Ford TaurusAlong the way, Ford has made some 500 changes to the Taurus, changes that were already scheduled for the mid-cycle freshening of the Five Hundred. The general body shape of the new Taurus is the same as that of the previous Five Hundred, a large, front-wheel-drive family sedan, but almost everything else has changed for the better.
Since you don't know which came first, I guess it is really an academic question at this point.
Do you have water in the oil?
Is your compression worse?
Did you repair the hose leaks? and restart the engine?
How does it run now?
Does your alternator charge the battery properly?
Turn your headlights on for a few minutes without the engine running, and then check the battery voltage, it should be better than 12.5 volts.
Start the engine up, and check the battery voltage, it should be approx 14.4 volts.
IF not 14.4 let us know what it is... could be a bad alternator, then a dead battery.
A brand new battery may be able to recover enough to allow you to start the engine the following day.
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BroncoJoe19
2006 Alt Fuel Jeep (electric)
'98 windstar 3.8L
'99 Crown Vic 4.6L
'90 Full Size Bronco 5.0L
I'm not a professional mechanic, take my suggestions with a grain of salt, or a cup of coffee
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The temperature gauge was at about halfway between hot and cold when it started acting up.
My son bought a flush kit, some radiator flush and new antifreeze.
We can't figure out where to put the tee. THe heater hose looks to be down behind the engine.
But, of course, we ran into another problem. The brand new battery is dead. Completely. No power at all.
Now the car has been sitting since I started it on Sunday after it had cooled off. Nothing was left on. The same thing happened after we put the new struts on it. Baffled.
When I get a chance, I will check the amperage. Hope it is not the alternator. It looks like a pain to get out.
To the other questions: No water in the oil. Compression not worse. Repaired the hose. No leaks. Engine restarted and ran fine after it cooled off on Sunday.
Last edited by artman1988; 08-11-2009 at 07:21 PM..
You probably have a bad alternator, the car was running on just the battery, it went dead, and didn't power the fans so the engine overheated. I wouldn't worry about flushing the system right now. But if you insist!
Boyscout has pictures on how to install a flush kit in here.
__________________
BroncoJoe19
2006 Alt Fuel Jeep (electric)
'98 windstar 3.8L
'99 Crown Vic 4.6L
'90 Full Size Bronco 5.0L
I'm not a professional mechanic, take my suggestions with a grain of salt, or a cup of coffee
At the bottom of each post there is a little icon
Clicking it gives feedback to the moderators, and poster regarding which posts are most helpful.
If the alt has an intermittent short that could explain your problem. The car would have been running on the battery, which of course was probably almost dead.
__________________
BroncoJoe19
2006 Alt Fuel Jeep (electric)
'98 windstar 3.8L
'99 Crown Vic 4.6L
'90 Full Size Bronco 5.0L
I'm not a professional mechanic, take my suggestions with a grain of salt, or a cup of coffee
At the bottom of each post there is a little icon
Clicking it gives feedback to the moderators, and poster regarding which posts are most helpful.
Well one reason is, if the alternator or battery cable has an intermittent short the car would run and charge fine most of the time. That is, until the the short occurs and causes the system to leave almost everything connected to the shorted circuit without enough voltage to run (depending on the severity of the short). Remember, a short doesn't necessarily consume the entire balance of current running through the shorted circuit, it essentially acts like a super high amperage device and drains most but not all of the current running through the circuit. This leaves whatever power is not consumed by the short to run the engine on a very limited basis.
The other reason I suggested the possibility of an intermittent short was because I've seen this scenario before. Not to mention the alternator light would have to have been on for quite some time to drain a new battery. I've driven for more than a week without a working alternator in a car before (granted on la limited bases). As long as the engine is the only thing consuming current you don't really need that much voltage to run it.
Then there's the battery that worked the day after the event and is now dead.
To me that says intermittent problem.
Last edited by TheBobsHere; 08-11-2009 at 09:24 PM..
Reason: Spelling
As soon as I get a chance, I'll check the alternator. I am beginning to think this car is jinxed. Literally, everytime we have fixed something in the past 3 months, something else goes wrong.
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That car hates you.
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