Dyoct

I ended up blowing the diffpin! Holy crap. Was just taking off from a light normally, not WOT, not aggressive or anything and I heard what sounded like ice breaking. But car accelerated fine, no lights came on, no drivability symptoms noted. No other unusual noises. I was less than a mile from home so I parked it. Nothing noticed either. Later than night, I saw a puddle of fluid underneath. Google search, looked around here, thought maybe the slave cylinder, nope it was dry. I had it towed to a local shop and they dropped the trans and found a hole and the pin outside. Damn. Are there any differential upgrades for this car? As an SHO owner the diffpin was always on the back of mind as those are notorious(sometimes they’ll blow on the track or they’ll blow under normal driving) but it never happened there and I eventually upgraded to a Quaife.

Hey thanks. And wow on the responses here and I'll have to admit, I did *over-react* to the initial job but when the Ford manual isn't detailed enough, you are majorly let down. MAJOR PROPS to Sports-car-list for the photos! I would recommend, however, staying with the OEM hose clamps. ngirardi, it's been several years, but are the WSM instructions just the two pages of basic instructions? Who knows why it ended being in that spot, but at least there is a way to work to it, I dread the day I have to do this on my Escape since according to the previous owner, he never touched it nor did anything beyond "changing the oil and tires."

Is this the end of my clutch? What have manual owners seen in the higher miles when the clutch wears out? Upon startup there was a metallic rattling coming from under hood. I couldn't get into gear. I shut off and retried, no problems. A few days later I start up and same thing, although as I pressed in the clutch, it made this loud grinding sound, went away when I let off. Wouldn't go into gear. Turned off, restarted, grinding into initial gear then normal. I get her home and park yesterday. Tonight I went to move into a different parking spot and as I was turning the key to start, the car kept trying to move forward with every turn of the engine despite having the clutch fully down like somebody just learning how to drive stick. It ground into reverse and 1 but drove fine the 20 or so feet to another spot where once I put it out of gear it didn't want to go back in and would rattle like hell when I pressed down the clutch. I did a bit of searching but not alot is found. Anything I should check or should I call to schedule a clutch replacement? When it drove it didn't slip or any other symptoms. I'm at 117K and I've only had one clutch go out/wear out before but that thing slipped a ton, especially under hard accel, on a different-cable actuated pedal.

NGK is the manufacturer for the Motorcraft plugs in the Fusion, FYI.

When did the Extended Service Contract start? A 2008 Model Year car could be over 6 years old by this time so the OEM warranty is long expired by now. My brother had a similar problem with his 08 Focus. His repair bill was about $1,500 as well. There's more to the story, his vehicle was involved in a collision and this was some leftover damage and the shop had to replace the front engine cover and the mounts and brackets...

A code scanner should be able to give you any fault code stored in the memory. Is that the only light you're getting though? The fail safe mode for overheating will flash the oil light as well and dial back the power as you describe.

COUGH four doors COUGH

57K huh? You can probably just wait until your engine light comes on within the next month or so and it turns out it is time for the thermostat replacement to change the coolant then. :-)

Did any warning lights ever come during the higher temps? At 260 the vehicle should go into fail safe mode where the engine light will flash, the oil light will come on and the vehicle will have no power as the fuel injectors alternate cylinder shut off to pump air through the block. It sounds like you had major air pockets in the system. That bleed valve has to be opened ANYTIME you add more than a quart of coolant/water. AND ONLY OPEN WHEN COLD otherwise it's like opening up a radiator cap under heat/pressure! IIRC I think only the 4 cylinders have the bleed valve, the V6s do not.

:happy feet: Finally got 'er done! Talked to a former co-worker and he said you gotta unbolt the pump as mentioned in the previous post. The Ford WSM isn't detailed enough. Safely raise vehicle, secure rear wheels, jackstands etc. Drain coolant, a red petcock can be found the driver side lower radiator. I used a small rubber hose (maybe 3/8"?) to attach to the drain to run through to my catchpan. Remove the splash shield on the passenger side wheel well that covers the crank pulley. With the use a 13mm wrench/belt tensioner tool release the slack on the belt and remove. Undo the 3 bolts (10mm) on the power steering pump. The top left one will remain with the pump whereas it cannot be completely removed because it is obstructed by a line. Top right bolt will be removed. The lower bolt can be taken off of with a small box wrench. Move the pump and reservior assembly to the side. (2006 models that do no have ABS will have addtional room where as the ABS module is in the vicinity here) you can also unbolt (8mm) the filler neck for the washer fluid reservior for some more space. You have access now to the thermostat housing assembly. Remove the two coolant hoses. A plier hose clamp spring loaded tool is VERY recommended here! Now you can remove the 3 thermostat bolts (8mm). The top one on the passenger side can be accessed from the top. The two driver side bolts (top and bottom) can be accessed from under the vehicle. This is the only useful step from the Ford book. :do what: Remove housing. I flushed some more distilled water through the system. I undid the upper hose and flushed distilled water through the block. Installation is reverse of removal. Ha, again from Ford manual. Before you add in the new coolant/water mix, open the relief valve. It is a small platic capscrew located by the brake master cylinder. I think on AT models the trans dispstick is in that area too (not sure since mine is an MT). Fill with coolant, eventually some will start to come out of that valve. Run engine, get up to temperature, run heat on high, inspect for leaks and check coolant level. I wish I had taken some pictures, but hope this helps.

