Hi guys today I got a new drive belt fitted to me Ford EF at Ultratune today has the old one had lot of cracks on it, and I ask them to check the lifter/rattle noise I still have with it (tried lifter free/tappet noise additives to no go), and when I got back to pay them the mechanic dude said that the cylinder head is badly leaking and it would cost $1500 max to fix!

Now I have no white milky oil, temp is normal, oil pressure is half way to up to the 7 mark from time to time (no red light) idles ok put with a tiny hiccup and I was wondering if you guys know what it could might be?, the engine does have a misfiring like problem and when I put full throttle get a clunk noisebut it feels more like the transmission needs a service to but they didn't say anything about that.

if anyone could give me some info on this would very much be appreciated.

oze-ford.

hey all took it to another mech and this one said to replace all spark plugs and leads.

Did Ultratune say what brought them to that conclusion?

Sounds very dodgy, just as well you found another mechanic. I hate those franchise type workshops

no they didnt, the head does have a milk like stain on it but the previous seller did say its a recon head from a au if I remember correctly,

will let you know if the new set of spark plugs and leads will do on Thursday and if it stops this backfiring on full throttle etc.

oze-ford

new leads and plug sounds dodgey for what youve described. makes you wonder if anyone even knows what there talking about these days.

I think you will find that the Plug & Leads is in reference to the misfire, not the lifter rattle of the shift clunk.

yeah the mechanic did say to come back after I get a new spark plugs and ignition leads and he will look at it for me,

and he said about the spark plug and leads after taking it for a drive etc

what about the coilpacks? will they cause misfire of will they just pack it in and stop working completly?

The Coil Pack can cause misfire but better to check Plugs and Leads first.

Head leak.

My first and second EF motors had head leaks. First one I got "fixed" by a mechanic who charged around $2000 (I had the head planed and some other minor work done to the head) and the car died within a thousand KM as he did something wrong to the oil galleries. Maybe blocked a oil feed when putting head back on. Maybe something else. Not happy, and it was the end of that car.

Bought a new car (Futura AUT August 1994 edition, which is EF for all intents and purposes). Drove car down motorway, ended in cloud of smoke.

Got $1000 off my purchase price of $2000. Drove it with leaking head for 100,000km before it was starting to cost me so much in oil and was sick of having to remember to fill up the twenty litre container of water every weekend!

In other words, car still had okay power, ran great... But on long runs you had to be very careful to let car cool before stopping.

I didn't have milky water either (probably as it was all leaking into the cylinders and being thrown out the exhaust, along with a decent percentage of oil.....) But there was DEFINITELY a leaky head. When I pulled the engine to put a new one in I spent more than a few hours going over the old donk and seeing what was going on.

Believe it or not there was hardly noticable rusting and corrosion to a couple of cylinders and only a little dodgy looking oil burn and sludge in places where there shouldn't have been. Quite impressive actually. If you remember to check oil and water and remember to drive the heater on full blast and the windows down for twenty minutes prior to turning the car off you will get hundreds of thousands of kilomtres of happy motoring out of your blown head gasketted EF.

Not a great idea to drive it forever mind you, but if you get another motor for a few hundred dollars and play with it at home for a month or two you learn a hell of a lot. And then you pull the old engine out, and put your home made one in (at an all up cost of about $666 AUD I built an EF XR6 from an EL XR6 donor and did mild head work, new gaskets, higher compression... Etc etc etc)...

Anyway, possibility is there. For well under a grand I got a really nice powerful engine to replace the EF original with. And doing it yourself is so good for the sole you know. Read ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE...


COIL PACKS AND LEADS ETC
Coil packs on the EF are hidden under the great hunk of alloy called a Broad band manifold (BBM). They are problematic to get to and check. However, the leads from the engine and the leads to the spark plug and be removed if you're under the car (a hoist or pit is really the way to go here) and you can then put in another coil pack. No worries. I've sold three or four coil packs for around $50, so keep your eyes open here.

Leads are worth checking, or replacing if intermittent, for sure. Symptoms of lead fail can be confusing. A good starting point is to have the car running and pull out the lead to number one cylinder. Check it is sparking by putting a screwdriver or something up it and holding it close to block (or earth) and seeing a spark. Then put it back and doing the same to the remaining five cylinders. Be careful here. Although I've not died from getting hit by this sort of electricity it is not that nice, and can result in some involuntary movements that could cause damage if you happened (for instance) to stick your hand into the serpentine belt.......)

You could even have someone there reving the car a little to simulate the situations where you think this "misfire" is an issue.

I have had a few weird ones like this. One misfiring thing was that cylinders two and five would give up under load. After going through all the processes I eventually found that the plastic clip that holds the loom from the computer to the coil pack had broken a lug. This meant that the plug was not sitting fully in position and would result in intermittent cut out of proper firing. This problem was fixed using cheap cable ties (and resulted in probably five or sixes electrocutions along the way.....)

Another weird one was oddly that cylinder five was not firing correctly. This had me beat entirely. Tried pulling leads and putting another coil pack into the car (it was parked on axle stands in a drive way in the middle of nowhere at the time, so coil pack was actually just sitting there, flapping around in engine bay....) This didn't fix the problem, so though I might need to earth the whole lot. Still no go. Posted the problems on this site, and the main consensus was my head was blown, which I didn't want to hear as I was due at grandads funeral 600km away in less than 12 hours. Later that day after many thought and tribulation I installed a 4DCD computer from my old Fairmont (which the mechanic kindly wrote off for me, see above) rather than the old one... Problem solved. Fired up without any of the usual "takes ages to fire up, just like it would if it had no compression due to a severely leaking head" rigmarole. Awesome. An odd fix, but nonetheless it was fixed. Entirely. Never had an issue with that again. Put the old computer back in when testing a new J3 computer tuning chip a year later and found the car ran on five cylinders again. There you have it.
Click here for Fordmods engine computers list

If you still have the original EF air intake installed, pull out a 10mm socket and remove the bits where you can't see the leads go underneath and have a good look for signs of wear and tear.

