So i was cruising along the highway almost to where i needed to go and i heard a pop and looked back and i could not see anything but huge smoke trail or steam whichever. So i pulled over as soon as i could and shut the truck off. Let it cool down and checked the oil and nothing was on the dipstick then i checked the coolant and nothing in the coolant but some mud or something inside the cap?! It was empty also.

I trailered the truck an hour to the ford dealership and they just called me and said the radiator is done for, the fan clutch is goin out and they should just put in a new thermostat while they are at it. The total they told me for everything is $1200.00 FML!

So i think im gonna get the parts myself and do it. Is it worth me getting a good aftermarket radiator and electric fans or something on my truck or should i just get an OE replacement? Its a 3.slow so i dont know if its really worth it.

What you guys think? Do you think all it is the radiator or head gasket? What is a good replacement radiator?

 

what i want to know is where ALL the coolant and oil went first

 

The dealership said the coolant all went out the bottom of the radiator and the oil was a couple quarts low thats all. But i checked the oil like a month ago and it was fine. They said the coolant poured out as fast as theycould pour it in.

 

Sounds like you should do it yourself. Putting in a radiator dosent seem that hard. The other two I have no idea what to expect.

 

I would just go to the junkyard and get a radiator. Same with the fan clutch. What would have caused it to do that though?

 

shouldn't be too hard just get on aldata and they have step by step how to on most everything

 

Do it all yourself man. Its cake.

 

So it doesnt sount like a blown head gasket?

 

Sounds like you heard the rear main seal pop to me. No oil on the dipstick yeah I would look there. The radiator probably just accidently found some road debris or it was defective one of the 2. Do it yourself. here's why: save alot of money. If you let the dealer do it, they just keep trying to upsell you on **** you don't really need and alot of those parts can be found in salvage yards across this great country of ours for nothing and next to nothing. The Ford dealer will do the repairs right yes, but they'll always try to sell you something you don't need and they do tend to take forever too.

 

Well, I would replace the radiator first then go from there.

 

radiator in a mazda 626 only took me half an hour to change
but then all kinds of houses started popin because they were all dry rotted and then went the head gasket but that was because of a careless previous owner

 

I did the radiator on my 2.3 myself in about 2 hours. Mine blew up when I parked the truck one day going to get Chinese food.

I have to remove the radiator on my Evo every time I change my turbo, so doing radiators on a truck with a longitudinally mounted engine is so easy.

 

I changed the radiator on my 3.0 in like 30 min. Its easy as hell. Do it you self. Although i believe there is more problems than there finding because you should not be using 2 quarts of oil in a month...

 

sounds like a gasket leak like head gasket! fun! is it frothy? then ya ur leakin oil in to the antifreeze then the antifreeze is goin in the block! then your radiator prob had a stock cap on it so it blew up! i mean im just talkin from experience here with the engine swap i did hahah

 

changed my radiator and so far no problems.