Hydraulic pump loud noise no fluid

[LovinMyLincoln]

I have a 2000 Lincoln LS...Just recently had my coolant reservoir tank replaced, now a month later yesterday loud noise coming from engine. Took to mechanic he added red fluid and noise immediately stopped. Now 24hours later, engine is smoking (never did before, BUT NOT OVERHEATING) and smells like burnt plastic. I looked at fluid level and its at the minimum mark. (Im pretty sure mechanic would have filled to maximum mark, just like he filled power sterrring reservoir to maximum mark) so I suspect level has went down since yesterday. Does anyone know what this could be indicating?

Car is not overheating, and has not overheated since having the coolant reservoir replaced. I sure wish I would have asked the mechanic my LS hydraulic fan being out of fluid is an indicator of what?

 

[joegr]

It's an indicator of a leak in the hydraulic fan system. How could you think it could be anything else?

 

[LovinMyLincoln]

Well just didn't know if it could be the start of a bigger issue, during the 2 week he had my car he had told me the initial overheating was cause of a crack in gasket (although replacing the reservoir fixed the overheating) so I didn't know if this leak had anything to do with gasket. So would I have to have the fan replaced, or is this something that can be repaired? Thanks I appreciate any information, clueless when it comes to cars

 

[joegr]

You need a better mechanic with experience with the LS. Often cooling system problems will give symptoms that look like a bad head gasket on other cars. On the LS, it is just about never a head gasket. If this mechanic has known anything about the LS, he would have replaced the thermostat housing and a few other plastic parts at the same time as the degas bottle ("reservoir").
Also, just because the temp gauge isn't going over the half-way mark yet, doesn't mean it isn't starting to overheat.

 

[LovinMyLincoln]

Wow, you good!, forgot to add that he changed thermostat housing as well as the reservoir tank. Don't know about any other parts, just those two on my receipt. So this type of leak, is it repairable, or whole part needs to be replaced?

 

[LovinMyLincoln]

also, I didn't know that car could still overheat if temperature gage is at normal, if this is the case then how would I know if car is operating at appropriate temperature?

 

[joegr]

The point is that the engine can be running hotter than it wants to even while the gauge is at the half way mark. Once the gauge is moving past the half-way mark, it is in trouble. (There are those that believe it isn't overheating until the needle hits the "H." This is not true, and that's all I was trying to get across.)

As for the hydraulic fan system...
Is it still making a bad noise? Is this noise something other than the fan running on maximum? (The fan will run on maximum a lot if he didn't correctly bleed the air out of the cooling system using the Ford procedure.)
Now that you know exactly what level it is at, watch it for a while and see if it is really dropping or not. Also make sure the fluid is not foaming or turning strange colors.
Is this a V8, or is it the V6?