Blown Head Gasket or Lower Intake Gasket?

[TomServo9]

Hey guys-
I got a 92 Ex. About a week ago I was driving home from the cabin and got on the gas to pass someone and I thought I heard somthing and then thought I smelled antifreeze. I watched my temp very closely after this happened but it stayed in the normal range. As I got closer to my home and slowed down from interstate speeds the temp started to rise. I sped up to get some air into the engine as I was close to home. I got home and she was steaming. I popped the hood and noticed that the steam was comming from behind the engine so I crawled under the car and saw a steady stream of coolant comming from behind the engine down to the ground. I parked it and took the 02' for the week as I had a busy week. I gotta get this thing back on the road ASAP but I can't tell for the life of me where its leaking. It comes out fast enough that you would think its a hose but I don't believe there are any hoses that go directly behind the 4.0L. It seems to be running out from more on the drivers side back of the engine. I have the upper intake off and still can't tell where it is leaking from. I'm guessing either the lower intake or head gaskets. Anyone else have similar experiences. When I parked it it was running fine and no white smoke was comming from the exhaust. My oil level appears to be correct but I haven't drianed it yet to look for coolant. I started it again before taking off the intake and there was maybe a LITTLE white smoke, but it was cold out so it could have just been the cold air. It did smell a little rich however but this could be unrelated. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I don't really have the money to bring it in to be repaired. The transmission was just rebuilt . Let me know what you guys think. Thanks a TON!!

 

[Az_NavajoRob]

There is a freeze plug on the back of the head that could have rusted through. Try using an inspection mirror (little quarter sized mirror on a telescoping rod) and a flashlight and crawl all over that thing untill you see where it is leaking from.

 

[TomServo9]

Turns out the lower intake gasket simply blew out the back for what ever reason. Now my question is since its apart what would you do? Should I just replace the intake gasket or should I do the heads anyways? I know head gaskets are pretty common on these things. Does anyone know how long a head gasket is SUPPOSED to last? I just really don't want to tear it apart again real soon. What do you guys think? Thanks for your help. I already have a new lower intake gasket, fuel rail gaskets, injector o-rings and valve cover gaskets. As a side note does anyone know how to clean up the valve covers? Mine are starting to rust something awful. Thanks for your help guys.

 

[MrShorty]

I don't know where you've heard that head gaskets are common on these engines, but I have not seen very frequent mention of head gasket failures on these engines. I've heard that the heads themselves are a little prone to cracking, but even then it's not near as bad as the 2.9.
Heads and head gaskets I would expect to last the life of the engine, assuming the engine doesn't get overheated. Do you know if your engine has a history of overheating? Personally, I think this is a case where, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Other's may feel differently, I don't know.

 

[TomServo9]

I've just heard that once they over heat things warp/crack really easy on the 4.0. I also have had 2 friends finally get rid of their first gen when the head gasket went. I've got the only first gen now . Well I know it has over heated on 2 other occasions. The truck has been in the family since it was new. I'm not sure how bad it was the first time but the second time it got pretty hot, but that was over 40,000 miles ago. My only concern is that when the lower intake gasket went out I was watching my temps real close but with how bad it was leaking there was no water for the sending unit to read. It almost had to be all steam. Thankfully it was pretty cold and I was going down the interstate at 70mph so I would hope that kept it cool. I wasn't even sure I really had a problem until I neared my neighborhood and had slowed down to 35mph. In your opinions do you think things are ok? or do you think things got really hot? As i stated in my original post the temp gauge never did get much above the half way point and when I got home it was still steaming and leakin coolant out the back of the engine so there was a LITTLE circulation still. What do you think? Thanks for all your help!

 

[edselman]

Was coolant boiling over into your recovery tank also? My mom's 93 ford explorer sounds has similar symptoms like yours, but without all the steam pouring out the back of the engine if I remember correctly. We went to pay a waterbill, and then the tempature gauge just shot up. We made it home, and when we lifted the hood, a very high pitched whining was heard, bubbles boiling like mad, (lots of bubbling noises also) and then it started forcing coolant into the recovery tank under very high pressure. it was dumping it all over the place out of the coolant tank.

This happened in 2000, so it has been sitting for a while. I am ready to reopen this "case" and see if it is something as simple as a cracked head, instead of a cracked block like we think it is.

Now bear with me on this, but way back when in 1996, we went down to Arizona for the fourth july. Where it gets a little murky for me is if this happened on the way to Prescott Arizona, or back. Probably doesn't matter. Eitherway, I believe in Boulder City the explorer overheated some, and it was very underpowered. (I was 12-13 at the time, I was not driving! ) I knew how the car felt when it was running good (if it could be considered that) and it felt very weak. We had parked the car, and gone into a store, to let it cool off.

My memory is very murky on this, but I believe that is what happened. I'm thinking it probably did overheat then, and maybe cracked something, but it kept running until 2000?

We could never really use the A/C, it always blew warm. Sometimes it could be "cold" but more like luke warm/cold.

If it would help you, and anyone else, We have service reciepts from Gaudin Ford & Tom Coward Lincoln Mercury here in Las Vegas showing their attempts to fix the problem. I could see about getting them scanned in.

