Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

What am I waiting for?

I got the chance to drive my Mustang long enough to chase down the source of the coolant leak, sort of. I finally saw a small drip running down the right rear side of the intake manifold.

Directly under that heater hose clamp I could see coolant pooling around that manifold bolt.

Could the bolt just be loose? Could it be that easy? I didn't think so but I carefully applied a wrench and found that it was tight. My guess is that the heater hose junction boss is probably cracked. That does seem strange as the manifold was just replaced three years or so ago. The engine has not been subjected to overheating. The original manifold lasted for over 150,000 miles but it's been my experience that non OEM  components often don't last as long.

Interestingly enough, I found that one pf the bolts that are holding the alloy crossover/thermostat housing to the plastic manifold body is backed out 1/4 inch or so. Even more interesting is that I saw a similar small bolt lying in the valley under the manifold. Could it be that a bolt has backed out of a similar crossover channel under the rear of the manifold and is now leaking?

Where did that little bolt come from?

In the photo you can see the cross over bolt is backed out. You can see the little bolt lying in the valley.  Interestingly enough (again) there is no coolant seen in the valley. You would think that the amount of coolant leaking out some would pool under there.

I went to the Rock Auto site and checked out the detail photos of the replacement manifold.

The bolt that is backed out is visible on the right front side (in the photo) of the cross over. I wonder if the loose bolt fell out of the hole behind it.

This is the view from the rear. The leak appears to be coming from the area that is at the right rear side (in the photo). There is a blue o ring type of gasket that seals the heater hose boss inlet to the head. If it's loose or cracked there it would definitely leak. Could the cross over connection be leaking and sending a spray of coolant against the underside of the manifold and resulting in it running to the back of he manifold? It seems hopeful, but kind of far fetched. Still, I will check it out first. Always select the easiest possibility first.


My trusty F150 has needed some work as of late. The front brakes have become noisy combined with the "shuddering" feeling that causes the entire truck to shake upon the first light application of the brakes in the morning. This is a pretty good indication of warped brake discs. I had replaced just the brake pads over fifty thousand miles ago. I did cut corners and didn't replace the brake caliper mounting bushings. Those are the metal channels that fit into the spindle, and that the caliper ride on. I didn't remove the brake rotors to have them resurfaced because the rotors are part of the hub carrier and are held on with a non re usable spindle nut. This nut is torqued down to three hundred foot pounds of torque.

I don't have a torque wrench that can handle that high a setting. On top of that, just unloosening the nut might tax my equipment. I could imagine a scenario where my socket wrench slips off, rounding off the nut and introducing a serious level of misery to the equation.

So I just replaced the brake pads. The rotor wasn't scored or discolored, so I just roughed it up with some  sandpaper. This worked out well for many miles and many years. Until the bushings wore to the point that my application of braking resulted a lot of clicking and clacking. Over time the discs warped to the point that it was quite noticeable. There wasn't any scraping of worn disc pads on metal, just the clacking and shuddering.

The alignment of the front end was also getting pretty bad. There was a constant pull to the left that had to be compensated for, which was not only tiring but rough on the tires and suspension. Usually alignment issues will result in the tire developing abnormal wear patterns which will require its replacement. However this didn't happen in my case.

If there is anything that makes your car feel like a tired piece of junk it's lack of smooth brake performance combined with poor alignment and tracking. 

Ah, driving a new car is so smooth. The steering is tight, it tracks like it's on rails and the brakes are as soft and smooth as velvet. My truck wasn't a Subaru, but it had finally lost that lovin' feeling!

Something had to be done. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to do the front brake job properly so I bit the bullet and took it down to my favorite mechanic at First Street Shell. Hui worked his magic and the velvet was back in the brake pedal. Yes, it was kind of expensive, but it is what it is. I'll save some money doing my own work in another area.

Now to do something about the alignment. I took it to my local Wheel Works dealer. They had aligned my '96 Mustang after I replaced the lower control arms, and done a good job.

On the way home from the shop I could detect some improvement, but it was still pulling to the left. Hmm. Was the job done right? Were there some other problems with the front end components? If they had found something wrong I know that they would have informed me, and tried to get me to approve the repair, or at least issued a disclaimer that the alignment couldn't fix the issue. But they hadn't said a thing.

Maybe there was something wrong with the front tires themselves. I had once bought a couple of used front tires for my '96 Mustang and they had been terrible. They darted to the side over roadway imperfections and upon braking. The tire shop (not Calderons!) had been pretty sketchy too. They had damaged the rocker sill area with the sloppy positioning of their floor jacks. I didn't go back. I ended up buying a new set of tires from Wheel Works instead.

I had to figure out if it was tires that were the problem. I needed to switch them around and see if there was any improvement. I was thinking that the tires had taken a "set." My fighting the pull may have caused the cords in the carcass to warp over time. As a result the tire couldn't track straight. I remember that I had rolled that earlier set of used tires mentioned before, when I had them off the car, and they both veered sharply off to one side. I spent the rest of a long weekend mulling it over before I had the opportunity to rotate the wheels on the truck. Just straight from front to back. This did the trick. The truck now tracked straight ahead. Usually the tires are worn on the inside treads from poor alignment and I'll replace the tire before having it aligned. Because these tires hadn't worn out I had kept them where they were. They were now warped and couldn't track straight, even if they wanted to.

It is nice to have my truck drive like it did when it was new. It still needs new tires, but it can wait for a bit.