I'm hoping someone can help me and give me the name of this part.

It's on the bottom of driver side of the block, right above my differential. It has lines running to my oil filter, I just don't know what that part is called. It's connected with just an Allen head bolt.

Also, I recently found oil in my coolant, but my oil is still clear. I have been losing oil for a while, and I found out that this where it has been going. Could this be malfunctioning allowing oil to go to the coolant? I'm want to try replacing this, the gasket behind it and all the oil lines hoping that will solve my problem. Trying to avoid the head gaskets.

I will be posting pictures in a bit.


Here it is looking from the driver side fender in towards the engine bay


and here it is, underneath the truck, right above the differential.

 

Highly doubt you oil cooler adapter is allowing oil in you coolant or vice versa. If the adapter was leaking you would have oil everywhere not just in your coolent. Survey says you probably have a blown head gasket.

 

X2 coolant in the oil usually means a head gasket is gone or going

 

But it's oil in the coolant, not the other way around. The oil still looks great in the oil pan.

 

It reads like a oil cooler issue, however Modular V8's have been know to have some head gasket issues. Aluminum heads on iron have a tendency to be a little hard on gaskets.

I would run a compression test to eliminate the head gaskets. This will also give you an idea of the engine's health given its age.

Also, check you exhaust studs while your looking around. I had several cracked studs which led to my head gasket failure.

My truck is a equipped with the oil filter adapter (4.6L) and there was all kinds of post in regard to them leaking oil.

In you case, I think you can pressure test via the lines (requires coolant to be drained). I've read this somewhere before, but I can't remember where.

 

please elaberate how broken exhaust studs caused your head gasket failure

 

I had a small coolant leak right behind the A/C compressor. I learned that 4.6L rt side head gasket leaks are common.

So I tore everything down and upon inspection I noticed that the top of the head gasket had no coating on it from the bottom of the number one cylinder to the edge of the block. Nor was there any residue on the cylinder head itself on the corresponding mating surface. The rest of the gasket looked liked the other side in regards to the surface appearance.

Coincidentally this spot was directly below an exhaust stud that I pulled off by hand. It was literally being held on by a "thread".

Once I had the exhaust manifold off, you could actually see where the hot exhaust had been leaking down the cylinder head to the head gasket.

The gasket itself had signs of stress at that point as well. I wish I would have taken pictures of what it looked like. It was all too obvious.

The head gasket ring around the cylinder was fine, no signs of being burnt.

Exhaust stud issues are all too common on Ford Modular engines. So when you hear an odd tick or have a miss you need to find out what is causing it.

If I would have been a little more diligent, I would have circumvented the head gasket failure.

I can't stress this enough, check your exhaust manifold studs as part of your routine maintenance.

 

By no means what so ever does a broken or loose exhaust stud have anything to do with a blown head gasket the 4.6 are known to blow head gasket because the way the head was machined a broken stud will just result in an exhaust tick basically a leak

 

I did not experience the typical blown head gasket that I have read about on these engines.

Mine was barely leaking antifreeze down the outside of the block right below the number one cylinder. Engine had to be operating temperature to even get it to drip.

I could pull a vacuum of about 25 Hg on the coolant system (cold) and it would hold.

I found out afterwards that head gasket failure like mine is not common, but it happens. I was lucky the engine did not suck in air and burn up my valves. That happened to a friend of mine many years ago - hairline crack in his exhaust manifold.

The multi layer steel gaskets are great for bi-metal engines, but are not unforgiving either.

Apparently just enough exhaust heat got to the out side of the gasket and over time slowly deteriorated the seal until it reached a water jacket. It's not like any head gasket failure I ever seen before either.

The water trail was not typical either given how it ran in between the aluminum and the gasket. The seal between the block and the gasket appeared to be intact give the residue left behind.

Basically a straight line from the bottom up. The water jacket leak was a very thin break into the side of the straight line. That clued me into something else was amiss.

I checked the surfaces with a straight edge looking for abnormalities and found nothing. Ran a plastic edge across looking for irregularities and found nothing ether. Even looked at it with a magnifying glass and still did not see a thing.

I believe the heads you are referring to leak at the rear of the engine. Mine was straight down from the number one cylinder. Just odd looking now that I think of it. Literally draw a straight line from the exhaust stud up towards the cylinder. Never got to the cylinder either. Coolant leak must have stopped it.

Like I said earlier, the seal around the cylinder was fine. Everything looked good except for the section below the the number one cylinder.

Given that I've put little over a 180K on it, I can't really complain. It's had a "tick" for quite a while. Albeit it was not consistent at first either. Now that I think about it, it had been going on for years (off and on or maybe I just turned the radio up).

Before the gasket failed, the tick became more consistent and just a tad louder.

That's what I get for being lazy and not resolving the "tick" noise.

 

Quit spreading bad information. Your head gasket leak was caused by a flaw in cylinder head design itself. Not a leaking exhaust manifold. It was common on all 4.6 that were built before 01, and 5.4 engine before 00.

This design flaw could have leaked 1 of 2 ways. Either it would leak coolant on the front side of the head, or would leak oil around the rear oil return galley in the head.

The issues were fixed with the PI heads along with a different designed head gasket with different coatings.