Engine Bone Dry - No Oil, Coolant

Yeah that's a good idea. I'd drain it down til you're fairly certain you have 5-6 quarts in there, then let it run for a bit so the oil warms up, then do the change. Also like you've said you're going to do and others have said...get a compression test done on all 8 cylinders. It also wouldn't hurt to pull the plugs and get a flashlight out and check each cylinder by eye just to see if you see any gunk/coolant on the piston.
 
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Yeah that's a good idea. I'd drain it down til you're fairly certain you have 5-6 quarts in there, then let it run for a bit so the oil warms up, then do the change. Also like you've said you're going to do and others have said...get a compression test done on all 8 cylinders. It also wouldn't hurt to pull the plugs and get a flashlight out and check each cylinder by eye just to see if you see any gunk/coolant on the piston.
Did the oil change. Unfortunately, I didn't read your post prior to doing it.

It was going to be a good news/bad news situation either way. But here were the results of the oil change:

Oil looked normal, not milky at all. Just dirty like used oil is. Approximately 6 quarts came out of the engine. I accidentally completely filled 2 of the quart bottles when pouring it out, and the last one was half-way full.

New oil and oil filter are on now.

BAD news is that the car was down to 1 quart if I had to put 5 in. We'll see what happens with the compression test tomorrow.
 
Let me throw in a comment here.

Im sortof thinking you have 2 things wrong here.

A. one of your oil rings are bad and are letting a fiarly high amount by....but being 1 cylinder, it wont show up too bad...especially if you have cats.

B. You have a VERY small leak in your head gastket, and thats allowing a bit of coolant to seep into the combustion chamber. If its a small leak, no coolant should show up in your oil.

Im NOT saying that this is the case....but its very possable. But check the simpler things first...if you cant find the problem, time for a built shortblock :D
 
I didn't realize the car had 220,000 on it, however, I have an F150 with 200,900 miles on it and I still take it on vacation and tow race cars with it, so..who knows, it could live forever. I understand that you are low-$$ and are doing the best you can, I used to be in the same boat. the hardest lesson I had to learn was fix it right, the first time, even if I could barely afford it.
Just for fun, pull the plugs, and crank the engine over a couple of times after it sits all night and see if anything blows out of the plug holes (like oil or coolant). BTW, be careful so you don't set something on fire while you do this.
One more thing, you are waaayyyy past timing chains and gears mileage for this car.
The Haynes manuals are notoriously inaccurate so if you get real serious you need to get a Motors, or a Mitchell manual for your car.
 
Dont Junk it

If the car has this much mileage on it, it is now a game. How many miles can you accumulate and keep the car running. The fact that you have 2 cars, well atleast you have transportation if something does go wrong with the car. I have a 98gt convert with low mileage (103K). I had to replace the rear window and get a new fuel pump. I hope I can get at least 200k on the motor. If it does go south then I will put in a new one. I use to do a lot of modifications on my mustangs, not now though. The only thing I did was put on a cold air intake and put in blue leds behind the instrument cluster and hvac control panel. Now the lighting matches my pioneer head unit. Sorry I am rambling. So when it comes time to get a new motor I might go cheap and just get a remanufactured engine or maybe a DSS motor. I found remanufactured engines going for just over 2K. After all I do not want to put in a 5k motor for a car that is will eventually be worth under 5k. Keep the car running as long as you can.
 
his car runs great, he doesnt need to junk it untill it has really bad problems. His problems now are fixable without getting a new engine. He just needs to find out whats going on.

people are NOT helping with comments like "junk it" feel more than free to restrain yourself from pointless comments.


While i'm not saying junk it, I will say that his car is not "running great" if it's 5 quarts low on oil and somehow leaking coolant as well. Tons of problems are fixable without getting a new engine, it's just cheaper to do that sometimes.
 
I didn't realize the car had 220,000 on it, however, I have an F150 with 200,900 miles on it and I still take it on vacation and tow race cars with it, so..who knows, it could live forever. I understand that you are low-$$ and are doing the best you can, I used to be in the same boat. the hardest lesson I had to learn was fix it right, the first time, even if I could barely afford it.
Just for fun, pull the plugs, and crank the engine over a couple of times after it sits all night and see if anything blows out of the plug holes (like oil or coolant). BTW, be careful so you don't set something on fire while you do this.
One more thing, you are waaayyyy past timing chains and gears mileage for this car.
The Haynes manuals are notoriously inaccurate so if you get real serious you need to get a Motors, or a Mitchell manual for your car.
I've never even heard of a Motors or even a Mitchell manual. Any place off the top of your head that I can find them?