220 range just may be normal for these engines.... I bailed on the T-stat replacement after I couldn't unsuccessfully get it out. During my trip up north for Thanksgiving I saw the temp gauge stop right before the icon. The next day the CEL came on. I checked the data with my scanner, coolant was 172degrees on the highway with ambient temp no higher than 40degrees. Idling it got up to 180. I decided to redneck engineer the car and block off the radiator with cardboard. No change in temperature reading. I disconnected the fan, let the car idle for 15 minutes and temps got up to 228. Once moving, the coolant dropped to about 178. Mileage was never above 28mpg on the entire trip from Georgia to Michigan and back. The other night I get the idea to just use packing grade plastic and wrap up the front end blocking any airfolow off. That did the trick, the temps were hovering at 221 on the freeway, up to 230 idling. I ran the vehicle up to Indianapolis, 40MPG at 55mph for 30 minutes. 30MPG at 100mph for 15 minutes. Temps stayed at 220 range. Although, on the way back down, in the mountains in Tennessee the temp got up to 246 and I saw the needle more towards the right for the first time ever but it did not even touch the red zone. I ran the heater on with defrost and laid off the gas and temps got back down to 220. Overall mileage for the trip 32.3mpg. If you see a black Fusion with a Michigan plate rolling around A town with the front end all covered up, that's me. Oh, and oddest side affect. While the scanner shows outside temp of 100degrees with the front end blocked off the EATC shows 130+ degrees!

Leaking door seals per the TSB. Unfortunately my father had the car from 10K-40K so when I got it back and went to the dealer. Out of warranty. I also noticed that the power steering pump seemed noisy like the 90s Fords did. Dealer said no problem found, it was normal. 40K. It is louder at 90K. Weeping rear main seal first spotted at 60K. Now is definitely a seeping rear main seal at 90K. Rust on roof near windshield and on trunk lid by the chrome trim spotted at 60K. This car only spent two full winters up north. And c'mon, the roof?? Torque strut mount at aprox 80K. Thermostat and intermittent check engine light when the temps are 50 and below for running too cold. In the middle of the repair at 90K. I remember one of the best professors I ever had said "don't finance a car longer than the warranty term and don't buy domestic." I thought maybe a Mazda designed and Mexican assembled vehicle would have sufficed. But I guess even "foreign" cars will have their problems too.

Holy #$&*#(*@$& $(@&(@$&@( $&@(&@$@ This is by far the worst repair experience ever. I hereby curse the Ford/Mazda engineers on that design as well and hope they sleep well at night knowing that because of this issue this will be my last Ford. As for the upper left bolt, that has to be taken from the top per the Ford book. The other two are from the bottom. They are fairly easy to get out however the hoses are the real PITA. The Ford instructions aren't much help here, it's 2 pages and states that after the housing is unbolted you manuever it to get easier access to the hoses and "disconnect" them. How did you get that one hose clamp off? It seems to be different style whereas it does not have the two prongs to press to release and slide out. I was thinking of the pulling the intake manifold to make this easier or just taking the stupid car into my local dealer who quoted me $230. I am leary though because he did it off of the book time. My former dealer/employer charges $500 for the job so I'm going to call my local dealer to confirm if they in fact can do this for $230. I ended up rebolting the thermostat housing back but lost the left upper bolt and cannot find it. I'll be picking up a bolt, putting it back together and looking into pulling the manifold or biting on $230.

It's a common problem because it's programmed into the OBD system now. Thermostats are wear items but nobody replaces them. My Volvo was exhibiting symptoms of slow to warm up, never getting warmed up in the winter, ran rich and the exhaust would never clear up in the cold and cabin heat was weak. Two winters ago I went to change the thermostat and I'm assuming the original one was in there because it just fell apart out of the housing once removed. New t-stat and full tune up and the car ran much better; gas mileage went up and the exhaust cleared up. I found that funny because it passed "emissions" testing no problems here. A former customer's 96 Ranger kept failing emissions because it would not clear the P1000 code despite running hundreds of miles before "testing." Turned out his thermostat stuck open and not allowing the vehicle to get up to temp. Wife complained of low heat in her Mustang last year. Changed the thermostat, had the original in it. She always gripes of low gas mileage however last month I drove it for our holiday break and it got better mileage than my Fusion does currently.

Wow, the temps are into the 220 range after the repair? I've had the low temp code on and off for some time. During the summer and with the AC on the temp would never get past much 190 but it would vary from like mid 160s to the 180s for the most part. On cool mornings if I had the AC compressor running, I would see the temp gauge needle maybe go a 1/4 up and after a few miles the CEL would come on. I have the thermostat and I have already drained the original coolant, flushed with water, added a flush and water mixture and then flushed with water again and I am dreading to tackle this project.