This video is proudly supported by my friends at rock auto, a little more on that a little later, but today we are fixing everything on this. My 2002 ford, f-150 svt lightning everything except a gigantic engine job i think guys strap in for this one. This is very weird. This is a very weird situation.

It has me wondering why i strayed away from the ls gm trucks that i know so well for a ford, and this can only really go one of two ways: kind of sort of okay or horribly bad, and right now, i'm leaning towards horribly bad. So i've always loved the second generation svt lightning. I've always wanted one in this color, so i don't regret buying this truck, but i did pay top dollar for it, thinking that it probably just needed some normal repair work, some maintenance work which we're gon na finish up today and then the truck would have been Done except, i believe this engine needs to be removed for some major surgery and i've learned this engine does have a few big issues. Some factory defects, if you will and i'll never know, but i find it hard to believe that the previous owner did not know about this engine issue, but i paid the man.

This was my decision. I inspected the truck it's my baby. Now, that is the world of buying used cars from private parties. There's no one to cry to this is my truck.

Now i have to fix it. I did reach back out to the guy and he said he would help with parts, but then he kind of disappeared on me. So it's fine! It's fine! It's my truck! I'm gon na fix it. I'm gon na make it right, but this is kind of a big deal, so i've ordered a special tool.

That'll be here in a couple days same video for you guys, so we're gon na know a hundred percent. If this engine needs to come out for this work, so in the meantime, i'm gon na put a smile on my face. I'm gon na try and forget about this. While we fix all the other issues and while i wait for the special tool, but i always try to look at the positives, even in a really bad situation, and if this engine has the issue, i think it has.

This is going to give me an excellent opportunity to show you guys something that you should definitely be looking out for when you're inspecting a car when you're doing a pre-purchase inspection. It's something that i knew to do something i told you guys to do. I knew i wasn't doing it and it ended up biting me and if i can save even one of you from what i'm about to go through with this thing, it'll be totally worth it. So without further ado, let's get right to work on the svt lightning.

We're gon na fix it up as if the engine's fine, so i know what you're thinking alex that thing sounds perfect. It fires right up no spoke from the tailpipe and guess what it's got all of its power too. This is a very, very weird situation. A very odd engine, type of failure and uh - you guys have probably never seen anything like this.

I've only seen this one other time all right. So we're kicking this party off with replacing pretty much all the steering components on this car. They all have a little bit of play and it's causing the steering wheel to be loose. I think they are all original 83 000 miles now, so they got to go start off by removing the cotter pin and if you guys watch me for my euro car content and you have euro cars, you probably never see these, and these are the outer tie Rods, this joint right here has play so does the inner, so they got ta go and since we're replacing all of this, we can get pretty violent.

But if you put the nut back on, it reduces the chance of destroying the threads. If you're trying to save one of these parts bam all right there we go, and i know you guys can't really see this, but there's a little bit of play in there all right now, we're on the driver's side get rid of this cotter pin goodbye, since I'm replacing the pitman arm the entire center link and the idler arm. There's no reason to disconnect this from the inner tie rods we're just going to disconnect it from right here and these two bolts here and we're going to drop the entire unit out. Okay, this big guy right here is a millimeter.

There we go next up, we have to remove the pitman arm and it is splined onto the gearbox. So for that we need a pitman arm puller. So this is a very basic tool. This screw is going to rest right inside of here it's going to slide over the pitman arm.

Then we're going to tighten this guy down and we'll make it nice and snug and if it's being a pain in the butt you can use a little bit of heat, just be careful for the seal here on the gearbox, it's starting to come: okay, yeah! So the heat did it. It is sliding right off now all right and i like to heat the bottom. Don't even really mess around with heating up here, because you're getting too close to the seal and the heat will obviously transfer so just heat up the very bottom of the pitman arm, and that will make it expand and it'll slide right off like this. Okay.

So that guy's totally loose it's just attached right here at this point, okay, there we go all right. Last part we need to remove is the idler arm. It's got two big bolts here and if this thing was driven in the salt, this would have been bad, wow, they're, actually kind of loose. I sprayed these, though i sprayed these a couple weeks ago in anticipation of this job.

