Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Hey everyone,

I planned on reinstalling my radiator (Had my radiator checked out, but it was too far gone to rod out...it was branded as "weak" oh well) on my 292 and then doing an oil change. Well, before I put the rad back in I flushed the block with the water hose and made sure I got all the crud I could. After I filled everything up, I ran the engine to get the oil hot and to get the air out of the system. That's where the problems started. My oil turned milky white, so I somehow now have water mixing with my oil and to top that off, I then noticed transmission fluid bubbling up to the top of my radiator.

More info:

1) I drained my transmission today (I need to replace the pan gasket anyway) And all the fluid looked clean and unharmed. Whew. I will drain some more out tomorrow after she has time to settle, and I will drain out the torque converter as well. I am going to buy an external transmission cooler tonight. any recommendations? It's a two speed Mile-O-Matic / Ford-O-Matic / Cruise-O-Matic.


2) Should I drop the engine oil pan to help clean out some of that watery oil? And do I need to worry about the watery oil rusting anything?

So Far I have taken the oil pump apart and am letting that drain, I have poured some fresh oil down the rockers to help flush out some of the nasties, and have had the drain plug out since the incident to allow for everything to flow out.

3) I need to add as well, the rocker's did not have their gaskets when I did this flush, so there is a possibility that water got in through the gasketless valve covers. I thought I did my best to not allow any water in, but I am unsure of myself now. Is there any way to test if my gaskets are broken without taking everything apart? I was thinking of doing a flush one more time, but this time using low water pressure and seeing if any water pours out the oil drain plug. But my fear is that if it does start pouring water out the oil plug, then I definitely will start rusting stuff up. Thoughts?

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

If the coolant was pure clean water, you should be OK assuming there are not cracks in the block or heads. One would not expect a hard freeze where you live. After it sits overnight, the water will be on the bottom of the pan. Drain off the water and stick the plug back in. I'll bet there is much less than you expect. If it wont separate, a full change is in store. Put the new rocker gaskets on and take a 40 mile drive, and back again. Make sure the PCV is in good working order.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Make sure you change the oil filter also. Before restarting if you feel ambitious you could pull the distributor and circulate fresh oil the flush the oil galleries and passages.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Thanks guys.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Well guys, I decided to tackle the transmission today. Here are a few problems I've had:

The drain plugs on the torque converter seem stuck, I could not get them free for the life of me. I'm going to keep trying, but does anyone have any suggestions for methods on getting them loose? I know I'm going to need new ones to put in, since the old ones are already rounding out.

I got the pan off the transmission and did find a bit of coolant, but not a whole lot, and it didn't seem to have mixed with the fluid. I think I can flush everything out okay. But in taking the pan off I found this:

http://oi39.tinypic.com/14wgf9l.jpg

Anyone have an idea what this is? The transmission seemed to shift fine when I was running a month ago.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

trans oil in the radiator is caused by one of the lines from the trans that go thru the bottom of radiator to cool the trans oil having a hole in it letting the trans oil to be forced into the rad

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

If the stuff in the picture is plastic, it looks like it was a speedo gear

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

I am thinking that too.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

I would TRY macs on the speedo. Ouch

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Here are a few videos inside the transmission and engine:

Engine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iz8Qr4Jl2M

Tranny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNm5w5nh-Bg

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Well I put about 10 PSI in the radiator today and didn't get any visible leaks coming out the crank case. I do have quite a few in my radiator now, so it would lose pressure over a few minutes, but I just kept pumping it up.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

I wouldn't worry too much about the residual water hurting the engine after all you've done to flush it out; when you get it to temp, the water will evaporate out of the oil. However, getting water in there in the first place is a serious concern. Water in the tranny and tranny fluid in the water is probably a cooling line leak in the radiator as ford3 said. Water in the engine indicates that you probably have a misalligned intake gasket. It's not terribly hard to remove that intake and check that out before you fire up again.

If not an intake gasket, sounds like a crack somewhere. Assuming you did not have that leak prior to disassembly, that's not likely.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Here are the results of the run yesterday: Still milky, not a milky as last time though. See for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eXSzu-nMOA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VnLiO-uHtc

Could this just be residual?


Out of curiosity today, I pulled the drain plug to see how much water was sitting at the bottom of the oil pan. I felt it was a lot, and it was pure water too, no antifreeze. Here is a video of what I pulled out of her. Keep in mind this is fresh oil and she only ran for about 10 minutes or less. (Disreguard the crud at the very bottom, that was already in my drain pan.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biu9ThHmyz4


Oh and when I drained the coolant the other day, I didn't find any engine oil in it. Seemed okay.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

As a WELDOR everytime something is to tight to move I get out the torches & start heating said culprit & most of the time torch wins

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

I believe the reason why you have water in the oil now is because your radiator has the transmission cooler inside the bottom radiator tank and that little cooler has a hole in it.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

It cant be the speedo gear. It wouldn't be able to travel from the cavity in the rear extension housing to the transmission pan. When a speedo gear breaks off in a Fordomatic, it just lays in the bottom of the rear extension housing cavity.
I say, it might be bits of the fluid filter screen (which is located close to the bottom of the transmission fluid pan. If so, it is in bad shape and obviously needs to be replaced.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Watched your video... heard a lot of tapping.

Might want to do this trick that I did on my 272...

Where the rocker arm oil return spout is...remove it and tap that hole for a set screw. Plug the hole.

This will pressurize the rocker arm tube and force oil out the pivot points of the rocker arms. It lubes them a LOT better than the namby-pamby original design.

Of course, make sure the tube and everything is clean and crud free first.

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Hey guys, I took the timing cover off today. Hopefully this solves my oil in water problem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knykjmteuEk


Does the timing chain look too loose to you guys?

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

Here's a thought: The road draft tube gasket is bad on my engine. Could the water have gotten in from there?

Re: Hit A Few Snags With the 292 Today
 

On the topic of timing sprockets, here's a video of mine that I removed today. Do they look too worn?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JzdvHWVRI0

And Happy 4th of July!