Where Do I Drill the Weep Hole in My F150 Intercooler?

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Thread starter Stangman570
Start date Dec 17, 2019

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Location: Houston Texas

Vehicle(s): 2009 xterra

Yes for sure our area humidity has some effect. If your going with an aftermarket intercooler just get one with a drain valve or plug. All intercoolers have a build up of oil and condensation. Just some are worse than others, or should I say others are more efficient with cooling. Anytime you take heated air and rapidly cool it you will get condensation.

After you drilled the hole on your Ranger , how much crap came out ?

First Name: John

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Fixed mine months ago. Verified to much condensation in the intercooler. Just like my F-150 I just drilled a small weep hole in the bottom of the intercooler. Now before you guys get your panties all in a wad, yes I could have easily put a catch can on.

Interesting you acknowledge a catch can here, I've noticed when I drain mine there seems to be a good amount of super thin cloudy liquid under heavier oil on top. It's validated my investment in one, hadn't considered that benefit in keeping the intercooler clean(er). I wonder if water/alcohol injection would work via accelerated evaporation?

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Thread starter
#18

After you drilled the hole on your Ranger , how much crap came out ?

I had about 1/4 cup of condensation/light oil mix.

Joined: May 31, 2019

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Thread starter
#19

Interesting you acknowledge a catch can here, I've noticed when I drain mine there seems to be a good amount of super thin cloudy liquid under heavier oil on top. It's validated my investment in one, hadn't considered that benefit in keeping the intercooler clean(er). I wonder if water/alcohol injection would work via accelerated evaporation?

Yes thats typical with a boosted application. Condensation will always be a factor. As long as you keep it drained that will be fine. Methanol would be the way to go to further reduce the engine temp however, I wouldn't inject it at the intercooler. You'll be fine with the catch can. I'm just a cheap azz and didn't go with the catch can.

First Name: Austin

Joined: Nov 9, 2019

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Location: CO

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I will pile onto this issue. I've been having this issue intermittently since I bought the truck in early/mid 2019. It happened a few times before I started to pay attention to it seriously. So far this year it's happened 3 times.

The first occurrence was during a road trip to Daytona FL from SC. It had been raining alot during the trip and was quite humid outside. The issue happened 2 or 3 times in the stretch of about an hour on the interstate then not again.

The second occurrence, which doesn't match the others in regards to rainy conditions, I was on the return leg of a trip across the country at the beginning of July. It did not rain at all but I have no idea what the humidity was along this trip. We were headed back to SC from Moab UT and the issue started in the high mountains of CO (Summit County to be specific). The stuttering would happen when trying to pass on the interstate with the truck loaded up and moving at high speed. This was the worst this year. Every time we went more than 1/2 throttle from Summit county all the way to St Louis (if not further) the truck would go into limp mode and wouldn't be normal again until I stopped for a few minutes. Even past that it went into limp mode at least once or twice more on that trip. I took it to the dealership the day after that trip and they of course scratched their butts and said it was probably just bad gas (lol wut - It was a 28 hour drive, do you realize how many gas stations would have had to have bad gas?).

After that though things have been fine until yesterday when I was 2.5 hours into a VERY rainy trip back home from a weekend adventure and pushed the throttle to be met with that dreaded stutter...on the interstate yet again. It happened twice and never went into full limp mode but it was enough to make me start thinking about this again.

Anyways, I'm very hopeful by all this talk of an oil catch can. I never knew they were a fix for this problem or I'd have ordered one 18 months ago. Probably will do that soon. Part of me wants to also drill a hole in the intercooler tonight just to see what comes out but I would have to do some research on that first. No way I'd be comfortable just leaving a hole in my CAC. Maybe will put a self tapping screw in it.

First Name: Austin

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In the lower right corner. Just follow the F150 steps in the link I provided earlier in this thread. Be warned that you will have a small amount of oil weeping out of the intercooler from the engine blowby. I just wipe mine off at every oil change.

