How far to bend over...

tigerknight

Registered User
So I bought an SC and I have to say I'm irritated. The previous owner aparently 'did everything he could think of' and it even passed some mechanic's 'inspection' and said it was ok. Thing is, how the HELL does someone stay a mechanic to pass a car that tosses tons of smoke while idling?!?

I dunno.. maybe they were just daft rather than intentionally misleading. Anyway, it's coolant - there's no to ways about it. white smoke, smells like coolant, it's coolant. which means head gasket.

It's a 94 5-spd. What sort of costs am I looking at to get this fixed? 'Temperature variations' my ***. Got bent over once and now I guess here comes round two.

Any chance there's a gearhead in the austin area that might be able to lend a hand?
 
Typical is in the $1100-1400 range. Do-it-yourselfers can get by with about $350. All SC's blow headgaskets, it's just a matter of when and where that no one can tell you. They tend to go suddenly especially if the cooling system is flushed or if the car overheats. Sorry. :(
 
What about collateral damage? I have no clue how long this has been driven in this condition. A 'typical' head gasket job includes what; gasket, system clean, labor, and tune? What else might be damaged by a long history of use on a busted HG - worst case scenario?
 
Check recalls

It's a long shot, but I believe there was a recall on the HG's for '94-'95 SC's.

As usual, Ford knew they made a mistake with the material they used between the heads and engine - but they only admitted it on those two years. Anyone with and earlier motor was stuck - literally!!

Check to see if the HG's were replaced under warranty. Dealer can run VIN for you to see what work was done.

If the rest of the car is in good condition, it's worth fixing. If you're handy and can do it yourself, go for it. There's plenty of how to's and tips on here.

If you just bought the car, any chance of beating a few $$$$ out of the seller?? Satisfaction, of course.

Good luck, you'll need it!!

Mark
'93 SC
 
If the car hadn't been taken in for the recall, is it too late to do now?

Yeah I'll try prodding the seller. Want to make sure I've got all this stuff lined up for one shot first though.
 
You should pull your pistons and check the ring lands...

Might need some new pistons depends how much water and steam got in... If it was just coolant you might be lucky...
 
If the car was NOT using coolant when you bought it and the oil looked clear then it most likely hasn't recieved collateral damage unless you drove it with water in the oil. If you are concerned about water in the oil, then pull the motor and check the bearings. If the motor was driven with water in the oil then it will be typical for the bearings to be down to the copper. It's your choice if you want to go for a full rebuild. Never seen a problem with pistons but there is a first time for everything.

Ford may still work with you on the headgaskets. I know it was supposed to be 7 years 100,000 miles but I know of one person who got a remann engine last year. You have to know how to work the system though, don't expect your local Ford dealer to do anything but laugh at you.
 
XR7 Dave,
What did you mean by this?

They tend to go suddenly especially if the cooling system is flushed or if the car overheats.

Flushing the system causes the headgaskets to go? Can you explain? Thanks.
Guy
 
Just to add a note, not all SC's will blow the HGs. Mine are original with 176,000 miles on them.
Most of the time when you hear about them going, at least from owners on this forum, its due to modding the engine without opening up the exhaust first and then running it hard. I don't drive the heck out of mine and don't have an O/D pulley on it.
 
I have seen many many SC's that blew headgaskets in a big way immediately following a heater core replacement, radiator replacement, thermostat replacement, engine flush, etc. Obviously the headgaskets were shot before any of those things were done, but those seem to be triggers that set off full blown failure. Many new owners will do what they percieve to be "much needed maintenance" on their SC only to unwittingly trigger complete headgsket failure.

I also have a 210K mile SC on the original headgaskets. It is not leaking at all and I drive the poop out of it. However, I am not naive and I know that the headgaskets are shot even though they are not yet leaking. Lots of miles on these headgaskets will result in split fire rings, period. If you pulled apart your 176K mile motor you WILL find split fire rings. It is only a matter of time till the rest of the gasket material breaks down and they begin to leak.

