Head gaskets or something else?

I am working on pulling the heads off a 2000 3.0 Flex fuel motor I installed in my 1998 Ranger. My brother has driven it for the past few years and he installed a new water pump and started to have issues with it overheating, it reportedly overheated multiple times on him but he allowed it to cool down then would keep driving. He was getting a miss fire reported in cylinder 2, I did a compression test and that cylinder struggled to produce 60 PSI while other cylinders averaged around 120-150 PSI, glove test on the radiator did have some bounce to it.

I have removed the driver side head so far, just have to take out the bolts to remove the passenger side, kids got hungry and had to stop. I have never done head gaskets before so I am not 100% sure what I am looking for when examining for a blown gasket, nothing real obvious is suggesting that its blown out. I do have a significant amount of oil in the lower and upper intake, also there has been a large amount of oil that is on the engine block below the heads, looks like it all originated from the head gasket.

My question is where should I go from here? I plan to take the heads to a machine shop to have them cleaned and tested and obviously install new head gaskets. Could this problem be related to a valve malfunctioning or could it be something with the cylinders such as the rings? Coolent passages appeared to be clear, not clean but not clogged either.

Any advice would be great, want to make sure I am not missing anything obvious.

I will upload better pictures later when I don't have a toddler screaming in my ear.

Thanks guys,

Philip

#2 is passenger side of course so you won't know about blown gasket until you get that side off.

3.0l is not known for cracked heads but yes they do need to be tested and surfaced.

Feel the metal gasket ring around #2 head gasket, you should feel a slight change where it was leaking.
A head gasket break is not always obvious.

#5 has some rust spread out very close to cylinder, that could be a break as well.


Clean off the block with metal putty knife/scraper, try not to gouge the surface.
Rotate crank to clean the tops of each piston, wire brush and scrapper.
You can check the block after cleaning by using a light/flashlight and a metal straight edge.
Put light behind straight edge then slide straight edge toward you and look for light shinning under straight edge, that would be a gap or low spot on block.

Machine shop will clean the heads, and pressure test, which will tell if valves are all OK.
In a head gasket kit you will get 12 new Valve Guide seals, take those to machine shop and they will install them for you.

3.0l uses TTY head bolts which means they can not be used again, they stretch when tightened down all the way, this gives better holding power, but it also means they won't unstretch when loosened, so if you use them again they may hold OK, but could break at anytime.
Best to use new.

Clean each head bolt hole before putting head on, dip head bolt in oil and thread it in all the way then pull it back out and clean it off to do the next hole.
This will remove any debris in the hole which may throw off the torque wrench readings as you tighten down the head.

head gaskets do have a top/bottom front/back, and they are labelled

If you mean there is oil under the intake manifold in the "valley" then that is suppose to be there, the cam shaft is under there and alot of oil mist fills that area when engine is running.

Ron,

As always, you're a huge resource, thanks!!

If there are any gaps along the block then I am assuming that a complete rebuild will be in order?

Thanks for the help, plan to get the heads into a machine shop today.

They need to be pretty big gaps/warps in the block surface to matter.
You use a Feeler gauge to determine the gap size.

head gaskets main purpose, and why the bolt torque is so high, is to seal in the cylinders 1,000+ psi pressure when a cylinder fires.
Coolant passages have at most 16psi of pressure, oil passages 0psi to 50psi, generally these never leak on their own.
Breach in metal head gasket ring is what causes near by gasket failure for coolant or oil passages, the hot gases and high pressure from cylinder firing push gasket material away from head or block forming a breach to coolant or oil passage, coolant usually since cylinder is surrounded by coolant passages not oil passages.

Good to know. The heads I pulled are F6DE-GA, the motor is a 2000 flex fuel, any ideas as to why it has these heads? Should I order a head gasket set for the older pre- July '99 year? If the heads are cracked should I go back with this model head? Would this have the longer or shorter head bolts? I plan to never run E85. Sorry for the questions, this has me really confused.

Thanks!