It's always a good thing to do. All right, one more bolt and this whole thing should come out yep and it weighs a lot oh get out of here. Okay, all right! Okay, there we go goodbye and here are all the steering components from the lightning. This really didn't give me any fuss at all.

I soaked this stuff a couple weeks ago with some penetrating oil and it all came apart, so each one of these joints has a little bit of play, which translates to a lot of play in the steering wheel, but that will be no more once we install This so i'm replacing every part using the moog problem. Solver line moog is a very good brand. I've been using these for years very affordable, especially if you get them from rock auto. So i've been using rockauto.com for many years and you simply can't beat the pricing inner tie rods.

2479. Local, auto parts store 47.99 for their in-house brand. You need an alternator for your caprice, ppv in-house brand 379 ac delco 389 rock auto 320 for genuine gm. This is the same part from the dealer, guys it's a no-brainer using rockauto.com shipping is super fast.

I got some of these parts in one day, including this factory, ac, delco door latch for the caprice ppv, and it was about 15 cheaper than the dealer, and the best part is, if you guys, click on my link in the video description box and use coupon Code, legit you're going to save an additional 5, so a big thanks to rockauto.com for saving me money on car parts and for continuing to support automotive content creators like myself now with that, let's get back to work on the lighting all right check it out. I got a stainless steel top for the box. This thing weighs a lot very difficult to get on here. I still have to screw it on and whatnot, but you guys yell at me for working on the ground.

So here you go. I'm gon na work on the table and scratch up my table for the first time. This really stinks it's so nice right now, anyway, it's a work table, though. Okay, we're gon na, lay out all of the hardware that they give you with the new suspension component.

So nuts cotter pin grease fitting all of that good stuff and what i'm not going to do is assemble this with the idler and the pitman. But i am going to assemble the tie rods, i'm going to try and closely match them to the old ones. As you can see, with the inner tie rod, we can count the exposed threads, which means we can thread this nut and the sleeve in to about this point on our new one and same thing, with the outer tie rod so you're going to want to thread Your adjusting nut on first and this isn't super crucial because you should be getting an alignment anytime, you're, replacing suspension components with an adjusting sleeve. Anything, that's threaded.

But if it's going to be a few days before you can get that alignment, you can count the threads make this perfect. Sometimes i've gotten them to where i don't even think. I need an alignment anymore like that right. There is pretty dead on or if it's just an older car, you don't care about with bad tires on it.

You can just do this and call it a day, although i don't really recommend it. The alignments are cheap and they will save you a lot in tires so anyway, that looks about right to me. Next is our adjusting sleeve, which we are going to bring right up to that nut like so got that on there and last but not least, i mean it is kind of least in this situation. I don't know why people use that saying we have the outer tie, rod and we're gon na.

Do oh wait a minute. Then we have the nut for the outer tie rod. So we'll do the exact same thing: bring it up to about about nine threads, something like that showing okay and then we will thread that into the adjusting sleeve, like so okay, and that is pretty much done right. There doesn't have to be perfect next up.

We have to install the grease fitting and a lot of times. This does not come threaded for some reason, but you can start it by hand like that and then just be gentle and you can tap it in there with the grease fitting no big deal and just like that. We have it properly installed. Grease fitting - and here is the completed, tie, rod and center link assembly ready to go on, but first, let's replace these nasty sway bar end links, okay.

Well, i got the old sway bar links out on the right side. It was kind of a challenge. I ended up cutting the thing in half and then holding the sleeve to spin them out. It was just rusted all together, but that one is gone and then on the driver's side it wasn't as bad.

I didn't have to cut anything. Just took a little bit of fighting and a hammer, and now those are gone and now we're free to replace these bushings right here for the sway bar they're, not actually bad, but i ordered up the energy suspension kit from rock auto. So these are a little stiffer. Polyurethane bushings should make this truck, handle even better all right, so we just have to remove these 13 millimeter bolts and two more over here all right.

There we go. Oh, this guy's heavy, and now it's just a matter of sliding these bushings off. Actually, these have a split in them, so we can take them off that way and according to the instructions from energy, you just want to put a little bit of grease on the inside diameter of the bushing, and that's it we're not going to put anything on The outside there's one a little grease in this one i can already tell these are much stiffer than the factory bushings come on actually kind of hard to install it's a good thing. There we go cool all right back on all right.

