Questions and Answers
Blown Engine In A Ford Van
Q. Hi, Vincent... I hope that you can help me out a little here. I have a 1984 Ford Club Wagon XLT van with a 351W (this engine actually came out of a 1988 van of the same make. It was originally fuel injected but when it was switched over, the intake manifold from the old engine which had a carburetor, was substituted), 3 speed automatic transmission, P/S and A/C but does not work.
A couple of months ago I was driving on the highway when the van lurched a little bit and I lost power. Power returned and as I started to pull over to the side of the road, it did it again and the engine stalled. After the first initial loss of power, the oil pressure dropped significantly. Once on the side of the road I could not start it again despite all efforts. I had it towed home and began working on it myself, as I had just put a fair amount of money into switching the engine.
The first thing I did was have a look in the radiator and to my surprise the coolant looked like chocolate milk and there appeared to be a small piece of orange silicone floating at the top. I asked several people at work and they all felt that it was a blown head gasket (which is what I assumed as well). I could eventually get the engine to start again after letting the van sit overnight, however, it would only run for 10 to 30 seconds, and then stall, which reaffirmed the thought that there was coolant leaking into the cylinders.
So far, I have taken the heads off the engine, but both gaskets appear to be fine. Inside of one of the heads I found a ring of orange silicone as well as small pieces (some up to about an inch long) of harder more-gasket-like material. The intake manifold gasket appeared to be alright as well. The only place that I can trace the orange silicone to is my exhaust manifolds. When my mechanic replaced the engine it appears as though they placed silicone on them to seal to the block. However, I fail to understand how any of the silicone could get sucked back into the engine from there.
I was told to get the heads pressure checked, cleaned, and machined if necessary, get some new gaskets, and put everything back together and see if that fixed it. However, I do not want to put all of the work back into getting the engine together again, if I have overlooked another possibly that has caused this. I apologize for the length of this message but the more info the better, right? I would appreciate any help that you could give me in regard to my situation.
Thanks in advance....
TripA. Getting the heads checked and machined is a good idea and should be done anytime the heads are removed. I would also pull the oil pump out and apart to see if any of that orange gunk got inside and clogged it up. There is no way it got sucked into the engine through the exhaust. Since this was a used engine there's no telling what was done to it before you got it. For all we know it was junked because it had engine problems the last owner didn't want to deal with so he just threw it out.
The oil could have gotten into the coolant by a blown head gasket, cracked head or a cracked block. If the heads are pressure tested and are good, and the old head gaskets are still good, then that leaves only one other possibility. Basically process of elimination. The block can be pressure tested as well to confirm this.
If you're a gambling man, you can roll the dice on putting it back together and hope it's okay. At this point, if it were me, I would tear that engine out of there and have it checked out from top to bottom so when I put it back in, I know it's good.
Additional Information provided courtesy of ALLDATA
