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| Just call it the "Plastic Fantastic." |
My car hobby doesn't exist in a vacuum, sometimes Life has more immediate concerns for me to deal with. I even managed to get quite sick. I thought it was just a cold and that I would power through it. That's what I usually try to do. It didn't work this time, I ended up with a walking pneumonia. Luckily I did go to the doctor for treatment, but the delay caused my illness to continue for at least another week.
At least the weather is now cooperating. There was a period of warm dry weather at the beginning of the year but I didn't take advantage of it. Then we got some needed rain. It sure did come down a couple of weeks ago. I'm going to have to take advantage of the current mild weather and work on my car in the driveway, since my garage is still unavailable.
I got out the shop manual to review the repair procedure. I've done this job once before, but a refresher couldn't hurt. Nothing too taxing. The hardest thing was jacking up the car to drain the coolant and remove the lower radiator hose. There's quite a bit of fiddling with hose, electrical, and fuel connections but I will just label everything as I go.
As I like to say, sometimes you just have to do the work.
The shop manual states that the EGR tube has to be removed from the exhaust manifold prior to removing the intake manifold. I remember that I only had to remove the actual EGR valve last time, so that I only had to go under the car to unhook the lower radiator hose and drain the radiator. What a mess! Couldn't they include a drain tap? The EGR tube left enough clearance to remove and replace the manifold, just like I remembered.
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| This is the underside of the heater hose boss, where I expected to find a crack. |
After I removed the manifold I flipped it over and expected to see a visible crack somewhere under the heater hose boss, but was disappointed. I also checked the heater hose connection to the solid pipe next to the firewall, with no success. A leak here could have dripped or sprayed onto the rear of the manifold.
I removed that blue gasket and looked carefully to see if I could find a crack or damage under the gasket. This area was in much better shape than the front coolant ports.
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| I could not find any cracks in the heater hose boss. |
I decided to do an internet search to see if anyone had reported a similar situation. I didn't want to replace the manifold without diagnosing the actual failure.
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| Those three bolts were all loose. One was backed out 1/4 inch. |
Besides the loose bolts you can see the deformation and there is a crack that extends into the crossover tube gasket. Both sides were damaged. I'm wondering if the leaking coolant ran along the edge of the manifold and collected around that heater hose boss.
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| At the top, see that hint of blue gasket? That's the cross tube gasket underneath. |
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| You can clearly see a crack. |
While I was at it, I decided to replace many of the components that had been on the car for a long time. Shortly after I bought the car the rear heater hose blew and I lost the majority of the coolant. Those hoses crumbled as I removed them and I guess they were the original parts. These were also the same upper and lower hoses that came with the car. So I decided to replace both radiator hoses, both heater hoses, and the valley hose. The serpentine belt will get the heave ho also.
I remember that on the Mercedes straight six there is a short hose that fits between the head and the engine block. This hose cannot be replaced without removing the head. There was a section of high lighted, bold print that stated this in the shop manual. It stated that the hose should always be replaced whenever the head is removed.This impressed me so much that I try to replace things that are only accessible while I'm in there.
It seems that there is a quality issue with replacement manifolds. The popular Dorman replacement suffers from rapid deterioration and deformation resulting in coolant leaks. The replacements feature an alloy coolant cross tube that contains the thermostat housing that is an improvement, but the coolant intake ports deform and crack from the inside, causing leakage. The four bolts that attach the alloy tube to the manifold have been found to be loose on several examples, my current example included, and they cannot be tightened without removing the manifold. These replacements seem to last anywhere from three to five years, at least mine did.
It seems that the quality issue is much like the replacement gas tank filler neck grommet. I replaced the leaking unit on my car with a cheap 2.50 replacement from Late Model Restorations. It only lasted for a year and a half, resulting in an embarrassing and hazardous leak while on a family trip to the Gold Country. I replaced that grommet with an OEM Ford part that cost me 16.00. The difference in quality was noticeable.
An OEM Ford Racing improved performance manifold sells for 265.00 from Summit. It will probably be worth it to choose this replacement in hopes of it having a longer service life. When I was at the Ford dealer I checked with the counter guy and thought that I heard a price of seven hundred dollars. I might want to recheck that number!
I have to admit that my disappointment in accepting that the manifold had failed so soon after replacement, made me drag my feet in starting the repair. I got five years of service out of the replacement, not bad, but the original lasted around twenty years. I consider that a pretty reasonable service life. I managed to drag my feet for around five months.
Perhaps I could have made a wiser choice than that no name brand unit from Rock Auto. It was around 170.00 Not too bad, but how long will it last? Since I already have it on hand, I'm going ahead with the operation. I can't remember exactly when I did the previous replacement but I'm pretty sure that it was before I started this blog. Which would be over four years ago. I'll guesstimate around five years.
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| All ready to receive the new manifold |
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I cleaned all the mating surfaces, chased all the threads, and cleaned up the bolts by running them through a tap. I switched the injectors over to the manifold using new o-rings. So every thing is ready to go back together at the end of the second day. I don't approach the job like a professional mechanic, lots of times I start late and end early. I had to replace the lower radiator hose and that required me to jack up the car and crawl underneath. The connection to the block was held on by one of those OEM spring clamps. These can be a real pain to remove as I usually use a large channel lock pliers to squeeze it. Sometimes access for the pliers is pretty limited. I ended up cutting the majority of the hose off to give me more room. I just used the usual jubilee clamp so that I could have an option on it's drive screw placement.