Now we got to go back in which is a little harder than taking this thing out with all this weight, and we kind of awkwardly have to get one side started. This should be fun. Okay, i'm complaining for no reason. This really isn't bad.

We got one bolt started already get the other one in there, like so, okay, yeah, okay, all right, i guess one is good for now. Where'd you go and start everything by hand. People don't use the impact to start bolts. It's gon na bite ya, like buying a truck with a bad engine.

That'll do that okay and one more cap man, this truck, is gon na feel brand new in the front end after replacing all of the linkage and these bushings gon na be so much tighter, and i think these lightnings already handle really well for a pickup truck. All right, i'm turning the power down on this bad boy. We don't need to go too crazy. With these always do the final titan by hand you can break stuff with impacts, especially the half inch.

It's very strong, all right, that's good! Okay! So then we have the multi-piece sway bar link. There are like 10 individual pieces here, but don't be intimidated. This is very, very simple, so we'll go ahead and take that nut off. So then, with my left hand, i'm gon na hold this entire set up.

Hopefully it doesn't all fall. All we need right now is this bolt? Okay and it fell all right. Trying to be slick, didn't happen. No big deal this bushing right here, slides on first then that washer then the sleeve - and if you forget any of this, just look at the other one look at the other side.

You haven't messed up yet. Okay, then we have this bushing just make sure rubber is hitting metal. That's what you want, okay, so we have rubber sandwiched in between the sway bar. We have rubber down here on the lower control arm, one more rubber piece going on the bottom and then finally tighten the nut.

Okay, just do this by hand; let's go. Do the other side right now, let's see if i can do it on this side. If i had bigger hands this wouldn't be that hard or a shorter sway bar link got that. Oh, don't fall.

Okay, it's gon na fall. Can't do it. You can't do it you're a better man than me. If you can do it in one shot, not happening.

All right got that there, mr sleeve, come on over metal, washer, rubber, bushing and then rubber bushing with metal washer, not at the bottom. You guys get the idea. Let's tighten this up all right. A couple of 14s hold the top bolt all right.

At this point. I've done so many of these i can listen to when the torque is complete. So right, then we're good. You don't want to smush it past that that is a very technical specification.

I just gave you there yeah and it's solid trust me. This is installed great. Let me show you: you can tighten these much more and you'll see the bushings start to smush out less when they're polyurethane. They don't really have that much give.

But this is perfect. You don't want to over tighten these and just make sure that the amount of stud that's sticking out on this side is about the same as this side, so it doesn't have to be perfect, but this sway bar links and bushings job is complete. Oh, and have you guys put your guesses down below on what you think is wrong with the lightning engine, yet i think some of you guys who've, been following this truck, probably have a clue, but let me know what you guys think right now: no cheating, no Skipping to the end of the video, what's wrong with the lightning engine: okay time for the idler, just these two gigantic 21 millimeter bolts up top. Oh, this fan trout totally gets in the way i got to do this one by hand.

What is that about? All right? That's tight and that's tight all right, so the pitman is splined. It has three splines, so it'll only go on one way and i've already cleaned up the threads and we have our large, lock washer the nut, our 33 mil, and you can see the threads on the top. If you can still see clean threads, it needs to go up a little bit more and we actually have to torque this guy down to 200 foot-pounds, which is a lot geez. Okay, there we go 200 foot pounds, that's very important, guys very, very important.

It tells you in the instructions to reuse the factory nut and washer, but you have to torque it to 200.. All right, then we're installing the center link and tie rods, get a couple nuts in there to hold everything up. Okay and then we're just going around. Tightening everything up - and this is your steering it's very important, so i do like to torque all of these nuts down and then you just have to line up the cotter pin hole in the stud with the nut.

So, even though you torque it, you might go a little bit more just to line that up and as you can see, the hole is lined up with the nut, so we can put our cotter pin through and then we just take our side cutters to split The cotter pin fold it over that way. It doesn't go anywhere, a couple of love taps with the hammer and you're golden all right and finally, we're gon na grease the steering system. These come with a little grease, so i don't like to go too crazy. You don't have to have all the grease coming out of the rubber boot to have done a good job.