Any chance you could give us a photo of where you drilled it? I looked at the link you are talking about but it doesn't have any details.
https://www.bluespringsfordparts.com/blog/ecoboost-shudder
The F150 instructions i've found online all involve drilling a 1/16 hole into the plastic piece at the bottom right of the intercooler but I see no such area on our Rangers. I was going to drill mine tonight but was really confused where specifically a weep hole would go on this truck.

First Name: Keith

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Any chance you could give us a photo of where you drilled it? I looked at the link you are talking about but it doesn't have any details.
https://www.bluespringsfordparts.com/blog/ecoboost-shudder
The F150 instructions i've found online all involve drilling a 1/16 hole into the plastic piece at the bottom right of the intercooler but I see no such area on our Rangers. I was going to drill mine tonight but was really confused where specifically a weep hole would go on this truck.

When I had my 2012 F150 with the 3.5 ecoboost engine I had this issue occasionally. Ford's fix at that time was a cover for the top half of the intercooler, blocking off half of it. That helped but on very humid days the problem was still there. Most people just removed that cover and drilled the 1/16" hole in the lowest part near the outlet.

First Name: Austin

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I took my inter-cooler off yesterday and a slight amount of water and oily residue came out. It was mostly clear, not dirty looking like i've seen in other photos online. I decided to put the weep hole in it and see how it reacts going forward. I figure I can always just plug it back up if I have issues. If you know what you are looking for, you could do this without removing the intercooler i'm sure.

Here's a photo of the bottom of my intercooler (drivers side) with the hole in it.

Here's the gap that the 'crud' will be blown down into. The gray metal at the bottom is the skid plate.

First Name: Nathaniel

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This just happened to me today, truck is brand new with 600 miles on it. Accelerating onto the fwy at about 30-40mph it cut out, gas pedal was unresponsive. The rear tires even locked up for a second I believe because it down shifted, I was just trying to not get rear ended. Turned my hazard lights on coasted for a few seconds and it was back like it never happened... Condensation seems like it would cause hesitation like symptoms, my felt electrical related.

First Name: Marlow

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I took my inter-cooler off yesterday and a slight amount of water and oily residue came out. It was mostly clear, not dirty looking like i've seen in other photos online. I decided to put the weep hole in it and see how it reacts going forward. I figure I can always just plug it back up if I have issues. If you know what you are looking for, you could do this without removing the intercooler i'm sure.
Here's a photo of the bottom of my intercooler (drivers side) with the hole in it.

Here's the gap that the 'crud' will be blown down into. The gray metal at the bottom is the skid plate.

how hard was it to remove your intercooler?

First Name: Austin

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how hard was it to remove your intercooler?

Had to remove the front grill and then press down on the intercooler really hard while pulling outwardly on the top of the intercooler. It still didn't want to come out and took some serious force. I honestly don't know if I removed it how ford intended because I tried for a long time to reinstall it and couldn't get it to go back in without removing the upper rubber gromits, cutting them and sliding them in after the intercooler was back in position. See photo for what I mean by cutting the gromits. I really did not enjoy this process.

First Name: Marlow

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Had to remove the front grill and then press down on the intercooler really hard while pulling outwardly on the top of the intercooler. It still didn't want to come out and took some serious force. I honestly don't know if I removed it how ford intended because I tried for a long time to reinstall it and couldn't get it to go back in without removing the upper rubber gromits, cutting them and sliding them in after the intercooler was back in position. See photo for what I mean by cutting the gromits. I really did not enjoy this process.

That busted thumb says enough.

First Name: Dave

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I haven't looked but is it necessary to remove the intercooler to drill that location? I have a dremel with a drill chuck that can get into some tight spaces.

First Name: Austin

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That spot on the intercooler is definitely exposed. You can see in one of my photos that there's a gap under my weep hole that goes all the way down to the skid plate. I think a dremel could possibly get to it but honestly I'm not positive.

Btw, I have not had the problem again since doing this.

First Name: Joshua

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Does ford have a fix or service bulletin for this

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Where Do I Drill the Weep Hole in My F150 Intercooler?

Source: https://www.ranger5g.com/forum/threads/stumble-loss-of-power-under-hard-acceleration.5486/page-2

Where Do I Drill the Weep Hole in My F150 Intercooler?

Stumble & Loss Of Power Under Hard Acceleration

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