I've been smelling and losing my coolant lately. Not good when winter is nearing.
I thought it was dripping down from behind the engine, then it stopped.
But I could still smell it when driving and losing coolant after refilling.
Now I see where it is leaking. This hose and thermostat like housing to the left of the thermostat and alternator. It's bubbling up and spilling down the engine, it's very close to an injector as well.
Anyway, what is this part called? Is it just a gasket that is bad? I just need to know in order to get the right part before tearing into it, obviously.
And hopefully that's the extent of my coolant loss woes.

 

Here's another view of it.

 

You need intake manifold gaskets. Just make sure the pitting around the water neck isnt too bad.

 

My truck had the same leak when I cracked my intake manifold. Blew a chunk out of the manifold where that metel cross over meets the plastic. Impossible to tell if this is the problem or if it's a bad manifold gasket because where they normally crack at you can't see unless the manifold is off the truck.

 

Ok good. Thanks so far.
I should also say it an '02 5.4L.

 

Yep I have a '00 5.4 and mine was running kinda rough then it blew out on the way home from Wal-Mart spit coolant all down into the valley and shut Down 4 cylinders. I wouldn't drive the truck very far or at all unroll the issue is fixed. If it's just the manifold gaskets then that's about 50$ in parts and if you manifold is cracked that's about $300, both take the same amount of time. Of course if you take it to a shop it will be anywhere from $900 to $1200. Takes about 4 hours to get the manifold off if you have never done it before and are taking your time with it. Here's a right up that goes through most of the job
https://www.f150forum.com/f6/intake-...emoval-244688/

 

Had a leak in same place on my '01 5.4 but the only way to replace the gaskets in water crossover is to completely remove the intake manifold, since the bolts are on the underside and not accessible otherwise. If you want to risk it, you can get crossover gaskets and intake gaskets but since mine was so old and had about 170,000 miles (that's a lot of heat cycles) I didn't trust that it wasn't cracked - or wouldn't crack.
New manifold from rock auto is about $165.
Youtube is your friend:

 

The Dorman intake manifold from Rock Auto comes with Dorman specific gaskets installed (no additional gaskets required), and some new bolts for mounting coils and the fuel rail to the intake (no threaded inserts) and a new thermostat. For less than $400 I replaced the manifold, bought my own heavy duty thermostat by Stant (stock temp), replaced the serpentine belt, top and bottom radiator hoses (because I could feel them cracking inside when I squeezed the originals), three gallons of pre-mixed 50/50 coolant, and put in new plugs.
Take your time, take notes, label brackets/bolts/vacuum lines/connections, use a shop vac and compressed air - especially after removing coils but before removing plugs, to keep dirt out of combustion chambers, if you're going to change out the plugs.
I believe that it's the '03 and newer 5.4s with 3-valve heads that have the 2-piece plugs that are prone to breaking, but it wouldn't hurt to put a quick shot of penetrating oil in spark plug wells, then just barely crack them loose and let the oil seep into the threads before removal.

 

Wow. Thanks a lot for all the help. Looks like I have some work ahead of me.
I've already changed the plugs this year, as well as a thermostat a few weeks ago.
Ya, I want to get this fixed up before too long. I really don't want to drive it anymore until I do.
I'm going to do it myself, I've got quite a few years of experience under my belt. The only thing that sucks is I don't currently have a garage.

 

Yeah, a garage would have been nice but I just put up our 10'x10' free-standing canopy for shade. Luckily, I didn't have any rain to deal with.
It's not a hard job but it is time consuming (but I did have a heck of a time getting the fuel rail quick-connect fittings apart).