2002 Lincoln Ls 3.9L Heater Core advise ( help!!!!)

easycous723

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I have a 2002 lincoln ls 3.9L can someone tell what are some signs when your heater core has went bad.
I started the car up today and there was water leaking under the car,I had remove the upper intake manifold and everything fine the leak isn't coming from the engine or the radiator, The leak looks like it's coming from the firewall on the passenger side under the car beside the transmission. I've always seen cars with heater core problems have antifreeze leaking in the floor on the passenger side from the inside of the car and I've check the 3 heater core hoses and they look fine.
Any advice on this matter will be very appreciated
 
Seriously, clear water? not green in color? kinda odd. I mean there's some A/C lines in that area but even if you were running that we are talking a few drips of clear liquids. Sure it's not coolant and is your interior heating working, car's not overheating?

Another though and I don't know what part of the world you are in but could be snow that got in under the plastic underside covers that since had a chance to melt and on a driveway incline now is able to leak past the lips, not sure.

The LS is not supposed to be leaking large amounts of clear water that I know of, unless you are running water in your cooling system which is a no-no.

:confused:
 
I haven't heard of a leaking LS heater core yet. If it did leak, the coolant would come out the AC evaporator drain, not the in cabin.

There is some other plumbing back there that could be leaking. Also, a leak at the front of the engine on top (very common by the way) can run under the intake and down the back of the engine. If you haven't replaced the thermostat housing and the degas bottle, those would be great to start with.

What do you mean by "upper intake manifold?" The 3.9 only has a one-piece intake manifold, unlike the 3.0
 
Sorry for not explaining in accurate details but what was leaking was antifreeze not water and also the car hasn't been outside in a year it has be in the garage.

02 lincoln ls.jpg

02 lincoln ls.jpg
 
Sorry about putting the details in water but when the leak started it was coolant that was leaking on the floor not water but I did add water to keep the leak going so that I could find out where the leak was coming from. I put this engine together so most of the parts are new like the thermostat housing and the degas bottle but i check those for leaks and I also removed the one piece intake manifold because it's a coolant hose that runs under it going to the throttle body that was completely dry. With the intake manifold not attach to the cylinder heads I sealed all of the loose coolant lines but 1 and with an air hose force air in the line and it leak in the same spot it look like it was leaking from the firewall on the passenger side.
 
I bought this car from a guy saying that it had a blown head gasket but i took the valve covers off you could see the stop leak crap that the guy had poured into the engine and all the engine needed was a Upper Radiator Heater Pipe Tube but the guy keep filling the car up with stop leak stuff instead. So that engine was shot I took the engine apart and took the engine block and the cylinder heads to the machine shop and they told me that the engine block was warped and 1 of the cylinder heads had been damage. So I'm thinking it maybe the heater core also because if the had got hot enough to warp the engine and with an engine full of stop leak crap a heater core don't stand a chance. Dam I would rather install three engines then do 1 heater core job.
 
After checking every coolant line on the engine the problem was in the heater core it only took about 4 hours to get to the heater core and after inspecting the heater core it was stop up with so much of that stop leak crap that the coolant could not pass through it freely and it busted a hole in the heater core.
Well the fun part will be installing the new heater core but honestly they need to outlaw or ban that stop leak crap!!!!!
02 lincoln ls.jpgIMAG1442.jpgIMAG1454.jpgIMAG1464.jpgIMAG1455.jpgIMAG1456.jpg

ALL OF THIS WORK FOR A DAM HEATER CORE

02 lincoln ls.jpg


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Yikes! I've seen these types of pics once before, it scared me back then also.
Kudos to you for even attempting this job! I would have been onto my next car very possibly.
 
I can't agree enough with that statement.

exactly, with the kind of pressure that the cooling systems sees, anything that will plug a leak will probably also plug a bunch of other stuff.

that stuff just scares me of what it could plug in the motor or radiator!
 
never understood why someone would use stop leak vs getting to the root
of the problem and repairing. i realize not everyone has an unlimited
budget for repair, but then you need to get a car that you can afford to fix.

i'd be buying another ls if mine took a crap like that. no way would i tear
out the interior like that. i DO have limits !
 
Product was made for used car dealers.
 
Well the engine was warped so bad that you couldn't turn the engine over so I bought another engine to rebuild after I rebuilt the engine I had to take apart because the wrong torque measurement was use on the bed plate and you are supposed to 10 new bolts in the bed plate to torque the crankshaft down because using old bolts can result main bearing failure. I had plans to sale this car but I've done so much work to this car I think I will keep it.

2002 Lincoln LS 3.9 liter DOHC engine diagram.jpg

2002 Lincoln LS 3.9 liter DOHC engine diagram.jpg
 
It took about 4 hours again to install the heater core and put all the parts back in place, it wasn't as bad as taken it apart the only thing left to do now is bolt the intake back down and hook everything back up for the 6th time.
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Gotta hand it to ya, seem to have no problems taking things apart and putting it back together in a jiffy.

So that was a new heater core that went in, the old one leaked inside the interior through the floor? seems it's positioned very inwards so if it was leaking from there would you not have soaked carpets?
 
... the old one leaked inside the interior through the floor? seems it's positioned very inwards so if it was leaking from there would you not have soaked carpets?

The LS, like many cars, has a drain pan under the heater core (like the pan under the evaporator). Most heater core leaks should result in coolant coming out of the evaporator drain tube under the car, not on the carpet.
 
yeah with 2 other people helping out it makes the job a lot easier to do, to be honest replacing heater in a LS is not a job for 1 person.
 

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