A little goes a long way once i start seeing the boot get a little bit bloated. I stop and just like that, we've replaced all of the steering components on the svt lightning. We have new sway bar links and bushings as well and in the last video we put bilstein shocks all the way around. So i think the upper and lower ball joints have already been replaced.

They don't have any play in them, so this truck should feel very tight, very new. The last thing i have to do is go get an alignment, so i snug these up, but they're not super tight, because my alignment shop is about three buildings down, so i'm gon na get that done and then the lightning should drive like a brand new truck. You know, except for the whole engine fiasco, oh and in case you guys are wondering i use sonic tools. These are very, very high quality tools and you can tell they've been designed by people who actually work on cars, so their fine tooth ratchets are amazing.

This little guy fits in everywhere and their tool storage system is simply unmatched. They have a foam storage system, so all of their tools fit perfectly. The toolbox is so smooth, so strong, i've owned all the big names. They even have a tool backpack and you guys can get 10 off by clicking on my link down below and using my coupon code.

So go get yourself. Some sonic tools, you guys are gon na love. These things all right guys, so the special tool has arrived. So we can check the engine, so the last thing i'm going to do before that is just swap out this fuel filter.

So you have to have this little special tool here with these lines to slide them off. So these just go over the fuel filter and this tool pushes into the line it releases some teeth, so you can pull the line right off and then no bolts or anything on this one, no screws this guy, just snaps in and out all right. Let's see it's pretty clean, not bad. It's a motorcraft filter, not sure.

If it's original this car's got some weird maintenance type of history, they didn't swap out a lot of the fluids. They only replaced like two out of the four shocks before, but maybe they put a factory fuel filter on it. I don't know either way we're gon na put a factory fuel filter back on and just remember that your arrow needs to point towards the engine, and this is about the easiest fuel filter. To do so, don't go pay someone to swap out your f-150 fuel filter.

You can do this in about five minutes that line's on all right click, and then you just snap these in two and you're done brand new fuel filter. Now, let's go do something that i've been dreading for a very, very long time. I still have to get an alignment, but i don't think i eyeballed this half bad. Look at that and i wish an alignment was all this truck needed so guys, let's get into the potential engine issue.

I think that my svt lightning has blown head gaskets. I think it's had this for a long time way before i bought the truck, and i didn't pick it up when i inspected the vehicle because i didn't beat on it. I didn't go wide open throttle. There was a big rainstorm and i couldn't - and this was priced pretty well for one that doesn't have major engine issues and it was only listed for a few hours.

There were a few other people coming to pay full asking price just like i did, and i didn't want to miss it. So i took that risk. I've always told people, especially with boosted cars. You got to go wide, open throttle.

You got to lay into it and had i done that on the test drive, i would have seen that coolant was flowing out of this radiator cap and, if you guys remember in the reveal video, i thought i fixed that issue. We had tested the cap. That was on the truck and it was faulty. I replaced it.

I went for a quick ride around the block, i floored it a few times and the coolant did not come out. The issue is, after that i drove to work about an hour on the highway and i laid into it a little bit longer and coolant started coming right out, so it just didn't. Do it during those short little blasts around the block, but it indeed does still have that issue, and i haven't done anything about it in a couple months, mostly because i need my pickup truck with the new shop, so i've been using it and what makes this Issue, weird is that i think i could drive this truck from chicago to california with no problems whatsoever. It runs beautifully.

It doesn't blow any smoke out of the tailpipe. It never even thinks about overheating, so it doesn't have your typical blown head gasket symptoms, except for the coolant coming out of the cap, and i believe that in this situation, when you go wide open throttle when you get into boost the heads are either lifting up Slightly and allowing combustion gases to enter the cooling system or the head gasket is simply compromised just a little bit where you don't see any ill effect, just normally driving. But when you add in that boost pressure, it blows through it and pressurizes the cooling system. So i've only experienced something like this.

On my turbo trans am like 12 years ago i had rebuilt the engine and used some wrong thickness head gaskets. It was a big debacle and this happened. I replaced that gaskets and it was fine on a stock engine like this. I wouldn't really expect it.

This is running a larger crank pulley, but i don't think it's boosting anything out of the ordinary for a lightning. But then again i don't know the history of the truck. Maybe they took apart. The engine didn't put it back together properly anyway, uh we're gon na double check that this head gasket is blown right.