Before I go, I also heard that some 4.0 blocks left the factory with heads not being torqued down correctly? Is this true?

Dane

 

[TomServo9]

Alchemist Asked Me:
Looks like I've got the same thing happening to my engine.....Its leaking coolant from the rear, and its not a hose. I cant quite see back there to see where exactly its comming from. How hard a fix was the job for you?

I Replied:
Hopefully my message will help a little. It's possible that you are having the same problem as I was, however I have been told by several mechanics that is almost NEVER happens the way it did for me, but if you're lucky it has. All that was wrong with my Explorer was the lower intake gasket blew out the back and not inwards (as usually happens.) Don't misinterpret me, this is not an EASY project, more a DOABLE project if you are mechanically inclined, easier than a head gasket though. When I replaced my gasket I had the help of a friend that has built a few engines, and it still took me a few days. If you set your mind to it I'm sure it could be done in a day but I would still plan on a few days just in case you break things or need more parts/tools. Don't rush this project along, if you do, you could have a gasket that leaks worse than before, and cause more damage to your engine.

When my lower intake gasket blew out thankfully the gasket between one of the coolant channels was the only part to go and it blew out the back of the engine instead of into the engine, like is more common. If it blows inward also then your engine most likely has coolant in the oil which can wreak havoc especially if you have been driving it with the problem. Also hopefully you didn't drive on it too long without coolant because the engine could have started to over heat, warping your heads. I don't mean to scare you but I had to ask myself these same questions before I started ripping into my engine. If you are lucky and only had the damage to the gasket as I did you will need to remove the upper and lower intakes, the fuel rail, and valve covers. You will need to drain the radiator and remove the coolant neck/thermostat that connects to the intake. To do this you will need to
remove the serpentine belt and either remove or at least loosen the belt tensioner to gain access to one of the bolts that connects the neck to the intake. While I had everything apart I cleaned everything thoroughly, cleaned the injectors, replaced the injector o-rings, replaced the thermostat and all the gaskets I removed including the lower intake (hopefully what failed on your engine), upper and lower fuel rail gaskets, and valve cover gaskets. There may have been more I did when I was in there, it was a while ago now, but those were the major things. I pretty much just followed my Haynes/Chilton manual to do all of this. The only tool that you may not have is a inch/lb torque wrench. You will need this when reassembling everything. If you do not torque things to spec you can have problems with leaking or over tightening these bolts and breaking them, as I did the first time. You also need to make sure that when installing the gasket you use some RTV gasket maker at the front and back bottom of the "V" in the corners to make sure it does not leak in these places. You should also clean up all mating surfaces for the gaskets you replace. Be sure to cover up the engine block when doing this. You don't want any foreign material entering the block after the intake/valve covers are removed. This is all outlined in the Haynes/Chilton, I believe. I think to replace all the bolts after breaking them was like $40 from Ford. If you use the inch/lb torque wrench to beginning with however this shouldn't be a problem. The gaskets were almost $100 too for the best of the best.

I do have some extra Fel-Pro (VERY high grade) gaskets that I didn't use when doing mine. When I broke the intake bolts I bought a new gasket in fear that if I didn't it may leak but I think I was just being ****. If interested let me know. These are VERY expensive gaskets and I really don't want to throw them away. Hopefully this gives you some insight into what you are in for. I'm sorry if I left anything out, as I'm sure I did. If you have any more questions feel free to ask me. What year/engine do you have? Just wondering if these gaskets are to the point of failure. I really don't know why mine failed. If just did. Let me know what you find out if you rip into it yourself or get it fixed.

 

[amystours]

Dealing with same problem

This is the same exact thing I'm dealing with right now. Almost the exact same scenario happened to me, word for word. I felt behind the heads on this thing, (AFTER it cooled, of course!), and the freeze plug *felt* solid, so I'm praying it's the lower gasket. There seemed to be WAY too much water coming out for just a pinhole or whatever. This post has actually helped me alot, and I really hate to say this, but I'm sorta glad it happened to someone else, now I know I'm not imagining things! LMAO Good luck to you! I think my 911 post on that was titled "something blew....coolant related"

 

[stackz]

even if it is the head gasket it's not hard to replace BOTH the gaskets on BOTH heads in the car. I know...I just did it when I had to replace the driver side head after cracking the #3 cylinder between the valves so bad the exhaust guide started to fall down

worst part about the passenger head is torquing the back three bolts correctly since they butt up against the evaporator core and there's 2 bolts on the housing that are a ***** to get to...I ended up almost aborting because of this.

Go to pepboys and get their 24" 1/2" drive breaker bar, their hardened torques head set, and the 3 pack of 1/2" extensions. You'll want to use the tiny extension with the T44 socket on those back three bolts and it'll be easy. The 24" breaker bar just makes the final "1/4 turn tightening" a LOT easier on those three bolts. You'll have to shimmy it in/out of the very back bolt though each time though.

Anyway, worked like a charm for me and I did all this in an apartment lot complex over two weekends and the truck runs like a dream now

Hell, I didn't even have jackstands to use...thank god these things have ground clearance haha