Block Possibly Cracked????

[whoy210]

Are any of these 3.0s prone to cracking? I recently bought an 02, It started running hot on me, there was just pure water in the radiator, and what i thought at first was just rust in it, now I believe it was some type of block sealer they were using. I flushed it , changed the thermostat and it seemed okay for a bit, but it was using some coolant and had to refill it a couple of times, then shortly after it started running like crap and then i found I had water in the oil. So I pulled the heads, and one of the gaskets was blown around one of the water jackets, but I still went ahead and took the heads to the machine shop and they checked out okay,but after reassembly, I went to change the oil the first time and again the oil pan was full of water. I can't imagine It blew another gasket, Just wondering how prone these blocks are to cracking.

 

[bigcountry]

if it had just water in it it does sound like they were using a block cement you may have blow another hg do you see where the coolant could be leaking from?

 

[graff104]

The 3.0s aren't prone to cracking, but anything can happen. I would double check for sure to see if you blew another head gasket. How many miles are on the 02? These engines are usually good for 300k sounds like it was overheated quite a bit or had no regular maintenance at all or both....

 

[whoy210]

re

It has 149000 miles on it, and I have no idea where the coolant could be coming from, i'd really hate to have to tear this damn thing down again.. but I guess i really need to see if a gasket blew again.. but what is the possibility of that happening, i got new head bolts, did the 3 step torque down sequence in the manual, and rechecked my torque on all bolts

 

[Beef52751]

i would put pressure to the radiator to pressurize the system and see where the coolant is going.
Beef

 

[whoy210]

pressure to radiator

yea, I see what you're saying Beef, that would give me more insight as to whats going on in there, but I got one question, how would you go about doing that?

 

[chux72vette]

Similar Problem

I have a 1999 RBV with a 3.0 flex and I recently have been going thru the same thing. I got new heads and did all the who ya's and still have water in my oil too. I had a ford mechanic tell me that it might be my lower intake with the problem. Mine didn't run hot, just started acting stupid and drove it home and discovered the nice milky mixture. I am stumped right now on what else it could be too. Let me know if you have gotten anymore info on yours or a fix. Thanx

 

[ForOffRoadDriving]

lower intake gaskets could be the cause, but if you pulled the head already then you should have had to pull the intake and replace those gaskets too right?

 

[whoy210]

....

I know this is old news... but i was just looking through my posts and figured i would give an update,..... It did turn out to be the block, so i got me a 3.0 with 80,000 miles on it out of a taurus for 500 bucks at a local salvage yard . ( which was about 450 dollars cheaper than one that came out of a ranger of the same year) I put the truck head gaskets in it, my intake, oil pan (only because mine has a little notch to clear the front end of the 4wd, otherwise i think the taurus pan wouldve worked fine) exhaust, mounts, accessories, flywheel and all that good stuff, and have been fine for about 10,000 miles now