Now i had ordered a head gasket testing kit off amazon, but on second thought i just decided to go to napa and get the kind i'm more accustomed to, and this will give you guys a better look at what's going on. So let's go! Do it? Oh and if you guys were around for the last lightning repair video where i flushed the coolant like 12 times, it didn't stay green for long, it went back to its nasty orange look after about a hundred miles. So anyway, let's take this cap off. So the way this tool works is quite simple.

This blue fluid will turn yellow if it detects combustion gases, so we're just filling it right up to the yellow line, and then we are going to install it over the coolant cap or the radiator, depending on what kind of vehicle you're working on and we're gon Na install this little ball here and then all we're doing is we're drawing air in. So you have to reduce the coolant level a little bit. You don't want coolant to actually touch the blue fluid. You just want the air or the gases in there to mix with this blue fluid and if it turns yellow, you have a bad head gasket.

Now the issue with this test in our situation is you're supposed to do this with a cold or slightly warmed up engine. Now i don't believe i have any issue when this engine is cold or slightly warmed up. I only have this issue after i go wide open throttle which, if i do, that with a warmed up engine means the cooling system will be under pressure, and we can't just simply remove the cap right away or it will blow up in our face. So i'm gon na have to get creative with how i test it, but we're just gon na start off with the way that they want you to test it with a cool engine.

And you warm it up for about 15 minutes and then we're gon na be periodically drawing in some air, seeing if it changes colors all right. So since we have to let this run for a bit, i just pulled the truck outside. It is totally cold. Make sure you have a good seal here and we're just going to let it warm up? Well, it's been about 15 minutes.

They want you to wait for the engine to warm up a little bit so that the thermostat is open. Everything is flowing, and this is still definitely blue, so we're supposed to pump the ball for about a minute. It's going to turn green first, if there's an issue and then yellow and right now it's still totally clean okay. So at this point we have performed this test according to the instructions.

So even if you hired someone to do a pre-purchase inspection and perform this test, it would have passed by now. So, especially with these boosted cars, you got to take it out. You got to beat on it make sure coolant's, not spewing out of the cap. Also going wide open throttle on any car will verify that the transmission shifts under load many times.

You could have a bad transmission that shifts perfectly around town, but it'll bounce, the rev limiter at wide open throttle so beat on your cars during the pre-purchase inspection. Please it'll save you guys a ton of money and a ton of headache later on trust me all right guys, so i'm not really getting anywhere with the test, because i don't think the head. Gaskets are bad at this very moment, see we're up to basically operating temperature, so i'm gon na have to take it out for a little beating and check out this alignment spot on ah feels so good now very responsive. This is sweet all right.

So this is the tough part of the test. I got to do this guys it has all of its power. I mean it just roasts them up to 60 miles an hour. It's such a weird problem.

You'd, never think anything was wrong with it. If you didn't see it spewing out of the cap, so let me pull over i'll show you guys, and here it is. You can see the coolant already look at that this is so bad. It's all over the street already.

Just from that, one pull and yeah look at this, so bad there's coolant all over the place. Wow we lost a lot on that one i haven't been beating on it really at all. Ever since i discovered this, i just kind of puts around town, because i'm assuming one of these poles is just going to pop the gasket all together and, like i said i need the truck i need to haul stuff to the shop while i'm setting it up. So at this point, i'm gon na head back, i'm gon na do one more quick pull.

I mean this is hard right now, so i'm gon na have to be really gentle loosening this cap up. This is very dangerous. I don't recommend that anyone do any of this okay you're, just watching what i'm doing don't do this at home. There's your warning! Well, my hope is that we have enough of the combustion gases in here to change that fluid yellow and to verify my concern.

So anyway, let's head back one more pull, though i don't think you guys understand how hard it is to resist beating on a lightning that sounds. This good just been driving this thing around like a grandpa and it's quick, it's so much fun and it sounds so good and uh yeah. I'm worried anytime. I do that that it's just gon na pop, but it just pulls it pulls.

You wouldn't think anything of it all right, i'm like three buildings away from the shop. Let's get back see, we can figure out. Okay, guys again, this is ridiculously dangerous. Do not do this all right! I'm loosing this up really really slowly pressure's coming out, which sucks i want to capture that, but i don't want to get burned.

