I guess its a matter of when, not if. Thought I noticed a little roughness in the motor the other day, but I couldn't detect any SOTP difference, and it seemed to go away (maybe because I turned the CD player back on). Then this afternoon I went to gas and wash the truck before the trip to Famoso tomorrow, and when I popped the hood to check the levels, low and behold there was only about 1/8 of a tank of coolant in the intercooler reservoir. I assume that this could only mean that I have the dreaded intercooler leak, right? I know there is a ton of information on this board about this topic, which I fully intend to research, but in the meantime maybe some of you who have confronted this problem could answer a few questions. 1) how likely am I to damage the truck by driving it in this condition? 2) when the small amount of fluid remaining is gone, I assume I should not replenish it? Will it hurt the truck to drive it without fluid in the reservoir? 3) I understand that the only permanent fix at this point is to install the 2001 intercooler. Does anyone have this p/n, and any information about its availability? Thanks for any help.

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I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.

'84 Alan Record Carbonio, Aerospoke wheels, Campy brakes.
'00 SVT Lightning, silver, G-tech Pro, JBA headers, cam bolts, 4.10 gears,
Swanson's chip, Pro-M, carbon drive shaft, Roadmaster suspension kit
2001 Kevlacat 2400, twin 115 Evinrude FICHT, Raytheon VHF, radar, autopilot and GPS chartplotter/fishfinder.

gmvye@pacbell.net




[This message has been edited by alphadoggy (edited 11-03-2000).]

 

George

Made me sick to read your post.

Following is a lot of info. to get you started.
http://www.webtechnik.com/lightning/#IDAQB1BB

 

Running straight water in it won't hurt anything, preferably distilled so you have less chance of algae growth. You live in CA so freezing shouldn't be a factor for a couple more months. Do NOT let it run dry, I believe the recirculation pump gets its cooling and lubrication from the liquid. I met an "L" owner last summer and while we were talking about or "L"s he mentioned something about a pollution pump near the bottom of the radiator that had been squealing and he had unhooked it. ???? I asked him to pop the hood open and sure enough that thing was bone dry. That's when he learned about intercoolers. Good luck with your fix. I hope mine holds out until they retrofit the '01's on as the official fix.

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Red '00 Lightning,
Power Surge Performance enhanced,
Sound effects provided by Flowmaster,
375 RWHP,
445 RWTQ,
13.227@103.55
Track Videos

 

Sorry to hear about your IC leak alphadoggy it was bound to happen. I am not able to drive my truck enough to know if I have this problem YET but I know I will sooner or later.

As far as the 2001 replacement IC I don't think this is available yet and I doubt there will be one that will be able to fit the 99s and 2000s for a while.

 

Thanks for the advice, guys. Read the FAQs, and guess it would be an extremely bad idea to run it dry, but it seems that a mixture of distilled water and denatured alcohol would not hurt the motor. I have some alcohol, maybe I'll stop at the grocery store and get some water, and go to Famoso anyway.

 

32' weather? What's that? I live in Ventura. Thanks for the advice and encouragement. I did stop and get some distilled water on the way, but I didn't need to use it. There is still a little bit of coolant in the reservoir, and I don't want to add anything until the dealer sees it Monday. But I like the strategy of running it on water and water wetter until they come up with a definitive fix for it.

 

If it was me, and it will be, I would put distilled water and water wetter in the i/c(thats what I run now) (watch out for the 32' degree and below weather) and run the Crap out of it until Ford comes up with a NEW DESIGN intercooler in stead of replacing ours with the SAME-PRONE TO LEAK AGAIN-intercoolers!!!!
Hey, maybe you can get a NEW ENGINE-serves Ford right for not fixing them right the first time.
Note: it's simple to drain the i/c (only holds a gallon of mix anti-freeze).
In my Opinion!!!
[img]smilecwm.tripod.com/legionxs/fart.gif[/img]
Dan

[This message has been edited by videoman (edited 11-04-2000).]