Also -- I've had the rearend re-built. I'm not about to do the timing chain myself, either. Those are expensive jobs :(

One more quick question: When is the most accurate oil reading, when the engine is cold (sitting for 2 or so hours) or when the engine is hot (just got done driving)?

Thanks again for your time.
 
Mitchells are used by pros and are considerred by most to be the best manuals, Motors aren't too bad, and Chilton's are pretty good too. the Haynes just tries to cover too wide of a range in too little space. If you have a book store like Barnes and Noble or something like that they could probably order it for you.
http://www.mitchell1.com/
http://www.chiltonsonline.com/

BTW most vehicle mfg's want the oil checked when the engine is warm.
 
Mitchells are used by pros and are considerred by most to be the best manuals, Motors aren't too bad, and Chilton's are pretty good too. the Haynes just tries to cover too wide of a range in too little space. If you have a book store like Barnes and Noble or something like that they could probably order it for you.
http://www.mitchell1.com/
http://www.chiltonsonline.com/

BTW most vehicle mfg's want the oil checked when the engine is warm.
Is this the Chilton book that I want?

http://www.delmarlearning.com/browse_product_detail.aspx?catid=12117&isbn=0801988233

I find both Mitchell's and Chiltons' website hard to navigate.
 
Based on how you described the problem, my thoughts are as follows.

Since you plainly admitted you haven't done a good job of maintaining this vehicle, I'm going to guess that regularly checking the coolant level isn't something you tend to do. So, in regards to your first problem, the coolant being 8 inches below the fill line, I'm going to say it was already that low, just from either a pinhole leak that's been there a while, or a leaking headgasket. I especially lean toward the headgasket because of the white smoke you said you saw. The coolant light probably finally came on because it made it below wherever the sensor sits in the overflow tank.

I'm confused as to how you lost 5 qts of oil before the oil light came on, but on an engine with 220k miles, let's say the last time the car got an oil change, the person didn't actually put in 5qts. Say 4. Now burning 1 qt is normal according to Ford. So that leaves 3 qts. Then add in the high mileage, and say the rings are bad. You could easily be burning another qt in 3k miles. But I doubt you change the oil every 3k.. so let's say you run it 6k, and burn 2 total quarts. That leaves 1 quart left. Maybe you have a small oil leak from somewhere.. and in the time it took you to drive 6k you dripped another 1/2 quart. That leaves 1/2 quart of oil left. Just random thoughts here.

I don't think you blew up anything, I think you definately have leaks somewhere, and are going to need to do some troubleshooting of the headgaskets and potential oil leaks.
 
Based on how you described the problem, my thoughts are as follows.

Since you plainly admitted you haven't done a good job of maintaining this vehicle, I'm going to guess that regularly checking the coolant level isn't something you tend to do. So, in regards to your first problem, the coolant being 8 inches below the fill line, I'm going to say it was already that low, just from either a pinhole leak that's been there a while, or a leaking headgasket. I especially lean toward the headgasket because of the white smoke you said you saw. The coolant light probably finally came on because it made it below wherever the sensor sits in the overflow tank.

I'm confused as to how you lost 5 qts of oil before the oil light came on, but on an engine with 220k miles, let's say the last time the car got an oil change, the person didn't actually put in 5qts. Say 4. Now burning 1 qt is normal according to Ford. So that leaves 3 qts. Then add in the high mileage, and say the rings are bad. You could easily be burning another qt in 3k miles. But I doubt you change the oil every 3k.. so let's say you run it 6k, and burn 2 total quarts. That leaves 1 quart left. Maybe you have a small oil leak from somewhere.. and in the time it took you to drive 6k you dripped another 1/2 quart. That leaves 1/2 quart of oil left. Just random thoughts here.

I don't think you blew up anything, I think you definately have leaks somewhere, and are going to need to do some troubleshooting of the headgaskets and potential oil leaks.
I check try to check the coolant level at least once a month (not good enough IMO).
The oil light NEVER came on...the oil pressure just kept dipping. I do change my oil (myself) every 3k to 4k miles since it is a high milage car. Last time, I put 6qts in, no more, no less. That was at 106,6xx miles. I just changed the oil at 110,7xx, so it was only 4,100 miles.

