4.6 Triton

We might have messed up. I bought a used truck and thought we had checked the coolant but may have missed it and put it in the cold. Drove it in last week and all seemed normal and now warmed up I went to move it and steam and water from he'll out the tail pipe. I blew almost 20# on the cooing system and can't tell so far where it's leaking a little other than when we start it blows water out the muffler. I put air on it and loses 8 maybe 10# in an hour but not totally sure it's not some in fittings best I can hear.

There's only two places I know where water can come into contact with the combustion chamber and that would be either head gasket or intake manifold. I have a Mustang with this engine but haven't had to get inside it so I'm not certain the intake manifold actually has water jackets. The intake manifold is plastic and for a while there were problems with them sealing for that reason. On second thought, a cracked head would allow water into combustion too and if left to freeze with untreated water could have happened. It might take a teardown to find it.

The water out of the tailpipe, what does it taste like? perfectly normal for the tailpipe to drip water condensation when it's cold out and the engine isn't working hard.

Watch the coolant level as you use it.

Cracked head or block?

I was going to fill and run it but it's a lot of water thru the pipe and a lot of steam. It has an aluminum manifold. I was contemplating pulling it out and taking right apart. I was reading a little and trying to figure out how long the engine family ran? Any of the core parts interchange with older engines? I have one in a 98 or 99 car. The pu is a 2004.

You'd probably have bubbles in the coolant tank and it would pressurize very quickly if it were a cracked head or head gasket. Also, if it is coolant you would know it - coolant steam hangs around a lot longer than water steam.

I figured this was going to be about blowing a spark plug out of a cylinder

I could smell faint anti freeze but there wasnt much in it, mostly water. I pressure it up to 15# and it does leak down in about an hour with the side tank empty. I might fill it and see if we got bubbles. I see a test on the net where they add a bit t to the top hose so they could see if it had air coming in it when running. I got no idea how many miles, the clock says 220, its 04. I am always suspect of intake gaskets and do have a stufd on exhaust missing or broken. I spose I could take it apart to get leakage gauge and or comp test on it???
I see a couple utubes might be worth watching if a guy was gonna take it apart. Not all that scared to gasket it or even pull it out really to fresh it up. I aint totally sure it didnt have another problem anyway.
What kind of inserts are installed in these for the plugs?

If you take it for a drive does it get hot really quickly, or the temperature gauge bounce around a lot?

Just heli coil inserts for the spark plugs and if I’m remembering right the only coolant passage in the intake is the front crossover between the heads I can’t remember off hand if those had that stupid heated throttle body with coolant running through it

This is one of the best engines ever made until it has a problem then its almost a throw away.

I havnt drove it since this happened. Doesnt apear to have water in the oil but i only ran it a couple minutes.

Ok, looks like it blew a head gasket. Rest of it doesn't look so bad. Knocking the glaze off and a set of rings wouldn't hurt. Are all the bolts in the bottom end tty?