear axle - I "just" need to undo 24 bolts, two flare fittings and two parking brake cable connectors, tear apart the Black Truck parking brakes to get the levers freed up properly (Green Truck also has new rear brakes, but has the same parking brake problem...), and swap them over. If I do that, though, I might as well swap over the front axle too so they match and I can re-install the front driveshaft and have 4WD again. That's a lot more work...

Driving White Car again. Lucky again - haven't gotten around to selling it yet. Needs an oil change, even though it burns enough to replace all 4 quarts via top-ups every 5,000 miles or so. Still drives good, gets 30+mpg. Will need brakes in the spring. Getting noisier, too. Rust holes are getting bigger, and it rides like crap with the blown struts.

The garage bay Green Truck lived in for 4 months being worked on is now full of stuff, so it's stuck outside in the increasingly inclement weather we have here in a MN winter. I can't just move the stuff back in the house - it came out of the house so we could sell it cheap. Decent desk and chest of drawers, or I'd just pitch 'em. Trying to flog them cheap on one of those neighborhood sale sites. Then I have no idea how long Green Truck will be in the garage this time around.

I have a serious "sunk costs" problem on my hands, as there's no economical way to fix Green Truck without doing all the labor myself, using the good parts from Black Truck. Paying someone else to do it and/or buying new parts would be just tossing away money. Scrapping both trucks would just throw away most of the money already spent, plus mean giving up on a hobby for the second time. Pretty close to doing that, TBH, but can't get past the "I should be able to do this - I did it before!" argument. Plus I still haven't had a chance to see if I like off-roading again. Starting to see why people have a daily driver *and* a cheap 'wheeling rig. Realistically, I've had 2 spare vehicles sitting around for nearly a year at this point, so it isn't like I don't know whether or not I can afford it. Clearly I can, I just haven't accepted that old trucks that need unplanned repairs along with the regular maintenance are *not* meant to be daily drivers...

Guess I'm mostly venting here. I just hope White Car holds together long enough that I can get Green Truck rolling again, Black Truck stripped and gone, and figure out what my plans are to deal with the coolant usage issue.

Whatever happens, if I get a replacement vehicle of any sort, it damn well better have an *external clutch slave cylinder*!