Hole in valve cover!! Please help!

[stkelly]

This is getting crazy! As the tech was working he noticed a bent valve! The shop said they have to send the head out for repair. So the truck jumped time when that piece of metal got lodged in the chain.

Seriously! Anything else I should have them check for if the valve was bent??

Thanks in advance.

 

[JW]

If it jumped far enough, it's possible you have a damaged piston as well. They should be able to see that when the head is off. What a mess...

 

[Explorer_PL]

I hope the tech gets to keep his job - it's getting costly for the shop but it was a explainable mistake.

But you got some honest people there....

 

[stkelly]

Here are some more pics. The bent valve was the exhaust valve in cylinder 4. I went to the shop and looked at piston 4 and it didn't look like there was any damage. The tech said it barely made contact.

Is machining the head really the best way to go? The tech was saying you can purchase a new head, but they come bare anyway and you have to move the valves over. A re-manufactured head doesn't make sense because at least I know my head didn't have any other damage then the exhaust valve on cylinder 4.

I need to ask for the compression results when he's done.

Here's some pics. Cylinder 4 is the one closest to the firewall:

Here's the other bank of pistons/cylinders. 5-8.

Here's the intake on the shop floor:

 

[stkelly]

I recently got the truck back. All was fine for about a week. Then I noticed oil drips on my garage floor. Turns out the timing cover and oil pan seal was leaking. The shop has had the truck since Monday.

They put a new oil pan gasket on and re-seated the timing cover. Problem is, there's really no obvious reason why either was leaking. The oil pan gasket they took off looked perfectly fine, no pinches, crush marks, cracks, etc. So they ordered a new one and replaced it again. The timing cover was the same, the gasket looked perfectly fine. Now I'm concerned this is going to be a constant problem.

Does anyone have any ideas as to why the oil pan gasket and timing cover gasket would leak if the gaskets were in good shape? They were both brand new when they did the engine rebuild. The shop said the mating surface was smooth and clean and didn't have any explanation for the leaks.

It's like throwing parts at a problem hoping it takes care of the issue.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Flag Gibby]

It could be as simple as the fact that the gaskets had not fully seated yet and just needed to be torqued back down after a couple of heat cycles. On another note, the pictures of the cylinders sure do a good job of showing how rich Ford runs their air/fuel mixtures on their programming and it looked like you had a cylinder that was not firing correctly based on all the excessive carbon deposits in it.

 

[stkelly]

I agree with you, I also thought there was a lot of carbon build up. I assume you're talking about piston 8 that has the excessive carbon build up.

I did have a misfire code once on piston 4. It was due to water getting down into the spark plug hole. I think plug 8 also had a little water in it when I replaced all of the COPs. Piston 8 also had the bent exhaust valve from the jump in time. I wonder if some of that build up was from when I drove it back to the shop. Is there anything I can do at this point to help clean out some of that carbon? Run a can a seafoam through? I don't think the tech cleaned the pistons when he had the engine apart.

It's interesting, they wrote on the repair form that the compression numbers were 200 for all cylinders. I thought that was odd, I figured there would be some variation and 200 seemed high.

So if the leak happens again I should have them re-torque everything? I'm surprised they didn't try that first. Seems much easier than replacing the gaskets all over again! However, the garage said they heated up the engine a few times to check for leaks before they gave it back to me the first time.

Thanks again.

 

[Flag Gibby]

The one that I was talking about was #4 that looked like it had been having problems. The buildup that you see is long term buildup and didn't just happen. To get rid of all the buildup this is what I would do: (dead links). Usually there is some variance on the compression numbers, but your vehicle doesn't have very many miles on it so it is possible.
As far as the leaking goes, I would just let them handle it how they want to if it does it again.

 

[stkelly]

I meant to say piston 4 in my post above. It also was spark plug 4 that had the misfire and water in the spark plug well.

I got the truck back yesterday after they put on a new oil pan gasket and timing cover gasket, the leak got worse. So it's back at the shop again today. Now the tech thinks there is something wrong with the new timing cover since it's leaking from the same place. So we'll see what they try next. At this point I just want our truck back!

Thanks for the seafoam link. Once I have the truck back and nothing else is leaking I'll run a can through.

 

[1Lonewolf]

One would think that the shop would run that truck to make sure that there weren't any problems. A smart mechanic would do that anyway... I think once you get your truck back in proper order, it's time to find a new shop. Hope you get it back soon!