Bought her today...(Ghostiva)!!!

[lanemeyer14]

Well I am FINALLY officially part of the fordfestiva.com family! I bought the white 1990 L Plus I have been thinking about getting. It's in great shape (a/c even works, just needs to be charged), has white steelies with beauty rings(missing one). I am dubbing her Ghostiva! I haven't brought her home yet, probably will tomorrow. I'm almost positive the head has a crack, so that will be my first order of business. I just wanna get her fixed in time to make it to festiva madness in raleigh. Since it does run, do you guys think it would be safe for me to drive it home (about 40 miles), or should i go ahead and plan to get it towed? Anyway, here are the pics I took today.

[25Horseplay]

Looks like a nice car! If you drive it home and it overheats you might find yourself stuck on the side of the road. Or if the head is not cracked and its only the headgasket you might crack the head. Your call.

[lanemeyer14]

Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of.....I don't wanna do more damage than what is already done. The guy I bought it from said he drove it about 30 miles when it started to overheat before he parked it.

[V8Festiva]

Great looking car! Will be great to see you and your car in Raleigh next month.

If the car has some heating issues, run the heater at full blast. This may drop the temp some.

Make sure you pull it over and let the engine cool , if you must every few miles.

Dean

Raleigh, NC

[Damkid]

Congrats on the purchase!!

[lanemeyer14]

Finally got her home. On my first attempt it started pressurizing and blowing coolant/water out of the overflow tank. I removed the thermostat and ran it without it. It ran great for about 20 minutes and then the temp. gauge started going up. I was about 3 minutes from home when it got too hot and I started to lose power. So I stopped for a while, added some water and continued home. Now I'm wondering exactly what is wrong with it. No oil in the coolant, no coolant in the oil that I can tell. Anybody have any ideas/suggestions? I guess I just need to get a compression/leak down test and go from there.

[FB71]

you have a leak between a coolant passage and at least one cylinder. That's the most common type of head gasket failure, and has exactly the symptoms you described.

[gorgonheimer]

doesnt have to have water in oil to be the head gasket. could just be exhaust gas in the water from the bad head gasket. just like FB71 beat me to saying

[lanemeyer14]

Thanks guys! The guy I bought it from just had a new head gasket put on it about 1k miles ago. Could the head be warped? It doesn't make sense to blow another head gasket that soon.

[wrestler3025]

If they didn't have the head milled when they replaced the gasket, and the head was the problem in the first place, it's certainly possible. It's possible the head bolts may just need to be re-torqed to spec depending on the gasket used. I would give that a try first, and see how it goes.

[Damkid]

Sounds like it's already time for a BP swap!! :lol:

[lanemeyer14]

HaHa! I know. I just wanted to at least get this engine running right so I can make it to festiva madness next month.....then swap in the illustrious bp!