Radiator Problems!

So, almost directly after I had put the engine back together and filled the engine with fluids, it ran fine! But of course we had to keep a close eye on it for any problems, and alas there was!

I noticed some the classic oily sheen in the water in the radiator, and my WORST fear was that it was engine oil and that there was a bad head gasket or head itself. AH! No!

We drained everything in the radiator and THIS is what we found:

Now, the green substance is the antifreeze of course. The clear oil drops in the center are engine oil, but they weren't there when we drained the radiator, we dripped some on purpose to see if it was really our problem. It turns out it wasn't! The red/brown fluid on the outside was what was in the radiator, and we believe it was the Automatic Transmission Fluid (we dropped a few drops of ATF in the center to make sure as well).

Ford had designed their cars to have an integrated ATF cooler in the radiator itself, which is more than prone to leakage into the antifreeze. We suspected this might be the problem, so we had to replace the entire radiator (which was a cheap model to begin with) with the same model haha.

OLD:

 NEW:

Alas, that fixed our problem! I'm hoping maybe later on in the future to get an external ATF cooler, if any are available. There is still some residue in the system, but we flushed as much out as we could, and we will do so again later on.  But for now everything is running great!