Head crack or only seal?

[blubbersprudel]

Hi

I have a Ranger 2,9i from '87. I had a broken Radiator and now i always have pressure and a lot of air in the cooling system, which normally indicates a broken head seal.
But i read in the tech library, that the american 2,9i easily gets a cracked head

My question is: is there any possibility to distingush th two problems without taking the heads of, and does anybody know, were the head cracks?

Thans for the help.

 

[Big Jim M]

Nope!

Hi

I have a Ranger 2,9i from '87. I had a broken Radiator and now i always have pressure and a lot of air in the cooling system, which normally indicates a broken head seal.
But i read in the tech library, that the american 2,9i easily gets a cracked head

My question is: is there any possibility to distingush th two problems without taking the heads of, and does anybody know, were the head cracks?

Thans for the help.

Ya gotta take the head off to see why it has a leak.

The reason the heads crack is because the OWNER has failed to see a small coolant leak and the coolant has got too low.. This causes air to be in the head instead of coolant and the head OVERHEATS..
This in turn either burns a headgasket or cracks the head..
Your heads are as good as ANY other heads as long as they have coolant in them.
Big JIm

 

[blubbersprudel]

Ya gotta take the head off to see why it has a leak.

The reason the heads crack is because the OWNER has failed to see a small coolant leak and the coolant has got too low..
Big JIm

Nope, not a small, but a very big hole in the radiator. The water just leaked out faster than i could refill it. Lookt as if my car had to take a leak And scince towing would have been probably more expensive than repairing, i just tried my luck, and drove home (~150 miles) refilling now and then, ... and lost

Thanks for the reply, Andi

 

[Big Jim M]

Now ya know!

As we go thru life we tend to learn a little now and again... I hope you learned a little something in this event.
Obama hisself couldn't have convinced me to drive that ride 150 miles with the radiator pissing coolant out.
Big JIm

 

[fourwheelford]

I second jim on that one You may find a tow is easier to pay for than all the time and money spent fixing or replacing what you break while driving it like that

On a side note I think big jim loves these head gasket posts

 

[blubbersprudel]

Well, generally u are right, but back then i didn't know jet, that the engin was suszeptaple for headcracks , and scince i have mor time than mony and replacing the head gasked myself would be an intresting challange, i took my choice..... and moreover it was night and i was pissed about having problems with the car again. And as everybody knows, posponing problems for later always seems preferable

 

[Big Jim M]

Wow! Bubber did you ride one of them short busses to school? We speak ENGLISH here! There are only a few rules about spelling.. you seem to have broken them all.
As for the heads... ALL heads will crack and go to hell when they run out of coolant! Had you been driving a Mercedes you would have cratered it too! Ford heads aren't any different from any other make of heads.. ALL will go south when they run out of coolant.
Big JIm

 

[AllanD]

Hi

I have a Ranger 2,9i from '87. I had a broken Radiator and now i always have pressure and a lot of air in the cooling system, which normally indicates a broken head seal.
But i read in the tech library, that the american 2,9i easily gets a cracked head

My question is: is there any possibility to distingush th two problems without taking the heads of, and does anybody know, were the head cracks?

Thans for the help.

while 2.9's are prone to cracking heads I will quibble about your saying "american" the 2.9 is produced in it's entirety in Cologne, GERMANY

So blame the Germans for any problems with it

Now that being said your finding a blown gasket inside that engine
is such a small chance that frankly I would noit even bother disassembling the engine to look.

I'd either go looking for a Running engine from a Salvage yard, a Running Donor vehicle with a blown Automatic trans OR I'd start thinking real hard about if you like your vehicle enough to go to the effort to swap a 4.0 into it.

Do remember though that finding a "good" used 2.9 has been getting progressively more difficult for several years, mostly because the last
factory installed 2.9 engine was bolted to it's factory motor mounts
in a 1992 Ranger 4x4 just over 18years ago...



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