Anyway, if you're financial enough to just replace leads and plugs then I guess ignore that... And just get leads and plugs replaced. Then go plant hoof and see if misfire symptom is still there.

Easy I guess!

OIL PRESSURE
Methinks you have a high series cluster with an oil pressure gauge... Fairmont, LTD, Fairlane style car then... These gauges run off a sensor bolted into the block on the passenger side of cylinder three - four. Keep your eye on it and see if it moves up or down a lot... I've replaced a few (for other second hand ones) and found that they can read two or three places different from eachother. IE - Just by swapping that bit oil pressure went from "way too high" to "normal". But oil pressure in current engine is actually "too high". This could be due to having extra shims in lifters (for a re-ground cam) or possibly other things like the oil pressure driven cam chain tensioner isn't quite right. Anyway, if I hold engine at 6,000 rpm for thirty seconds the oil guage goes up and I have a sneaky suspicion that the top end is not getting enough oil at high rev's. This does result in a bit of clanky type noise for a few seconds (ooops, can hear the "real" mechanics laughing their a*** off already.......)

Anyway, first time I ever built a motor, and it's still going strong as hell after 100,000klicks. Happy enough with that. Especially as it's more powerful than XR6 and gets a good kicking from my lead right boot quite often.



My advice in general....

Don't pay anyone to do anything to the engine or anything in the engine bay. Keep your eyes out for a cheapish XR6 EF or EL engine (or XH longreach ute used EL XR6)... Better still, keep your eyes out for a wrecked XR6 so you can get computer, leads, plugs, coil packs and everything. Admittedly second hand, but will give you enough to work with. Everything on my car is second (or third, or fourth....) hand.

If you have available space, get a "new" motor and start pulling it apart. Give everything a clean, a bit of a tickle here or there and just make sure to keep oil and water in your "old" engine until such time as your new engine is ready for transplant.

I know all this sounds terribly complicated and over the top. But it's actually not that bad. You can get a cheap engine stand from s**t for little cost and bolt engine to it... This makes it very easy to work on, you can spin it upside down or whatever you need. You can wheel the engine away to the back of the house and throw a tarp over it at night etc etc etc. Well worth the investment. And well worth the effort - There is not many things sweeter than rebuilding an engine and hearing it run in your car for the first time. Especially if you did every single nut and bolt yourself... Just tinker away at it, and keep the oil and water flowing into your car in the meantime!


Then again, as has been proven on this site many times over, my advice is worthless and therefore, quite frankly, should be ignored.

Still, you could end up with a really nice powerful engine and learn heaps along the way, for half the cost of those people who sound like idiots at your "AutoTune" or whatever the hell it was called, would have charged you to simply pull the head off, throw in a crappy $40 head gasket and bolt it up again.........

s**t. Just read the message fourth from top and it says "seller from E-BAY did say it was a recond head from an AU or something...." s**t on it. Greeeeeeeeeeat.


And a milky stain? Dude--- Take some photos of this "milky stain". Not the stain on ya younger brothers undies after his big night out the other weekend.... The engine..... Put up some photos of the engine bay, the stains... You can upload to a message here by clicking
Add Attachment
at the bottom of the text input box when you post a message.

We would like to see the head, whatever we can of the block and maybe even you could video the engine running so the more mechanically minded amongst us could diagnose firing difficulties with ears.

If head has been replaced then guess someone may not have done bolts up properly / tight enough on install.

You could keep eyes out for XR6 engine or XR6 head. Same thing as last message. Work on head (get it shaved which will take some meat off the main mating surfaces to make head flat again and will raise compression ever so slightly.)

If it is an AU head, the people installing it should have probably used an AU head gasket (which is thinner than EF/EL style so would increase compression on your original EF set up.... MAYBE... This would be true if installing EF/EL head with AU gasket, but maybe the AU head had bigger cylinder void...... MAYBE).... If they used an EF / EL head gasket that would have MAYBE reduced compression and also may have meant they MAYBE did not do up bolts enough resulting in leaks over time.


Although there is good things about AU heads, conical valve springs and arguably a better looking rocker cover being most obvious, the EF XR6 head would probably out perform it for flow.

The better combination would have been AU block and bottom end and EF head in my humble opinion. The AU block and bottom end is different enough from EF / EL that you need to either chop and weld part of the EF steel frame under the engine, or chop and weld the alloy sump on the AU engine.

Ford did actually put a lot of newer AU heads onto the last of the EL series cars, so is quite common in some respects.


Anyway matey - There are some numbers on the front of the head that we going to be interested in. Something like 94AB or 95AB would be appropriate if it was a EF / EL Monty head. If it's AU 96DT or WR2Axxxxx sounds like the story. I think the T stands for TickFord, so mine is (94DT I think I remember....).... Whatever... Take a photo of the bits with the leaks and either photo or write down the numbers off the front of the head (about five inches from top of engine at very front)

hey guys here's a video of the engine running,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQ4yAqf ... ata_player

pics to come....

Last edited by DOHCED on Sun Oct 02, 2011 9:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Great video, Marked as private.

sorry all fixed now try the link again

Looks like EF rocker cover and head anyway... You just missed the markings on the head (underneath the serpentine belt...)

Ah well, hope someone comes up with something. This computer has no sound.