94' 3.0 Valve Lifters Major Failure, ADVICE NEEDED

[94' Ranger]

Last week I started working on my 94' 3.0 Ranger, I wanted to replace everything included in the head gasket set and replace anything along the way that wanted replacing. I brought my heads to a reputable machine shop (had one small crack on intake) and a few days later my heads were back on. This was my first head gasket job, however I did have an experienced mechanic working with me.

I used a torque wrench and carefully tightened my heads to these specs in this order:
1st: 59ft/lb
2: Loosen all bolts one turn
3: 35ft/lb
4: 66ft/lb

All rocker arm bolts were tightened to 8ft/lb, then to 24ft/lb. I needed to rotate the crankshaft in order to tighten the rocker arms as per instructed. I never touched my lifters or loosened any lifter guides.


Well, I started her in the garage around midnight after about a week of working on the truck, and the idle sounded amazing once I perfected the timing. I added coolant as needed for about 10 minutes, then left her to idle in the garage for about 30 minutes. I checked the oil in the dipstick, looked clean and clear.
At that point I decided it was safe to take her for a very gentle test drive. I drove about 10 minutes to the nearest car wash and noticed nothing strange at this point. As I left the car wash I noticed the truck was running a bit hotter than usual, about halfway on the temp gauge. On my way back home the engine began to run worse and worse and the temp gauge was up to about 3/4ths. I coasted as much as possible on the way home because at this point I heard weird noises and the engine began to run badly. I pulled back into my driveway and my truck idled like hell till it gradually stalled out.

The next morning I checked the dipstick to find a creamy milkshake in my oil pan...

I pulled my heads and lower intake back off again, got my heads checked for compression and warpage, thankfully those were undamaged. All head bolts took the same amount of torque to break them free, none were notably loose. I also noted that the head gasket for cylinders 123 left about half of the gasket on my block upon removal while the head gasket for cylinder 456 only left about 10% of its material stuck to the block. Besides that there were no obvious failure points or major differences between the left and right head gaskets.

Upon pulling my lower intake I found that my lifter guides (aka tappet guides) on cylinders 456 were all broken.

I pulled the keeper plate to find that the lifters on 456 were severely damaged. The lifters on cylinders 123 were barely damaged, possibly from the metal debris flying off the lifters from cylinders 456.

Below is a picture of my lifters from cylinders 456.

Now finally, some good news.
I was able to find a 1994 3.0 Ford Aerostar at a local junkyard and after a couple hours of work, I was able to pull all of the rockers, pushrods, lifters, and guides out and bought them all for 63$. Soaked them in gasoline overnight.

So now it's time to put it all back together (after I pull the oil pan AGAIN to remove the debris) but I do not know what to do differently because I don't know what caused my problem in the first place.

From the last few days of research and asking mechanics, I'm beginning to be convinced that what caused this failure is a case of hydro lock due to either head gasket failure or lower intake gasket failure on cylinders 456. Coolant gets sucked into cylinders, water doesn't like to compress, and so either my engine must stop or a mechanical failure must occur.
However, I refuse to reassemble my engine again the same way I did before and expect a different result, even though I meticulously followed all directions and torque specs (I work as a service writer at an auto shop, I was able to print out detailed cylinder head removal instructions for my vehicle).

Can anyone here think of a single other possibility that could cause the damage I am seeing? Remember, it idled perfectly in my garage for over 30 minutes without sucking up coolant or mixing the oil with coolant. It has damage that is almost entirely isolated to one head and the problem did not occur until after it was driven.

I am NOT trying to go for take #3 on this job, if anyone has any advice or an idea about what might have caused my issue and how to prevent it from happening again, I'd really appreciate it.
It is imperative that I don't spend another week and more money on new gaskets and head bolts.

Please advise, cheers.

 

[55trucker]

Did you closely look at the condition of the cam lobes of those 2 severely affected lifters?

 

[94' Ranger]

Yes, I should have mentioned that.

With a head torch on I spun the crankshaft and inspected the cam lobes for a good 15 minutes.
My camshaft looks like its still in good shape. The worst and only damage I could find is one very small straight gouge in one lobe, less than 1mm deep. Also, I should note that my crankshaft still spins perfectly and all pistons are moving as they should. There is no point in its rotation where the crankshaft meets more or less resistance, it moves in a very consistent motion like it always has.

