Coolant leak in a '97 vert....HELP!

[GTRocks]

I was coming home with a buddy in his '97 vert tonight. We pulled up to a light and he got on it fairly hard up til about 50mph, then backed off. I thought I smelled a whiff of coolant, but then it went away. About 2 mins later his low coolant idiot light came on. His temp gauge was about midway across, but seemed to remain steady. We hit another light and the coolant smoke was readily apparant from under the hood. Coolant light stayed on and temp was slowly rising. We pulled over at the next available gas station and popped the hood.

The whole top of the engine was wet and smoking. Hoses seemed to be ok. On the passenger side laying on the top of the engine under the intake, behind the alternator was a huge pool of coolant. We filled the radiator with water and started it back up. With a flashlight, you could see a waterfall of coolant behind the alternator falling into the pool on top of the block.

I can't think for the life of me what would be behind the alternator toward the top of the engine that would let go? You can't really see that area from the top of the engine due to the alternator bracket blocking the view.

I'm not overly familiar with the architecture of these 4.6L's, so I'm grasping at straws. I would assume it's too high to be a head gasket (oil also seemed uncontaminated). Radiator intake hose is on the other side of the engine at the top and didn't seem to be leaking.

Anyone know? He's only got about 57k miles on this baby!

 

[AirWolf87]

4.6s are known for this problem. if you run a serch you can find a lot of similar stories. basicaly, this is whats wrong .....the 4.6 intake manifold is made of plastic (not very strong) and has coolent running through the back of it. many of the 96-98 intakes would crack, spilling coolant into the vally of the engine. He probably only needs a new intake manifold. search around stangnet. theres a lot of threads about this topic. if you keep up with the 4.6l tech forum, every couple of days you will see a post titled "Help...coolant leak!!" Its a pretty common problem with those years of mustangs. Ive personaly never had that happen to my car, but have seen it happen to friends.

 

[FastRedPonyCar]

my intake cracked too. apparently the weak spot is the crossover behind the alternator.

It's covered under a semi-slient recall. Take the car to a ford dealership and they'll replace it with an intake that has a metal cross piece for free.

OR and I can't reccomend this highly enough, see if you can get them to put a 99+ intake on. It's quite simple and only requires a new coolant tube from the back of the waterpump to work correctly. My dealership did this for just the cost of the new coolant tube for a friend's 97 GT.

I would SERIOUSLY tell your friend to consider that because the car will pull like a beast in the upper RPM's instead of falling on it's face.

 

[Josh97GT]

This just happened to me recently. Do you know if trhe recall will work even if the manifold is already having this problem? Aslo what's the recal number or id or whatever?

 

[GTRocks]

Thanks guys, that's very good info!!