Escort Rad fan always on, have to floor to start

1997 FORD ESCORT
180,000 MILES • FWD • AUTOMATIC
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POSTB8822
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I have a 97 escort wagon, 2.0 SPI I4.Original symptom coolant in the oil. Suspected head gasket, but compression test was 160 psi across the board which seemed ok for 190,000 miles on a minnesota cold motor without pouring oil in the cylinders. Found a forum where they said the intake gasket can fail and allow coolant to enter engine via intake. We took off the intake and found mucho evidence of coolant leakage into the intake, scoured clean intake and lots of gasket missing. Bingo right! So we replaced the gaskets. Upon restart the engine runs good, and we are watching the oil and coolant, but now the radiator fan runs all the time, and it wont start unless floored. Now we disconnected a lot of connectors and cleaned lots of stuff and we are pretty sure we got it back together right. THe AC also will not start even though the system is pressurized properly, the clutch wont kick in. I have read about failures of a constant control module that has some part in controlling the AC and Radiator fan, do you think thats causing all the issues, or the temp sensor could cause hard starts and the radiator fan issue, dont know which to try first. Thank you for helping keep the old girl on the road. Also worried about the mass air flow, or idle air control, too many sensors.
Jan 30, 2011 at 7:01 PM
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WRENCHTECH
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The intake gasket can only let coolant into the oil on a "V" type engine, not an inline like you have. A compression test will not show a bad head gasket or cracked head either. You're going to have to remove the head and send it to a machine shop for inspection.
Jan 30, 2011 at 7:27 PM
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POSTB8822
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Sorry, you are incorrect about this particular engine, I have the pics to proove it. In my opinion its very stupid what Ford did, but there is an open coolant port between two of the intake tunnels that is only plugged by the intake manifold gasket. There is no doubt about that one, it was obvious, my question was not about that anyway, what I need to know now is why after removing and replacing the intake manifold and everything that goes with it does my radiator fan run all the time and I have to go to full throttle to start the car. Thanks!
Jan 30, 2011 at 9:11 PM
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WRENCHTECH
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No, I'm afraid you are wrong....... There is no path to the crank case through the intake gasket. There is to the intake port but that will not put coolant in the oil, only the exhaust so that isn't your original problem and you likely still have a head problem.

To answer your question, you have likely damaged or unplugged the coolant temp sensor which defaults the fan to full time and the mixture to full rich.
Jan 30, 2011 at 9:20 PM
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