yulolimum
Member
Hi all!
TLDR: There is thick brown (latte colored) layer of silky residue inside as well as some leaks around the large bottom hose coming off of the degas bottle. Just looking for some pointers on what to check next to diagnose.
Full Story:
I purchased a leadfoot raptor last september - 76k miles - clean truck with some bolt-on mods. I want to believe I did all the due diligence before committing to the purchase, but I'd be lying - I checked the normal stuff you'd check but I'm no mechanic. The first signs that something was wrong were really loud fan noises and an occasional coolant readout temp at around 230deg. I decided to remove the Cobb degas cover and discovered that the coolant was very low, the bottle looked very aged, not very see-through, and what looked like gunk build-up.
Draining the fluid, it was dark orange - from what I gathered this was the old coolant color prior to their transition to yellow. I cleaned the degas as best I could. I did a full coolant system flush with the new yellow fluid. I went through probably 12 gallons of fill, warm-up/run car, drain, repeat.
For the past few months, everything was fine - the coolant levels held, the coolant color remained yellow.
Yesterday, I started the car to warm it up, did a trip to the store, and when I came back i found brown sludge on my gravel driveway - kind of looked like bright mud if that makes sense. Didn't think much of it. However, after another drive today, I found another spot with the brown "mud". Popped the hood and boom, same brown residue is around the hose that drops down from the degas bottle, almost like it was being sprayed under pressure.
Opening the degas bottle, the cap was covered in the same latte-colored, silky, milky residue. Same with all of the inlet/outlet hoses. I drained the radiator, but the fluid was clear yellow. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this, but looking online, this is what it looked like:
The next thing I did was check engine oil. Drain and fill. The color and texture of that is normal. After filling the coolant back and checking the levels a few times at various temperatures, I did a drive where I observed the coolant temperature readouts bouncing between 210deg to 230deg to 220deg to 238deg in span of seconds.
I did some research on this forum and other forums. Seems like, most search results on this forum are with the gen1 raptors. The closest thing I found with 3.5 ecoboost is this thread. Here's a screenshot of the solution:
So, could it possibly be a transmission cooler crack? I know there are some differences between the raptor and the regular f150 3.5 ecoboost, but those symptoms seem very similar.
How can I go about confirming this is the issue. Any additional thoughts or pointers?
One last question, since the coolant that i drained from the radiator was normal colors and the brown sludge was observed around/in the degas bottle, did I make a mistake in draining? Can this clog up additional components (e.g. the temp sensor or thermostat based on my temps jumping around).
Thank you in advance.
TLDR: There is thick brown (latte colored) layer of silky residue inside as well as some leaks around the large bottom hose coming off of the degas bottle. Just looking for some pointers on what to check next to diagnose.
Full Story:
I purchased a leadfoot raptor last september - 76k miles - clean truck with some bolt-on mods. I want to believe I did all the due diligence before committing to the purchase, but I'd be lying - I checked the normal stuff you'd check but I'm no mechanic. The first signs that something was wrong were really loud fan noises and an occasional coolant readout temp at around 230deg. I decided to remove the Cobb degas cover and discovered that the coolant was very low, the bottle looked very aged, not very see-through, and what looked like gunk build-up.
Draining the fluid, it was dark orange - from what I gathered this was the old coolant color prior to their transition to yellow. I cleaned the degas as best I could. I did a full coolant system flush with the new yellow fluid. I went through probably 12 gallons of fill, warm-up/run car, drain, repeat.
For the past few months, everything was fine - the coolant levels held, the coolant color remained yellow.
Yesterday, I started the car to warm it up, did a trip to the store, and when I came back i found brown sludge on my gravel driveway - kind of looked like bright mud if that makes sense. Didn't think much of it. However, after another drive today, I found another spot with the brown "mud". Popped the hood and boom, same brown residue is around the hose that drops down from the degas bottle, almost like it was being sprayed under pressure.
Opening the degas bottle, the cap was covered in the same latte-colored, silky, milky residue. Same with all of the inlet/outlet hoses. I drained the radiator, but the fluid was clear yellow. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of this, but looking online, this is what it looked like:
The next thing I did was check engine oil. Drain and fill. The color and texture of that is normal. After filling the coolant back and checking the levels a few times at various temperatures, I did a drive where I observed the coolant temperature readouts bouncing between 210deg to 230deg to 220deg to 238deg in span of seconds.
I did some research on this forum and other forums. Seems like, most search results on this forum are with the gen1 raptors. The closest thing I found with 3.5 ecoboost is this thread. Here's a screenshot of the solution:
So, could it possibly be a transmission cooler crack? I know there are some differences between the raptor and the regular f150 3.5 ecoboost, but those symptoms seem very similar.
How can I go about confirming this is the issue. Any additional thoughts or pointers?
One last question, since the coolant that i drained from the radiator was normal colors and the brown sludge was observed around/in the degas bottle, did I make a mistake in draining? Can this clog up additional components (e.g. the temp sensor or thermostat based on my temps jumping around).
Thank you in advance.
