burping coolant, huge oil leak, bad idle....help.

[chrisnsarah]

If I don't have an overflow tank, should the coolant level be up to the filler neck? I filled it before going on a road trip and noticed it belches coolant out of the overflow tube when I shut off the motor. It's not overheating, but it does this even on short trips, maybe 5 miles or so. This morning, the level was 1 inch below the filler neck. I don't believe it's a bad head gasket.
Major oil leak at the rear seal maybe, but it left a drop of oil every 5 ft coming up the driveway and I'm adding a quart every 200 mi.
Idle quality is still so bad that I don't enjoy coming to a stop in traffic. It also knocks at mid-throttle but if you go full-throttle, it goes away. Can't find any vacuum leaks, caarb and manifold bolts are tight. I'm almost ready to blame the ignition; motorcraft with tfi coil and big cap, resistor wire still in place. I used a milodon roller chain with the 3 different keyways, but we double-checked to put it on the stock keyway.
All on a rebuilt 401. I'm going to turn this into a yard ornament if I can't iron all this out. HELP.

[andy d]

uhhmn, its not over heating til the engine is off and cant cool itself with the pump, fan and air shut off. that's when an engine is at its hottest,just after shutdown. maybe a recovery tank could be rigged. oil leak needs to be tracked,should be fairly easy on a rebuilt. the poor idle could be a result of a weak spark. a good many of the efi installs report having to iron out bugs in them. this is one of the reasons ive held off doing the efi upgrade. if your new coil has an internal reistor, that may be the problem.

[mtn goat]

and NO, your coolent level will be 1.5-2 inches below the filler neck. you will get burping of coolent until the fluid expansion is done.

[chrisnsarah]

Exactly what I wanted to hear mtn goat. I should get a recovery tank.
Oil is coming out of the rear seal area but it's hard to tell if it's the main seal or maybe the oil pan is gouged or something.
I don't think the tfi coils had a resistor built in them, but if they do, that may be the problem, since I still have the resistor wire on the tfi coil.

[mdill]

Poor idle and Knocking at part throttle sounds like vacume leaks, and or EGR is not working.

Mike D.

[Ernzo]

Louise did that, I discovered that my radiator cap was not seating corectly.