Alright gents, I would highly appreciate some advice. So I drove my 97 4.6 f150 over 17 hours to where I'm currently stationed and made it fine. A week later it started girgling and the temp Guage would spike and the oil Guage as well. It would go into limp mode and I could turn it off and back on after a min or two and it would be just fine. I replaced the thermostat in hopes it would fix my problem, it stopped overheating afterbi burped the aor out, but I smell antifreeze and today I found coolant leaking from what looked like my passenger exhaust manifold. Does this sound like a head gasket or could it be an intake manifold gasket?

 

Hard to say, you'll just have to try and see where it's leaking from. Head gaskets can allow exhaust gases to get in the coolant causing temperature spikes.

 

http://www.napaonline.com/p/BK_7001006

Head gasket tester that detects the presence of combustion gases

 

A really cheap method is to, when it's cold, take the cap off the coolant fill bottle. Get a latex glove and fasten it around the hole in the bottle with a rubber band. Start it up and if it fills up with air, it's got exhaust coming through.

Pilfered from Google for example:

 

If its leaking coolant near the exhaust manifold it could be 2 things. It could be a head gasket its also a possibilility of a busted heater core. But since the truck got hot enough to go into limp mode (235*). I would go out on a limb and say it needs head gaskets and the heads are warped.

 

Mine did the exact same thing before Christmas. Overheated like yours once due to low coolant/bad thermostat. Then started dripping coolant near the pass. exhaust manifold. Mine turned out to be the intake manifold cracked around the coolant crossover ports. It was an easy $150 fix plus coolant. Just something else you should check.

 

Thanks for the advice I'm really hoping that it's just a cracked intake manifold. Could it be a manifold gasket? I don't think it overheated enough to warp my heads because as soon as it happened I turned it off. And it's not like it was actually overheating, I was told that air pockets just got in my system possibly when I changed my thermostat and that's what triggered it go go into limp mode. I'll check it out I really hope it's not a headgasket, I've heard it's a bitch to do, and shops are quoting me 2500 for the job. If it's a head gasket I'm considering buying. A new motor. Not sure if I could get a crate motor for it around 2000 of kt. Just ready to have it fixed, so I can move on to doing cosmetics.