 

[RonD]

Must have been BELLOWING white smoke out the tail pipe when it happened, couldn't miss it, if it was coolant in a cylinder issue

I can't see hydro-lock causing that in all 3 cylinders on one bank, and valves open when there is plenty of room in a cylinder, hydro-lock usually doesn't effect valves, but doesn't allow piston to go to the top, so engine stops dead in its tracks and bends a connecting rod or breaks the piston
If there was enough water/coolant in a cylinder to stop a valve from opening and breaking the lifter that would be it, that one cylinder would stop the engine in its rotation, thats ALOT of water/coolant, and the valve is now stuck closed without lifter so water/coolant can't get out

Did 4, 5, 6 all have coolant in the cylinders?
Use a straight edge and make sure all the pistons come up to the top of block with the same gap, compare with 1 2 3 side, so no bent connecting rods

Lower intake manifold has coolant flowing thru it, if its gasket fails then coolant can go into the valley and oil pan
And it could "wash" the lifters of oil causing overheating and failure
Although I have never heard or even read about that type of failure of the lifters, the leak yes, but not that type of failure
Check lower intake for cracks as well, on the under side

The overheating of the engine was from loss of coolant so I don't see that as a symptom just a result

The poor running was when parts started to break but I can see no obvious cause for it
But without the BELLOW of white smoke I don't think it was a head gasket issue, unless there is obvious signs of coolant in the cylinders or exhaust manifold on that bank of the engine

So I am perplexed

 

[alwaysFlOoReD]

I'm not familiar with this engine, or actually any v-6. It looks like the lifter guides breaking is the root cause. How does this happen?

 

[dvdswan]

I'm not familiar with this engine, or actually any v-6. It looks like the lifter guides breaking is the root cause. How does this happen?

Just a SWAG, since the guide's purpose is to maintain a certain orientation of the lifter, (several ideas went through my thoughts) either the guides got brittle from age, low oil on them and got hot and stuck to lifter, or high revs and didn't get enough oil and stuck to the lifter.

I'm leaning more to the first two.

 

[55trucker]

Yes, I should have mentioned that.


My camshaft looks like its still in good shape. The worst and only damage I could find is one very small straight gouge in one lobe, less than 1mm deep.

 

[55trucker]

When you say *straight* is that rotational?, as in the gouge follows the circumference of the lobe as it rotates? If I had any sort of concern for the gouge in the lobe it would be whether or not the gouge being near 35 thou deep will/can cause the hardened surface to start flaking off

 

[pjtoledo]

be sure to put a shaft/tool down the sync hole and run the oil pump until oil flows out onto all the rocker arms
you can do that when the intake is still off

 

[94' Ranger]

Must have been BELLOWING white smoke out the tail pipe when it happened, couldn't miss it, if it was coolant in a cylinder issue
.......
Did 4, 5, 6 all have coolant in the cylinders?
Use a straight edge and make sure all the pistons come up to the top of block with the same gap, compare with 1 2 3 side, so no bent connecting rods

I did not notice any unusual amount of smoke out the tailpipe when I was driving, though it was late at night. I know for certain when I pulled into my driveway before she idled to a stall it was not smoking out the tailpipe, I would have noticed.

When I pulled my 456 head off there was still coolant in the head and I believe that leaked into cylinder 4 when It was pried from the block/gasket. There was about 1-3 TBS in cylinder 4 when I pulled the head, the others were clean.

Last night I was able to verify that my pistons all come up to the exact same position, just about level with the block.

 

[94' Ranger]

When you say *straight* is that rotational?, as in the gouge follows the circumference of the lobe as it rotates? If I had any sort of concern for the gouge in the lobe it would be whether or not the gouge being near 35 thou deep will/can cause the hardened surface to start flaking off

I watched every lobe on my camshaft for 1-2 full rotations and I now know the totality of the damage the camshaft sustained. There were two lobes that sustained minor damage on their sides/edges as shown below.

It does not appear that the rollers on the lifters would ever make contact with the edges of the lobes on my camshaft. Is this damage negligible or am I looking at a new camshaft?

 

[Uncle Gump]

How high did you Rev it?

Looks like the valve springs on that side couldn't keep up.

 

[Dirt Squirt]

Roller contact area looks sketchy to me. I have build a few 5.0 engines that have same lifter, dogbone, and spider set-up and would not reuse a cam that looked like that. Since you have to get new lifters, I would recommend a new cam as well. Not required for roller lifters, just to be safe. Broken dogbone retainers look like maybe they were not locking in flush on flats on sides of lifters. Just a thought, not a sermon.

 

[55trucker]

I watched every lobe on my camshaft for 1-2 full rotations and I now know the totality of the damage the camshaft sustained. There were two lobes that sustained minor damage on their sides/edges as shown below.

View attachment 75091View attachment 75092

It does not appear that the rollers on the lifters would ever make contact with the edges of the lobes on my camshaft. Is this damage negligible or am I looking at a new camshaft?

Yeah, that what I was referring to..small flakes of material separating from the lobe, they have to go somewhere & that usually is the pan & then sucked up into the pump & then on to the filter where one can hope that's as far as they go (but don't bet on it). also seeing some corrosion/pitting in there as well. Has this engine been sitting unused for some time? Seeing as you're in Cali I would not have suspected moisture corrosion.

 

[94' Ranger]

How high did you Rev it?

Looks like the valve springs on that side couldn't keep up.

I was careful to drive it gently during that entire test drive, I don't have an RPM gauge but I would guess I never revved it over 4000rmps.