dat2109

I think there are some differing opinions as to what can be done to improve the life of the waterpump - if that is even possible... The reason the waterpump starts leaking into the engine is because the bearings wear out and the shaft starts to wobble / get loose. When the shaft is moving around that much the seals cant do their job, and since the cooling system is at a higher pressure than the crankcase, coolant pushes into the engine. I don't have a waterpump in my hands to take apart and look at but it would seem logical to identify if the bearing is sealed. I believe it is normal these days for most waterpumps to have sealed bearings.

I think that weep hole is behind the alternator, really really hard to see. The waterpump wouldn't directly sling coolant onto the belt because it isn't driven by it but maybe it could make a path from the weephole to the belt? Check that area out. Mine didnt weep at all externally.

I took a video of the water pump pulley dripping, it was a few hours of work to get here because you need to take the timing cover and timing chain off. https://youtu.be/19oPyOMDUh8

You might be jumping a few steps blaming the waterpump right away. I dont think a puff of steam when the waterpump lets go is very common because they often leak into the engine. Check Check Check everything else first, the old keep it simple stupid comes to mind. You dont want to spend the time changing the water pump or engine if it was just a hose or clamp that let go. Once the engine registers the overheat it will cut power, sounds like that is what you experienced. Running low on coolant can cause this, especially if you've been idling. Tell tale signs that the waterpump is to blame is coolant disappearing into the oil and timing related codes. You've got to do lots of digging before you see the waterpump itself. I've done the waterpump replacement in the Edge, I have the cam tools I can loan out if you don't want to buy a set. The harmonic balancer remover is a common loan a tool from the parts houses - they say it is for Chryslers but its the same tool.

I'm an oil and coolant nerd too. I think you did just fine with both the oil and the coolant. The newest Edge come with Ford's version of the old Dexcool, and all the Dexcool are compatible* I've generally called these OAT coolants Dexclones. Most of the autoparts store green/gold are this type now, they switched quite a while ago to 'extended life' or 5 year 100k mile formulations. The coolant nerds like Peak Global lifetime coolant as the king of the Dexcool / Dexclone coolants.

Glad you got it resolved, and at a reasonable cost too - considering what needed to happen. The local dealer quoted us $7500 for a used engine with 30 day warranty or $10k for the ford remanufactured route. I'd be totally confident with the used engine as you can easily put a new waterpump on it before its installed and it seems to be the weak point on these.

Circling back to this question. It's possible that they removed the coolant tank to change the belt and maybe forgot to refill it. However, that would not have removed so much coolant that you would have overheated. Since the waterpump is timing chain driven and not serpentine belt driven it would not have been touched at all. And running with a defective or non-existent belt would not affect engine cooling directly like most engines.

We just went through the waterpump failure and replacement with our 3.5v6 edge. It's not a cheap or quick replacement or part of any scheduled maintenance. It seems that headgasket failures are not as common as the waterpump failures, you really won't know what you got until you get in there. I would check the waterpump before pulling off a head (and to remove a head they will get to the waterpump first) bpoling, let us know what happened in your case.

Its been two weeks since finishing the work and the Edge is running great!

You are totally right! That text appears on their product pages for all their coolants, including the Gold product that TSB 09M04-S1 applies to (requiring it to be replaced with the Dark Green). I wont lie, I'm new to the edge eco system. I'm confident the OAT dex-clone will be no trouble, its what was on hand. If I needed to make sure I got the 100% best stuff in there i too would go with the Peak Global Lifetime coolant its an OAT type with better corrosion inhibitor package. Some of the dexcool and dex-clone coolants might have corrosion inhibitors that dont like silicone or something or other.

This is the coolant compatibility chart I used http://www.motorcraft.com/servlet/BlobServer/engine-cooling-system-chart.pdf?blobtable=DFYBlob&blobheader=application/pdf&blobwhere=1249081817307&blobcol=urlblob&blobkey=id

Can you tell me why someone wouldn't replace the old phosphate/asian green with the new OAT Orange? And I dont mean mixing the two, replacement only.

I was curious of the coolant change interval too. The vehicle was fleet maintained to somewhere after 150k, and I am pretty confident it was changed at 105k and 150k as specified. I have doubts it was changed after that. Also, I looked up fords coolant specs for these and see that the gen1's first came with the yellow coolant until 2010, then they changed over to dark green. Then it looked like around 2011 they again changed to orange. Does anyone know if the dealer would be forced to update you to the newest spec or could still do a service with the original coolant from your production date? This edge still had the Dark Green coolant in it and it looked great. I refilled it with an OAT dex-clone - basically what the ford Orange is.

Its got 230k miles on it, I cant complain about how long the pump lasted before letting go.

Our Edge started showing the tell tail signs of a waterpump problem and I was really dreading tearing it apart to find out. We dove into it yesterday and were able to confirm that indeed the waterpump let go. Got the new pump today and might start putting everything back where it goes. Here is a video of what it looked like, at the end of the video you can see the coolant drip down the front into the oil pan. https://youtu.be/19oPyOMDUh8