Did the oil change. Unfortunately, I didn't read your post prior to doing it.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.
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.
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?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.
Is this the Chilton book that I want?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.
I check try to check the coolant level at least once a month (not good enough IMO).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.
Should I Seafoam my crankcase come next oil change?
So this really could work out to my benefit to help me find the problem easierI 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 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?
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