Greetings:

I have a 1987 Merc. Colony Park with the 5.0L V8 with 120k miles.

This problem seems to be getting worse over the last four years.

The cooling system has a rusty looking muddy sludge in it.

Recently, I was going to change the head gaskets, but in the process of
tearing down the accessory stuff I found that the water pump was not
very good. Went deeper and found the timing chain was shot. Fixed
that and found the freeze plugs shot. Fixed that. The dealer told me
that the head gaskets should not need changing, so I put the thing back
together with new belts and hoses.

That was two weeks ago and I completely flushed cooling system, too.
Looked in the radiator and found more "muddy sludge". I mean this
stuff looks like butterscotch pudding!

Anybody know what is causing this?

"Flash" <d_e_monat (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

What type of antifreeze/coolant are you using?
-if only the green stuff, sounds like oil.

How did you come about getting input from dealer?



--
Yeh, I'm a Krusty old Geezer, putting up with my 'smartass' is the price
you pay..DEAL with it!

The cheap stuff! Autozone brand ethylene glycol (green) 50-50 with
water. The anti-freeze is only two weeks old!

I thought maybe oil, but the car does not use much oil.

This pudding is rust brown, thich, and not slippery. More like a fine
Georgia clay. The radiator is full of this crap and the car has not
gone more than 50 miles since I worked on it. :-(

"Flash" <d_e_monat (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

And you never used the yellow stuff?

--
Yeh, I'm a Krusty old Geezer, putting up with my 'smartass' is the price
you pay..DEAL with it!

Oh! I forgot. I went to the dealer to get a part that was rusted
through. That "T" above the thermostat with a sensor and a heater hose
attached. They wanted $90 for the thing and had to order it.

I went to True-Value and built one for $9.00 :-) and mine won't rust!

Yellow? Are you talking about orange RV anti-freeze?

Doesn't matter. I only use the green a/f.

With what you have seen inside your motor, you have a heavily rusted
block. The freeze plugs would last forever under normal circumstances.
How much rust and where is an unknown until you tear it down. Flushing
with water doesn't do much good. You have to flush it with the strong
chemical flush to have any hope of cleaning it, and that won't be 100%.
So keep flushing it and make sure all the chemicals are flushed out as
they are corrosive too. Then run 60:40 coolant and maybe a rust
preventive additive and hope for the best. There's no mystery here. You
just have a bad situation.

Flash wrote:
crankcase ..... 5.0 ltr v8s have very few head gasket problems

Thanks all for your replies.

New developement... The repair of the leaks have caused the cooling
system pressure to increase normally and this has created another
leak!!!!!!!!!

I am going to have to yank the motor.

I'll repair everything, add rust inhibitor. and do the head gaskets
(ready or not). This way I can really flush the block.

Fun is...