- Thread starter
- #61
Hey Fellas! I know I haven't been around/posting much for a while but I have still been lurking in the background. This car is still taking up all my funding and what time I have to play. We are about to be on the road again so I thought I would update this thread and let you all know where we're at.
As of the previous posting you know the car's engine went south,here is what I found while trying to fix it. With no compression on the #2 cylinder,I figured possibly a head gasket,broken spring or burnt valves as the the culprit. As of today I still really don't have a 100% what caused what answer for the problem but here is what I found. First check was the compression. All good except for #2. A compressed air test revealed big leakage past both the intake and exhaust valves so I started taking that side of the engine apart. No broken springs,no bad rocker arms or any other problems were found when the valve cover was removed so I proceeded to pull the head. Other than being black from not firing,the combustion chamber looked good.
The valve were also black but did not look "burned" or have missing material anywhere as I have seen in other engines. But as you can see in the pic,there is no shiny line indicating it was fully closed/seated.
Also there was no signs of gasket failure. At this point I am unsure of what really happened,but i figured a fresh set of heads and gaskets and we'd be back up and running. I found a good deal on a late 90's Explorer 5.0 engine which is said to have the best flowing cast iron heads Ford ever made for the small block engine. So I purchased it and started preparing for a head swap. Then I start looking over the rest of the engine in the car and noticed something I didn't like. Before reading anymore.look over the pic below and see if you notice what I saw.
Now if you are seeing what I did,you see a big gap between the piston and cylinder wall and the top piston rings are visible. The cylinder on the right,you can even see the ring gap! Now I am questioning if I should do more than just a head swap. Seeing that was a surprise because as noted in previous threads,this engine ran great. It was solid sounding with no knocks,rattles or other noises. So while the heads were at the shop I swayed back and forth between should I or should I not completely rebuild the engine?
Knowing we plan to race it more and being that I am very quality conscience and wanting to make sure my son had a solid car to drive,I had to pull the engine for a complete rebuild. Once I started tearing it all apart it didn't take long to see I made the right choice. Look at what I found! This is the #5 piston on the opposite side from where we had the known issue.
Pretty rough ,huh? Then when I removed the rings it got even worse,this chunk just fell out of the side of the piston! Also to be more confusing,the scarring on the side of the piston was not present in the cylinder.
Well that's all I got for tonight. Don't worry,we're a lot further down the road than this so you won't be waiting a year for the next update. I'll get some more pics organized and update this thread in another day or two.
As of the previous posting you know the car's engine went south,here is what I found while trying to fix it. With no compression on the #2 cylinder,I figured possibly a head gasket,broken spring or burnt valves as the the culprit. As of today I still really don't have a 100% what caused what answer for the problem but here is what I found. First check was the compression. All good except for #2. A compressed air test revealed big leakage past both the intake and exhaust valves so I started taking that side of the engine apart. No broken springs,no bad rocker arms or any other problems were found when the valve cover was removed so I proceeded to pull the head. Other than being black from not firing,the combustion chamber looked good.
The valve were also black but did not look "burned" or have missing material anywhere as I have seen in other engines. But as you can see in the pic,there is no shiny line indicating it was fully closed/seated.
Also there was no signs of gasket failure. At this point I am unsure of what really happened,but i figured a fresh set of heads and gaskets and we'd be back up and running. I found a good deal on a late 90's Explorer 5.0 engine which is said to have the best flowing cast iron heads Ford ever made for the small block engine. So I purchased it and started preparing for a head swap. Then I start looking over the rest of the engine in the car and noticed something I didn't like. Before reading anymore.look over the pic below and see if you notice what I saw.
Now if you are seeing what I did,you see a big gap between the piston and cylinder wall and the top piston rings are visible. The cylinder on the right,you can even see the ring gap! Now I am questioning if I should do more than just a head swap. Seeing that was a surprise because as noted in previous threads,this engine ran great. It was solid sounding with no knocks,rattles or other noises. So while the heads were at the shop I swayed back and forth between should I or should I not completely rebuild the engine?
Knowing we plan to race it more and being that I am very quality conscience and wanting to make sure my son had a solid car to drive,I had to pull the engine for a complete rebuild. Once I started tearing it all apart it didn't take long to see I made the right choice. Look at what I found! This is the #5 piston on the opposite side from where we had the known issue.
Pretty rough ,huh? Then when I removed the rings it got even worse,this chunk just fell out of the side of the piston! Also to be more confusing,the scarring on the side of the piston was not present in the cylinder.
Well that's all I got for tonight. Don't worry,we're a lot further down the road than this so you won't be waiting a year for the next update. I'll get some more pics organized and update this thread in another day or two.