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| If you are planning on having your car judged at a Concours then plan on using these. |
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| This is just a common replacement hose clamp. I saw that it was referred to as a "jubilee" clamp on some British source. Calling it that is just one of those irritating affectations that Brit car owner's often do. |
I fired it up and it started, sounding rough and backfiring. I didn't see any fuel leaks in the lines. I rechecked all the vacuum hoses and din't find anything wrong. So I checked the plug wires, maybe I mixed one up. On the passenger side I counted back from the front and only counted to three! I looked and saw that the rear plug didn't even have a lead on it! How could that be? I looked at the coil and saw that the wire to the second plug was still stuffed in the space around the coil. I rearranged the wires and the problem was solved. Or so I thought.
After sorting out the wiring I fired it up again and it sounded fine. I was looking for any leaks and sure enough the passenger side manifold temp sender was leaking a bit. A couple of turns with a large adjustable wrench cured that. Then I noticed that it's twin on the driver's side was leaking a bit also. I was lazy. I clumsily applied the same wrench and broke the head of the unit! This time I found that a 3/4 inch deep socket would do an excellent job removing what was left. A quick trip to the store and twenty dollars later I was back in business. This replacement was black, unlike the earlier grey unit. The passenger side was green, The parts guy said that now they are now all black. He really didn't sound too sure about that. The new sender already had Teflon tape applied to it's threads. I carefully installed it with the deep socket and all was well. I had also spent an hour or so earlier cleaning the motor and engine compartment. There is something leaking that I will have to track down.
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| The green one on the right is for the temperature gauge. Original parts # F68Z-10884-AA |
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| The grey one on the left is for the ECM. Original parts #F5AZ-12A648-AB superseded by new #3F1Z12A648-A |
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| So what does the black one do? Will it work? I replaced it with the OEM part. This black one is Standard #TX61. I'll do a little more research. When you change more than one thing at a time it's hard to determine what caused the problem. |
Ooops! I don't think that the sender is the same. I took the car for a test drive and it was running poorly and the check engine light came on. I came back home and parked it, then got on the net to investigate. First I wanted to see if both senders had the same parts number. This was a little hard to decipher as they weren't listed that clearly. Then I checked some of the forums and it was clarified a bit. The green sender on the right is for the temperature gauge, the grey one on the left is for the ECM system, so obviously they cannot be the same unit. The original parts numbers were supplied. I also learned that the newer PI performance enhanced 4.6 motor uses a single temp sender. I went down to the Ford dealer to see if I could get the genuine replacement part. The parts counterman had a little difficulty figuring out which part I was looking for, initially he said that he would have to order it. I supplied him with the original and updated parts number and he discovered that it was actually in stock. I told him that since it's a '96 I don't really think that it is that old, but again he was probably in grammar school back then! The OEM part set me back 31.00 dollars which I gladly paid.
Since I was there I took the opportunity to check out a new Mustang GT coupe. The black one on display was very nice. I could easily notice the upgraded interior compared to our '07, and ours is a Pony with leather seats, this one was cloth. As much as I liked it, I just couldn't see myself paying the 40,000 list price. I've been pricing used '15's which are around half that much. I've definitely become a cheap old guy.
I installed the sender, topped up the coolant, and found that it was still running poorly, with an obvious miss. The check engine light came on again so I drove down to Winchester auto parts where I had been shopping. The parts guy used a code reader to determine that the problem was in cylinder number four, which was the cylinder that I initially forgot to hook up the plug wire to. I rechecked the plug wire routing and firing order. I remember last time that I replaced the manifold I had left some coolant in the plug holes and that had caused a misfire. I hadn't seen any coolant in that bore, but maybe I missed it. I blew some compressed air in the hole than I pulled the plug. The electrodes were dry, but the insulator was wet with an oily residue. I cleaned off the plug, and ran a rag inside the plug boot and down into the spark plug hole. The inside of the boot was wet and dirty so I'm guessing I was getting flash over and a miss.
I buttoned everything back up and now I was golden, just like Pony Boy.
This just goes to show you that nothing is ever that simple.
I finished up the job in the afternoon of the fifth day. It's beginning to sound like the Creation story in the Bible!
New intake manifold, injector o-rings (of course). Replacement of upper and lower radiator hoses, rear heater hoses and valley hose, thermostat, one ECM temp sender and coolant. New serpentine belt. All of this only cost me around three hundred dollars in parts and my own free labor. This will keep the Mustang as a reliable, usable car, which is the whole point of this exercise.
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| Crossing my fingers for another five years. |
I haven't found the receipt for the last manifold installation so I'm not really sure when it was done.
I think that it was before I started blogging. This time I scratched the date, 4/2/18, on the coolant cross over tube. That will remind me.
Mileage at the time of repair is 203,730. Remember back when a car with this kind of mileage was just a hiccup away from the junkyard? I fully expect that this motor will last me well past 250,00 miles. Probably all the way to 300,000. Isn't progress wonderful?
This time I will note the date and mileage on the receipts and staple and save them.
I have really missed driving this car and now that Spring is here it's time to lower the top and enjoy the weather. The car is in great shape, since this repair just adds to the earlier front suspension rebuild and the tires were replaced only fifteen hundred miles ago. I am aware that unfortunately the market value of the car is approaching the bottom of the value curve.
The market value doesn't really reflect the actual value of the car to me. It's a Mustang GT convertible!
A sporty, well optioned, air conditioned, V8 powered, fun to drive sporty car. It really checks all the boxes as a hobby car. And it is practical and reliable. I have also made a long term commitment and investment to maintaining it, occasional foot dragging aside.
That is why I have decided to hold onto it for so long. While it is not rare, or exotic, or even "special" it is a good little car. If most of my meager car hobby funds evaporated overnight I would still have a car that satisfies me as an enthusiast. And isn't that what this whole thing is about?
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