white smoke/flickering oil light/little heat through vents

I have a 1996 Windstar with the 3.8 and 212,000 miles. Recently I replaced the lower intake manifold gaskets after we became a rolling white smoke machine. After looking at some past posts, it sounded like this was the problem as many others' with a '96 or newer experienced this problem. The gaskets were in bad shape when I got to them. At this time I DID NOT go further to check the head gaskets as it appears major head gaskets problems were on the '95's. Was I wrong in not checking these as well? While I had things taken apart I also replaced the upper/lower rad. hoses, thermostat and gasket(all these were the original parts), spark plugs and wires and backflushed the cooling system with the Prestone kit.

Here's where the problems come in. After starting in back up with fresh oil in it I still have some white smoke out the tail pipe(definitely not as much as before I did work) after about 15 min. of idleing. I've put some Barr's gasket sealer in the oil but haven't driven it to circulate it well so I'm not too concerned with the smoke yet. My other problems are after it started to get up to normal operating temp, the oil light started to flicker on/off (I didn't have this problem before), sometimes a steady on. The dipstick appears to read correctly and I have no obvious signs of leakage(ie. oil filter, oil pan plug). When I drained the oil initially it was "milk shaky" consistentcy from coolant in it. Is it possible I have some slug in the bottom of the pan and its plugging the oil pickup screen? I'm somewhat reluctant to drive it with light coming on like that as I don't want to ruin engine with lack of oil.
The other problem is that after coolant flush I now have little warm air blowing through vents when engine get up to operating temp. Any ideas? Right now I just have water in system(its not getting below freezing in Wisconsin now)until everything gets corrected and then I will switch over to rad. coolant. We've had pretty good luck with our windstar, other than the usual inter. light issuses, and would like to get it back on the road. Thanks for any input or suggestions.

As for your lack of heating problem, you could have an air lock, but the engine would probably overheat, more likely you dislodged some chunks of crud and they are blocking the heater core. You might have to remove the hoses to the core and back flush it with a garden hose.

Your idea about the sludge in the pick-up screen sounds reasonable. Either that or maybe a faulty sender. Or damage has been done to the bearings reducing the oil pressure. Is your engine noiser than before? You could also try an oil flush using one of those products for it.

Hey Doug360,

The engine doesn't seem to be any noisier than before.

Doug

I have a 95 which I had to replace the headgaskets on. Before I took it apart, I noted that cylinders 3 & 4 had antifreeze in them. You could pull the plugs and check for antifreeze on them.

As to your low oil psi. I believe you did do damage to the bearings because antifreeze does terable things to bearings. When I had my 95 apart to do the headgaskets, I also replaced the rod bearings. Before I took it apart, I heard a tap, tap, until the oil psi was built up. #6 was the worst. I saw copper (copper = bad) on the top half of the bearing. $34.00 was was a good investment. I replaced the bearings at 177,000 miles and now have just over 214,000 on the clock. I know if I hadn't replaced them the rod would have blown.

Regards

Dan

Yea, antifreeze sure can eat up the bearing surface in a hurry. Might be a good idea to pull the oil pan and check them before any real damage is done. If the engine is not knocking the crank is probably still OK and you just need to slip in the new bearings. However if the antifreeze is still leaking in, the problem will just repeat itself, until you solve that problem. I've never removed a pan on a Windstar, so I don't know how much work is involved. Hope it's an easy one.

Doug

To remove the oil pan, you have to remove the "Y" pipe....which is both of the Catalytic converters and the pipes to each exhaust manifold.

I am guessing that your new gaskets are leaking if you are still using coolant.
The place to put the Bar's Stop leak is in the coolant, not the oil...as white smoke is an indication of a coolant leak.

For low oil pressure.....possible that the pick-up screen is clogged.....so removing the oil pan would seam the easiest way to get to that.
Not sure if the Bar's could be causing this problem......if you put the coolant kind in the oil....it is possible....
I have not used a 'oil' stop leak product in the oil....so I am not familiar with that.
However, the coolant in the oil could have caused some crud to come free.
I would make sure that the oil pump's pickup screen is clear before trying to run the engine.
Also, change the oil and filter again to make sure that you have clean oil, free of contamination.