I hope for your sake you already have a plan in place for the day that happens. :)
 
Mine had 183k on it when the gaskets finally blew. I knew the day would come. Especially after bragging about how many miles I had on them. Guess the car heard me bragging.
 
Is there a test for this?

Are there any warring signs here? Is there a test you can do to determine if you HGs are good or bad? I'd say that it sounds like replacing the HG with a new one before it blows would be much an expensive P&M but would be worse if you don't. Maybe they should have put that in the manual about the same time you do the spark plugs… Yuck Yuck Yuck.. :D
 
I don't know???

Don't know if I missed this or not but if you just replace the HG's then you'll most likely be replacing them again real soon...Make sure you mill the heads costs a bit more but you'll be glad you did it. Also I'd recommend Felpro HG's just a personall opinion. And if your SC does still have the factory exhaust on as I believe I saw someone mention earlier...Lose it fast and first before you run your SC even mildly hard again...These cars are extremely finicky but when they run right and you've done the right mods in the right sequence the grin goes ear to ear as you watch those stangers disappear in tire smoke :D


Rick in FL :cool:
 
XR7 Dave said:
Lots of miles on these headgaskets will result in split fire rings, period. If you pulled apart your 176K mile motor you WILL find split fire rings. It is only a matter of time till the rest of the gasket material breaks down and they begin to leak.

I hope for your sake you already have a plan in place for the day that happens. :)
What are fire rings? :confused: Are you talking about the portion of the HG which surrounds the cylinder, or the oil or coolant passages. Are you advising that I just pick a time and do a preemtory HG change?
 
At that kind of mileage it would be a good idea to plan the gasket job rather than just let it happen as they seem to happen at the worst times.

The fire rings are the stainless steel rings that go around each cylinder. They are actually very thin metal that wraps around the gasket and encircles the cylinder. These rings split on the edge where they are exposed to the fire in the cylinder. Once they are split then they allow the fire to burn into the gasket material. The fire slowly eats at the gasket material until enough of it breaks down and then the pressure from the cooling system starts to push the broken fire rings into the cylinder and things go downhill from there.

I've seen it on every SC motor that I have taken apart with the exception of ones which have already had Felpro gaskets installed. 99% of the time the biggest failure will also be in one of the rear cylinders (usually the passenger one) because the back of the motor runs hotter than the front but there are always several cylinders that are just getting ready to go as well. Felpro redesigned the gaskets restricting coolant flow at the front and encouraging flow at the back of the motor.

If you can do it yourself it's not even that hard of a job nor is it terribly expensive. Like I said, I have a motor with 210K on it now on the original headgaskets that I have not changed. Because I have several cars to drive, I will just let this one go to see how long it will last but I would not recomend that to someone who relies on the car for daily transportation. If you do get water in the oil, then a complete motor teardown will be necessary.
 
Just a side note...

All SC's will blow HG like XR7Dave mentioned. This is inherantly due to the gasket design/quality, the operating conditions of the engine and of course the wide variances in machining tolerances from the factory.

The Iron block/Aluminum head combo basically neccesitates this. Virtually all auto applications with a Iron block/ Aluminum head combo will blow the HG eventually, this is especially more true of a turbo/supercharged engine.

Remember the Chrysler Turbo engines of the 80's and early 90's? Notorious HG blowers.

The main problem for the 89-93 SC's was "premature" HG failure. Many owners complaining of failure at the 40-60K miles range. The problem was only exacerbated by those owners putting the old "Chip N' Pulley" combo on their cars.

When Ford redesigned the SC for the 94-95 Model Years, they used the Fel-pro design. Now the HG were far less prone to blow. It didn't mean they were impervious to having problems, just that an average owner could expect a reasonable lifetime out of the engine (read: 120K-150K miles).

Other factors in HG failure are corrosion in the coolant system, caused by poor quality coolant and detonation in the combustion chambers usually caused by an uneducated SC owner putting 87 octane in the tank and then running the car Flat out on a 95ºF day with poor coolant to boot!
 
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