4.6 coolant leaking.

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dave1251 is right on track. Very common on older 4.6 engines. Just be glad it doesn't have the oil cooler. This leak is often mistaken for a bad head gasket.
 
An oil cooler leak can put oil into the coolant. It's pretty easy to jump from there to assuming a leaky head gasket without considering a problem with an oil cooler or ATF cooler.
 
^I have this 'exact' concern over my Civic, this is why I ask. Any way to test this, since it's relative to the op and not mistaking a HG problem for another entry point for coolant? How would one test an oil cooler? I can remove it at the next oil change I suppose. I thought perhaps just running water through the coolant pipe connections for the cooler and seeing if it comes out via the oil passages for the filter would suffice?
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If this is too OT, my apologies.
 
Originally Posted By: ltslimjim
^I have this 'exact' concern over my Civic, this is why I ask. Any way to test this, since it's relative to the op and not mistaking a HG problem for another entry point for coolant? How would one test an oil cooler? I can remove it at the next oil change I suppose. I thought perhaps just running water through the coolant pipe connections for the cooler and seeing if it comes out via the oil passages for the filter would suffice?
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If this is too OT, my apologies.


This probably won't work b/c of the pressures involved.

Water runs 0-15 psi and keeps pressure after the motor is shut off.

Oil runs 10-50 psi and pressure drops instantly when the engine is off. Just running water through a slightly leaky cooler probably won't show a problem.

These pressure differentials are also why there are half a dozen ways head gasket symptoms show. You can have either water or oil getting into combuston, cumbustion getting into water or oil, or water or oil getting into each other... all depending on how the torn gasket is acting like a check valve.
 
Deffinately look at the crossover located under the intake I have seen several of these leak and the coolant fills up the valley and drips out the back corners the thermostat housing is another place to check but would be more obvious the recall is 7 years or 100k I believe hope you find this helpful
 
well the oil filter adapter gasket was bad but so is the head. she doesnt want to replace it so tomorrow we will use some head gasket repair stuff.
 
If you go with head gasket repair stuff, be sure to read the instructions included with it. Some of these products have the potential to be very harmful if used incorrectly. A new thermostat could be a good thing to go along with this.

Hopefully it works, but in case it doesn't, consider a used engine as a cost effective alternative to pulling the head off.
 
Originally Posted By: chevyboy14
well the oil filter adapter gasket was bad but so is the head. she doesnt want to replace it so tomorrow we will use some head gasket repair stuff.


Did you do a compression test? If 2 cylinders that are next to one another have low compression numbers, the head gasket is toast.

If the head gasket is indeed bad, quite rare for these cars, a good used 4.6L is plentiful and relatively cheap. There's really no point pulling off the heads. If you do choose to go down this route, try and source a 2001+ which will have the Performance Improved cylinder heads.
 
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