My car takes 6 quarts, I'm sure of it. When on the ramps, I put 5qts in and it said it was full. When I backed it off of the ramps, it didn't register on the dipstick at all. I slowly filled 1/4qt at a time until it said full, and it ended up being 6 qts.

But as for your thoughts, they could be very logical.

Should I Seafoam my crankcase come next oil change?
 
Should I Seafoam my crankcase come next oil change?

I don't know...My car burned a little oil when I first bought it and I really thought nothing of it. Read/learned about seafoam and HAD to do it so I put some in the crank, intake, and gas. I think what happened was it cleaned a little TOO well and now i'm burning MORE oil. I think what happened is some gunk that might have been slowing a leak down got cleaned out and is now leaking more and making me go through quite a bit more oil than before. I can't be 100% certain the seafoam caused this problem but it started after I foamed the car and I hadn't done anything else that would have caused it to leak more so unless it just was very good timing, i'm saying seafoam worked a little TOO well for me.
 
I don't know...My car burned a little oil when I first bought it and I really thought nothing of it. Read/learned about seafoam and HAD to do it so I put some in the crank, intake, and gas. I think what happened was it cleaned a little TOO well and now i'm burning MORE oil. I think what happened is some gunk that might have been slowing a leak down got cleaned out and is now leaking more and making me go through quite a bit more oil than before. I can't be 100% certain the seafoam caused this problem but it started after I foamed the car and I hadn't done anything else that would have caused it to leak more so unless it just was very good timing, i'm saying seafoam worked a little TOO well for me.
So this really could work out to my benefit to help me find the problem easier ;)
 
...or it could make the problem worse, let's say that with this amount of mileage you did "clean things up a bit" you could find problems you never new existed. If you're gonna put an additive in it, I'd make it Lucas, and I wouldn't use the whole bottle maybe a couple of pints tops. Should you decide to try to clean the engine, I would subsitute one quart of ATF for one quart of oil (4+1) don't get too frisky with it on the highway, keep an eye on the oil pressure, and change the oil at 2,000 miles. If you do that a couple of times it should be fine.
 
I check try to check the coolant level at least once a month (not good enough IMO).
The oil light NEVER came on...the oil pressure just kept dipping. I do change my oil (myself) every 3k to 4k miles since it is a high milage car. Last time, I put 6qts in, no more, no less. That was at 106,6xx miles. I just changed the oil at 110,7xx, so it was only 4,100 miles.

My car takes 6 quarts, I'm sure of it. When on the ramps, I put 5qts in and it said it was full. When I backed it off of the ramps, it didn't register on the dipstick at all. I slowly filled 1/4qt at a time until it said full, and it ended up being 6 qts.

But as for your thoughts, they could be very logical.

Should I Seafoam my crankcase come next oil change?


Gotcha. I thought I read somewhere up there that you had 220k miles on the car. I saw "I just changed the oil at 110" .. so I'm thinking 110,000 miles since last oil change.. and you only ate 5 qts? :rlaugh:

You could probably run some seafoam through, but you'd do more good running it through the fuel system and intake system. I think oil burns the seafoam off very quickly. I ran 1/2 can of Seafoam in my vans crankcase for about 10 miles before an oil change, then sent a sample to be analyzed, and they showed no evidence of anything besides oil in the oil.. to me that means it probably burned right up.
 
So how many miles are on the car?
Do the basics and these engines will last damn near forever, for the most part. However, there's always the few that blow up at 100k for no apparent reason, basically if you have 220k on the car, you more than got your moneys worth, and I would use a good oil, and take better care of it, and most certainly start saving for an engine. It's not worth selling with mileage that high. You're better off keeping the car forever, and since you have a second car, you can take your time and worry about school or whatever, and save what you can. Not everyone has the $$ to throw around, and to be perfectly honest, a car is about the worst investment period, at least, the worst I can think of. It will be easier on you to get the engine done before it blows, it sucks when you're not prepared, it happened to me with my Capri, and it can be very frustrating. Ya don't always realize how much you value something until it's gone. But this is a good reality check for ya, I'm sure you'll take better care of it from now on.

With that kind of mileage I would take extra steps to preserve the head gasket, tranny and rear end. 100k or 200k, doesn't really matter. GL

My engine still runs and sounds like brand new, I use Royal Purple 10W30, Pro-Long, and change the oil every 5-6k. But my rear has gone from whining to a howl now, it's pretty damn bad. I've had estimates from $250 to $900, but I'm sure it's the ring and pinion, is that what you had replaced? What did you pay for your rear rebuild, if ya don't mind my asking.