72 360ci V8 - HELP - coolant where it shouldn't be

[MercedesMike]

Guys,

Great forum. I regret that I come here first in crisis mode.

We have a '72 F250 360 V8 that we use as a plow / estate vehicle. Dad was plowing the driveway this evening and steam started pouring from the underhood. Seems coolant is coming from the top of the block area - the radiator looks fine. Hoses look okay. Belts are fine. No coolant in oil, no oil in coolant. Thats all the diagnosis done so far...more to come.

This just happened and we need this truck running by the time 12 more inches of snow comes Friday afternoon. I have very little time under the hood on gas V8's - all my experience is on Benz diesels, so go easy on me.

Help me out with things to check, we are going to be working on this tonight.

Where's the thermostat? (I havent even looked for it yet, so I may be asking an obvious one)

Are there any good pictorials I should be looking at to get me up to speed?

thanks in advance - as I said we are crisis mode ,
Mike

[fordman]

the thermostat is in the thermostat housing which is where the rad hose comes out and goes to the rad. there are heater hoses on some models that come and go for the heated carb spacer. once you find where the bad hose or bad gasket is you'll know how to fix it. i doubt that anything drastic has happened that will take a lifetime to fix. maybe the thermostat housing cracked or rusted through. maybe not rusted but corroded. that carb spacer can also go bad. i seen one that did it. look around you'll find it. refill it and start it up the leak will show itself.

[MercedesMike]

Problem solved...

It was indeed a leak in the heated carb hose on top of the engine, under the airbox. Dad just didn't see it on the first pass. Looking at it with a proper light on a cold running running engine made it pretty obvious. I had some 5/8" hose around from other car work, had it fixed up and tested in an hour.

This is the first time in ten years we have even had to think about fixing something engine related on our beloved unregistered plow / logging vehicle, affectionately known as "the beast".

Thank you for the help. I got a lot of great info on the site in preparation for something worse. Now I know where to go for the proverbial 'next time'

Mike