Okay, we're good, it's so low that it didn't come up that much. So let's do this really quickly supposed to go for a minute! I'm hoping we didn't lose the gas ah now yeah. It's green hang on check this out. Yup yup combustion, gas, hello.

It has turned it yellow, almost immediately wow all right there. It is verified bad head gaskets, but look even after romping on it a couple times. It never overheats, it's actually really low on coolant. Now too, it still will not overheat.

So we can drive this truck around with ice cold ac wherever you'd like and as long as you don't beat on it as long as you don't treat it like a lightning. It's fine! So what's next for me and the lightning well, i'm gon na drive around for a few minutes. Talking to you guys and then i'm gon na go get an alignment, but in the very near future i will be removing the engine and replacing the head. Gaskets now i do think i'm going to take this opportunity to perform a couple of experiments.

So let me know what you guys want to see in the comment section. But what? If someone had already removed these heads to fix that problem or the other big issue with these triton v8 engines would be the spark plugs pulling out the threads and literally popping out so they fixed it in 2003. This is an o2, so it has a four thread, spark plug hole in the head and then they went to an eight thread. So it got me thinking what, if someone already removed the heads for that issue and they didn't torque them properly.

So i did a search online. I found some lightning forums where there were two cases where the guys had their engines built for more performance, and i guess there's a couple different torque specs that you have to follow. Depending on the year of your block and the heads or something like that - and these shops didn't follow the correct torque procedure and this exact thing happened, it would blow coolant only under boost and then it would drive around like normal and in one case the guy Reported back that he tightened the cylinder head bolts down and it was fixed or he might have used studs. I forget um, but i'm thinking why don't i pop the valve, covers off and see what the torque is on the head bolts and i mean definitely tighten them if it's loose, but maybe just give them, maybe give them a little snug.

I'm already thinking i'm taking this whole engine apart anyway. So anything i do doesn't really matter, but you never know you never know. I could also experiment with a head gasket sealant, but i'm just worried that that's going to gum a lot of other stuff up when i go to replace the head gaskets, i might not want to deal with that mess. But if you guys know of a head gas concealer that doesn't clog everything up or one that you've had success with drop a comment down below.

Let me know now: uh, just real quick on the previous owner very nice guy. He answered the phone when i called him and i said: hey, i'm blowing cooling out all over the place and he actually talked to me about it. I figured he'd be long gone, but he had told me he's owned. Like 10 of these lightnings, he has some with built engines.

He kind of like knows these trucks a lot. So it is a little hard to believe that he didn't know of this issue. He owned the truck for a year. I'm sure he went wide open throttle, but he didn't admit it, but he did offer to pay for the parts now that was two months ago.

I messaged him twice after he said that he didn't respond to the last message and that's about it. I really don't expect the guy to pay for anything if he does he's a super stand up guy, but again, this is on me if you buy a used car, especially if you do your own pre-purchase inspection, it's all on you just in general, in life. It's your fault, get your stuff together, become an expert in something if you have to or watch some youtube videos and figure it out. So i take full responsibility.

I've preached to you guys to beat on cars before and i didn't do it and i thought in my head. There could be something seriously wrong with this, but i love the color 82 000 miles clean title 19 - grand if you guys know the market on these. That's pretty good, so i think i could get probably 23.24 for this truck with good head gaskets and maybe maybe that's what he was doing. Maybe he just didn't want to feel that bad, so he listed it at a really good price kind of knowing someone was gon na have to pay three or four thousand dollars at a shop uh to get this fixed, we're of course, gon na do it for A few hundred dollars diy style um, but anyway i'll keep you guys posted in the next lightning video.

If i hear back from the guy, let me know what experiments you want me to do to this engine. I have to continue to drive this, so this will be a winter project. I have a lot of hauling to do. I need to use the truck uh, so i'm gon na keep rocking it and if the head gasket goes, you guys will know all about it.

Make sure to follow me on instagram and on facebook, at legit streetcars, for quick updates in between videos and with that give this video a big thumbs up share the video subscribe, if you haven't already and most importantly, beat on cars before you buy them and have An awesome day i'll catch all of you in the next video you.