Well I finally confirmed it.. :)

96_Lincoln_LSC

96_Lincoln_LSC

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I finally pulled the sparkplugs.. had to... car was starting rough, had a slight hesitation under a light load and with the recent overheat.. i thought i blew the head. Well after block testing for HC's and that was negative and bleeding air out of the system for over a week, still having small issues, i waited for the engine to cool off, pulled out each plug 1 at a time. found the mechanic who replaced plugs and wires didnt firmly seat the wires onto the plugs they were just spinning on top of the valve cover and not tight in the well.i pulled each plug and noticed they all had even wear and not a single plug was super clean. so this confirms that my heads are still good. wheew. And I also found 1 of the plugs (second one in from drivers side bank was finger tight.)my hesitation seems to be gone but the real test will be monday on my 42 mile trek to work.. keeping fingers crossed. and think i got most of the air out of the system ill keep checking as it only takes a few capfuls of fluid to top it off each time i check it.. and there isnt a single drop on the ground... so its holding pressure, able to run AC with out it boiling over now but still getting to the O in normal but also checked it on a 95*F day so it could also be the reason will find out more Monday.
Wish me luck!

Bill

P.S. thanks to all who replied on the Overheat thread i started last week.. all valuable suggestions (except for the one to scrap the 96 ) LMAO
 
I'll bet you have solved it. I read the thread but didn't comment. I do have one thing to say regarding the hydrocarbon test. The squeeze ball is meant to draw air into the fluid and it should clearly be doing so. You should see lots of bubbles in the fluid. If not, then the valve in the bottom is stuck shut. I had that happen and I got a false negative result. When I tried a different tester I got the bad news. Another easy way to see if the tester is working is to bring it to the back of the car in the exhaust stream and squeeze it there. The fluid should immediately turn green.
 
the O in NORMAL is normal...around 190....as has been mentioned a Motorcraft t-stat may cause it to run cooler than one that's not oem, but Normal is Normal....mine does that too, I have learned to accept that it's gonna run warmer on the highway cruising 70-80mph....I've read that some Marks just like different parts of the Normal range
 
I started driving my other '96 yesterday (the white one); I recently replaced ofa gask and t-stat (non motorcraft) ...now this car gets up to 'O' quick, stays up there and even creeps into 'N' periodically; I'm hoping proper burping is all I need. May go for MC t-stat after that, new radi after that
:(
 
All I know is that in my 95 tbird those gauges were incredibly sensitive to change. In summer it would read O-R cream up to M if playing good but once that fan kick on bam down to N. same with the fuel gauge real sensitive and go the oil gauge you will know if you are low on oil with those bad valve guide seals. Go around a corner and bam no oil pressure. Might be a sensitive gauge too on change. Oh btw O-R was around 208 or so in my bird had a scan tool hooked up one time that read PIDs.
 
This is why i have a hard time trusting anyone but myself to work on my own stuff... people can get lazy, but they choose the wrong place to cut corners.
 
Well several weeks later im still experiencing high temps, I haven't had it overheat, but its constantly runs on the hotter side. Im going to meet up with MMphoto to hook his reader up and see just what temps its actually running at. since I cant get this to settle down even after bleeding this dam thing for almost 3 weeks now, also replaced the Degauss bottle cap again to a factory cap and it seems to have helped..
 
if it runs hotter than normal...its either a defective water pump....clogged radiator....thermostat getting stuck or the electric fan isnt working properly.
 
defective water pump? do water pumps actually go "bad"? or do they just leak.

clogged radiator, maybe.

thermostat, maybe. could also be the wrong thermostat.

bad fan would still cool on the highway, just run hot in town. and it would run real hot. been there done that.

and just because the plugs are good does not mean the head gasket is fine.
 
ugh, I've spent this week driving my new DD to/fro work. 45 miles each way, highway cruising at about 70 mph. If OD is off, the rpm's are at 2600 and the gauge is smack in the middle of NORMAL, about 165 degrees F? If I turn OD on, RPM's go to 2000 and the needle goes up to 'O' in NORMAL, (N is hot, L is cool)...
 
yes water pumps do go bad and do not leak.....and I just replaced my dads thermostat on his 96 caravan that was getting stuck and it would overheat....it wouldn't get stuck all the time. I had a 95 Cougar 3.8 and that thing would run hot all the time even after doing the headgaskets on it. If the needle fluctuates up and down its the headgaskets.
 
okay, a few simple questions about burping: the directions i read say to insert large funnel at x-over top, idle engine until t-stat opens, then turn engine off. Expanded coolant should be de-gassed/burped and it should recede into the x-over pretty quickly.
What I've been doing is waiting for the radi fan to come on. By that time the coolant is violently bubbling (boiling at 212 or more?) my temp gauge is in the middle of NORMAL at this time, much cooler than my typical highway driving temp! the upper radi hose is very hot to the touch- too hot to touch really
----
question: how do I know when the t-stat opens and is there a way to know what temp starts the fan?
I have an xcal 2 for this car but there's no tune on it yet. Can I use it for data logging (temp read) now?
 
violently bubbling? my car has never done that while burping it.

and it would be more like 230 degrees. 50/50 coolant/water has a higher boiling temp.

your car is running too hot.
 
eh...erupting from the funnel...which usually coincides with the fan coming on. For some reason I thiought the fan came on when the t-stat opens. With the funnel in place how can i tell the t-stat is opened?
---
....i need to measure the actual temp...data log or plug in a thermometer gauge
 
dnsherrill said:
eh...erupting from the funnel...which usually coincides with the fan coming on. For some reason I thiought the fan came on when the t-stat opens. With the funnel in place how can i tell the t-stat is opened?
---
....i need to measure the actual temp...data log or plug in a thermometer gauge
Click to expand...

You can tell the T-stat is open by feeling the lower radiator hose. If it's warm, it's open.
 
When I got my '96 back in '04 the owner told me that the Thermostat was stuck open so he had put a socket in the line to slow the water down going threw the T-stat. Yeah I know and he is an Engineer so it must be right....Eesh.

He also had a Summit fan on it cause the stock fan motor wet the bed and then he had a trigger wire to a switch inside to manually turn the fan on when in traffic.

Anyway I got a Mark Fan off Ebay and installed it. Wasn't able to get the one hose off of the T-stat housing so I said F it and just put everything back together. Didn't know how to purge system at the time so I just took the cap off the cross over tube and filled it there. Don't even remember starting the engine to purge it?

Never had a problem after that for the most part. Just ran cool in the winter cause of the stupid Thermostat fix is all.
 
My water pump went bad and didn't leak, just made noises.
I filled cross over tube while engine was running until hot and made sure tube was always full, rocked car back and forth until I thought all air was out. Put cap back on while engine was still running...no problems. Temp never goes above "A" in normal.
 
did the socket in the t-stat help the block heater? :cool:
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that switch for the fan sounds like a cool mod, unfortunately I have a LONG list of other fix or repairs
 
dnsherrill said:
did the socket in the t-stat help the block heater? :cool:
Click to expand...
Nada cause as Ford said back in the day parts left out are parts that don't break :p
dnsherrill said:
switch for the fan sounds like a cool mod, unfortunately I have a LONG list of other fix or repairs
Click to expand...
Switch for the fan was dumb as far as I was concerned cause the ENGINEER I would have expected to hook the fan to the factory fan wire but no, he ran a line into the dash with a switch. When I installed the Ebay fan I just hooked it to the factory wires and worked fine. Would have wired it to the Block Heater but then it would have only worked in the winter time :confused:
 
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