Mercury villager 2000 Rough idle white smoke

[prorig]

Now that I got my van to start again an old problem that hadn't showed it ugly head until I cleaned and repaired oil leaks and cleaned trottle body. When starting in cold weather it idles rough and exhaust is white also a very bad oder is present from the looks of it I have a coolent leak I determined that it could be one of these bad head gasket , cracked head or egr spacer plate how do I pin point the problem ? Noticed that intake manifold and egr ports had more than just light carbon when cleaned.

[ProTech]

If you're blowing white smoke out of the exhaust, that means you're burning coolant, so the most likely problem you're facing is a blown head gasket. A leakdown tester would come in handy to find out for sure, but not many people have access to one. If the engine has a lot of miles on it, or if it's been poorly maintained, you might not want to put any money into it. A big repair like replacing head gaskets can lead to a bottom end failure on old, worn out engines.

[prorig]

Thanks well I may not have to worry about it now driving less than 30 mph it just died on me not able to restart. Time to find someting better.

[Smokey]

I have a 1998 Ford Taurus. It seems not to hold any power steering fluid I may need a new pump or I may have a busted line. my question to you is can I do the repairs on this myself in how long would it take.

[carriedi]

I can tell you that the book time for the PS pump is an hour and the hoses range from .8 to 2.6 depending on the hose and what engine you have. The only problem you might have doing these repairs yourself is the power steering pump will need to have the pulley removed and reinstalled on the new pump. Sometimes the new pump will come with a tool to put the pulley on but you will have to use a puller to get it off the old pump. Some parts stores will lend you the tool if you buy their part. But, most don't. they will sell you the tool.

[1964prostreetelcamino]

My wife's 1993 Mercury Cougar XR-7 has been having turn signal and brake light issues. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. I've replaced the side signal switch,Column Switch or turn signal switch as I call it. It's also called a Multifunctional Switch. The tune up shop also changed the thermal switch under the dash. I took her car for a test drive after replacing the turn signal switch and it worked for about 2 minutes and quit working again. What happens is the turn signals quit working inside and outside of the car. The rear window brake light still works and the right side brake light also works. All the fuses are good. One of the shops told me that if the rear window brake light is on and working when the turn signals don't work, it's the thermal switch. OK, so I tried that! Put the new switch in and it didn't work so I put the old one back in and it worked just fine. About 10 minutes later the signal light and brake lights quit working again. I have no where to go from here. The shops want to replace the whole steering column now for big $$$. Any help would be greatly appreciated here!

[carriedi]

you're going to need to check your wiring when the problem exists. make sure you have power going into the turn signal flasher. then see if you have the power coming out to the turn signal switch and the out from the turn switch. you have to figure out where you are losing the power at. Make sure the flasher has a good ground connection to it. look at the diagram and follow the powers through the circuit.

[Armet]

I have a 2009 Ford Focus and last day while driving, I heard a noise which sounded like shaking in back tire. It sounds like something is disconnected especially when I drive over a bump in the road. I talked about this to my friend who is an auto mechanic in Etobicoke ( Service plus ) through phone. He suggested me to check the sway or stabilizer bar, is this the one which sounds like shaking. Did anyone had any similar experience?

[carriedi]

the sway bar is connected between the two sides and the frame in between. If either of the sway bar links or the frame bushings are loose or damaged it will most likely make noises going over bumps. If the noise seems to be coming from one side then you should inspect the suspension parts on that side but sometimes noise is transferred through the frame or parts that are connected together so be aware that the noise may not be just where you hear or feel it from. A loose shock or other suspension component may also be the cause of the noise. Someone should get under the vehicle and check it out.

[davidkien68]

I have a 04 Taurus with a vin U 3.0 that sets a p0300 while sitting still idling in Park. With a snap on Solus Pro scanner I can see the misfire count go up 1 to 2 counts about every ten seconds. The car seems to idle fine and seems to count misfires faster if the a/c is off and will not count any if it is in gear. If I watch the cylinder contribution numbers it seems to catch a problem with every cylinder but very random as far as time and which cylinder, The plugs are fairly new and coil and wires check ok but I really don't think it is ignition related just by the way it acts. The fuel trims are around 1-3 the labscope pattern of the crank sensor looks very normal and I replaced both the cam sensor and the synchronizer with no change. I tried finding a vacuum leak by spraying carb clean around while watching O2 readings with no luck and removed and plugged pcv line which made no difference. The customer said that this seemed to start shortly after he had oil changed at a quick lube facility. I see there is a 10 year old Ford bulletin on a software update for a p0300 but it seems unlikely that it has taken it this long to just now show up. I might try cleaning the injectors next but am open for any ideas This has been going on for multiple tanks of fuel now. Thanks in advance for any thoughts and help.

[carriedi]

injector cleaning would make sense to me. I have seen multiple vehicles that have slight random misfires and doing an injector cleaning (motor vac) cleared up the condition.