ok well let me start this off with what i have ok i have a 93 fd that is basically bone stock still has the ast and everything. ok so ill be driving down the road and my add colant light horn go off the temp ussally doesnt rise (of course it could be i know the stock gauge sucks) but i pull over and shut down the car. now when i get the fill cap off there is no fluid in the thermostat housing then i put more in and the fluid never stays filled it drains somewhere unknow slowly. so i thought **** the coolant seal blew but i checked my plugs and there is no green stuff. oh also i know the plugs are fouled but it wants to stall when i first start it (which prob just means i need to change the plugs and has nothing to do with the rest of this so ill move on).
anyway if someone could help me figure out why its draining or where its drainning to that would be great the only place its dripping coolant from is the reserve tank and thats prolly cause i over filled it.
any help would be great thanks

 

bump

 

How many miles on the engine. Classic symptoms of coolant seal failure.

 

92,000

 

rebuild time.

 

ok you say its time for a rebuild but why am i not seeing any fluid in the rotor housings and why does it feel like its running fine after the start

 

On my first engine, I had an o-ring coolant failure as well. I did not see excessive smoke on startup, or coolant on my plugs.

Ways to try to determine if one of your coolant o-rings is damaged.

1) Pressure test your coolant system. This can be done with a simple tool from Autozone. What you do is add pressure to your coolant system via a pump, when the car is off, and then watch the pressure value. If it holds pressure for more then a few mins, you are in good shape. If the system does not hold pressure, it means you:

a) Have a leak in your coolant system somewhere, which could be causing your fluid level to drop, and not return to the full level after a heat cycle.
b) You have a bad o-ring, which is causing some of the coolant to enter the exhaust system, and exhaust to enter the coolant system.

There is also a champagne test (search) but it is more confusing.

Also, have you done a compression test? Sometimes if the seal damage is big enough it can be seen through the compression.

Good luck to you!

-Rotary4tw