The 3.8L engines have a notoriously poor head gasket design. Your car is showing symptoms of a slow head gasket leak. These engines can leak combustion gases to the coolant and not blow big white clouds until complete failure of the gasket.
It sounds like combustion gases are being trapped in your coolant system at various times and then are pushed out to the radiator. This could expain the erratic upshoot of temp gage and no heat.
These head gaskets have been known to fail as quickly as 40k miles on Taurus and Aerostar. There is a "fix" kit by Ford but who knows if will stop it from appearing again.
Mike
__________________
Live near St.Louis?
Check out Mustang Muscle and Dyno in High Ridge, MO
|