possible head gasket?

[rocketcouch]

so this all started about a year ago when i noticed that on the highway i would get a slight intermittent jerk in the car. pretty much say a loaded misfire. it has slowly gotten worse to now where i cant get on it and as soon as i blimp the throttle on the highway or try to drive it up a hill in 5th itll give that misfire in the exhaust. if i put it in 4th its better. the last two oil changes i saw a very little amount of milkey white which i know is moister but im not losing coolant so i didnt jump to that. the last oil change i noticed it seemed glittery which is usually ring material. plus ive lost almost 100miles per tank in gas.

this week ill be planning to do the head gaskets. ive changed every sensor on this thing except O2s and it doesnt burn any oil. the intake gasket has been changed and i noticed the passenger head has new rocker shaft and new springs so im thinking its been off recently. the head bolts are rusty so theyve been reused or its been a while since the head(s) heave been off.

ill probably do a compression test too before its all off but im thinking head gasket but i want to see if anyone agrees

 

[lobo411]

so this all started about a year ago when i noticed that on the highway i would get a slight intermittent jerk in the car. pretty much say a loaded misfire. it has slowly gotten worse to now where i cant get on it and as soon as i blimp the throttle on the highway or try to drive it up a hill in 5th itll give that misfire in the exhaust. if i put it in 4th its better. the last two oil changes i saw a very little amount of milkey white which i know is moister but im not losing coolant so i didnt jump to that. the last oil change i noticed it seemed glittery which is usually ring material. plus ive lost almost 100miles per tank in gas.

this week ill be planning to do the head gaskets. ive changed every sensor on this thing except O2s and it doesnt burn any oil. the intake gasket has been changed and i noticed the passenger head has new rocker shaft and new springs so im thinking its been off recently. the head bolts are rusty so theyve been reused or its been a while since the head(s) heave been off.

ill probably do a compression test too before its all off but im thinking head gasket but i want to see if anyone agrees

A bad head gasket isn't going to cause a misfire (I guess maybe it could, but only if the cylinder was being drowned in coolant. If that happened, you'd have no reason to doubt it was the head gasket b/c the situation would be catastrophic). Something else is going on.

 

[rocketcouch]

i was thinking that maybe my timing cover is leaking and that was the minute amount of milky in my oil. the truck has band new injectors too. only other thing i thought of is a computer going bad. i will say the loaded miss seems to be too intermittent at times for it to be a head gasket to me. ive been trying to think of a good way to test for a cracked head. its not loosing coolant so i dont see a coolant compression test helping.

by the way the miss seems like a rich miss too

 

[rocketcouch]

today i was able to do a compression test on cyl 4 and cyl 5 and got 150psi on a warm motor. unless 6 had an issue i doubt its that head gasket.

i forgot to mention that intermitently over the last 3 months if i turn it off and come back to the car to turn it on like maybe 10 minutes later the motor would shake and run real rough. it would clear over time. idk if i could have a bad injector even though theyre all brand new? if i unplug the mass air with the car running the roughness and rich issue goes away and it idles nice and smooth

 

[4rd Xplora]

i forgot to mention that intermitently over the last 3 months if i turn it off and come back to the car to turn it on like maybe 10 minutes later the motor would shake and run real rough. it would clear over time.

My unit suffers from the same thing. Does it about once every 40-50 starts.

 

[rocketcouch]

so on the two cylinders i checked yesterday i put new plugs in. after taking a closer look at the two plugs that came out and geting other opinions from two guys at work the plugs were shot and arcing out through the ceramic in the cylinder to the threads. i put the E3 plugs in it after hearing how good they were and having good luck with them on other cars. i put in some autolite iridiums today and the thing runs like a champ. the three E3s on the passenger side were all fuel coated. hopefully i didnt do too much damage. they killer is the plugs arent even two years old

 

[1992fordgreen]

Yep. Cars will misfire even with simople things like spark plugs.

 

[rocketcouch]

Yep. Cars will misfire even with simople things like spark plugs.

one of those things i didnt expect with those plugs. i will say i have trouble remembering that it can just be small things like plugs. doesnt need to be a big thing like a head gasket swap. also i forget that just cause its a new part and not that old doesnt mean that it cant go bad