Head Gasket or ?

[RogerRabid]

Just got this truck a week ago 94 Ranger 2.3 litre engine. Never seems to heat up on the guage. The heater gets nice and warm though. Checked coolant level, down about 2-3 litres, topped up both rad and reervoir and ran it in driveway. Exhaust ran clear until engine got warm and then plenty of white smoke out exhaust and bubbles in coolant. Head gasket maybe?? Oil is normal colour, no coolant in oil, no oil residue in coolant.
Will be starting to tear it down later this week, but need to know if there is anything I should look out for? any advice for teardown or things to look for would be appreciated.

 

[anchoredinchrist]

Sounds like head gasket to me. You can get a test kit at many auto parts stores. We use one for big trucks. Basically it's a tube that fits in the radiator neck and you have fluid in there. If there is combustion gas present it will change color.

Sent from my KYOCERA-E6790 using Tapatalk

 

[RonD]

Better test for head gasket or cracked head and FREE is the Glove Test, I have posted it here many times

Can also ID which cylinder or cylinders are leaking with the Glove Test, and never a false positive, which is common with the chemical test

 

[RogerRabid]

Finally got the head off this morning, cannot see anything obvious, other then the number four cylinder piston has a bit of carbon/ oil build up on it. Because the oil feed being just behind it, I feel that is where the oil is coming from. None of the pistons or exhaust valves are steamed cleaned by the coolant, so not sure where to go from here. I will start cleaning it up tomorrow, if I was looking for cracks, where is the most likely spots in the head. I will try to post a couple of pictures, hopefully they will turn up.

 

[adsm08]

Just get the head fluxed and pressure tested. A lot of cracks can be too small to see with the naked eye.

 

[RonD]

+1

Take head to machine shop for cleaning and pressure test, then surfacing if its OK
If you get a head gasket set it will come with new valve guide seals, drop them off with the head, shop will often install them free or small charge

 

[tomw]

Quote:"Because the oil feed being just behind it, I feel that is where the oil is coming from."

The oil would leak out at the head:block interface if the head gasket was bad. From the peekshures I don't see that. You will always have a dribble of oil that stays inside the 'cross head' passage, from the block, across to a cylinder head bolt where it can flow around the bolt up the the cam bearing and lifter/support gallery.
More likely, the cam cover gasket was leaking. If it was a bit loose, lots of oil will leak out. If you want to know why, remove the cam cover and start the engine. You will rust-proof your engine bay within a few seconds. There's a hurricane of oil flying around inside the cam cover when the engine is running. The gasket has to re-direct that oil, or keep it from seeping, and it is sometimes more than a cork gasket or rubber-cork gasket can retain. I have a full rubber gasket ready to install, but it's cold outside...
I would take a look at the valve stem seals and the valve guides for #4 cylinder. Also pay attention to how tight the valves are in the guides. If there's too much clearance, the seal may not handle the oil, and will feed it into the cylinder, causing oily deposit, fouled spark plug(s), and misfire. You might have noticed a puff of blue smoke when taking off from a stoplight. At idle, intake vacuum is high, and oil would tend to be pulled into the guide by vacuum, and then when you accelerate, it plopped into the cylinder and burned. Blue smoke is the result. More oil can accumulate with high vacuum making the smoke, which is occurring all the time, more readily visible.
I don't think a machine shop would disassemble a Lima head at no cost. From my experience doing one, you need to wear gloves due to the rough machined corners, and need a pry tool to depress the springs so the cam followers can be pried out. Repeat 7 more times, with a bit of angling each time to figure out where/how to pry. Then you get to pull the cam, and finally the valve keepers/springs, etc. Finally down to the stems and the ability to wiggle the valve to see if it is worn or has a worn guide.
The Lima will last a long time with minimal maintenance, so you might find the bottom end is fine.
tom

Add: What does the inside of the #4 exhaust manifold look like? How does it compare with the others? The oil on the piston could be from the cross head flow rather than rings or valve guides. If the port compares well, looks about the same as the others, likely you don't have a problem there.
Most times, a head will crack when it has been overheated. Do you know if that happened? What was the reason for disassembly? Did you do a compression test prior?

 

[RogerRabid]

When I first got the truck, it was low on coolant, but did not overheat on a 20 kilometer drive home. There were bubbles in the rad after I topped it up with coolant. Interestingly enough there was antifreeze in the system at -30 C. I warmed it up and burped the system. Coolant overflowed and small, not huge bubbles formed under the rad cap area. There was also a lot of white smoke from the tailpipe, but only after the engine had warmed up. From this I felt that I either had a head gasket leak, or a cracked head in the exhaust side of the head.

I did not noticed any blue smoke from the exhaust although the tailpipe was very sooty. It was only after removing the head that the burnt oil on the piston in the #4 cylinder became apparent. The rest of the pistons have a little carbon build up on them, however the number 4 piston was clearly the one with burnt oil on it. Oddly enough the exhaust valve stem and combustion area in the head were not.

The engine interior, at least the valve train and the head are really clean, with absolutely no sludge or grunge build up, there is literally no ridge at the top of the cylinders, no scoring of the cylinder walls. The engine ran absolutely perfect. The only thing wrong is the air conditioning does not work ( big hole in condenser and compressor seized). I will remove the air conditioning components under the hood.

In the next few days I will dismantle the head and check for cracks with a kit that a neighbour has that puts a penetrate on the metal and then shows up as a crack if there is one.

 

[tomw]

I would have suggested a compression test before removing the head. White plumes are generally condensation, and are a normal byproduct of combustion. They will be much more visible in colder weather. By them self they do not indicate a leak in the cooling system or a blown head gasket.
Good luck finding any cracks. Maybe post a picture of the gizmo you will use to test as others might be interested and want to try to make their own.
If you take the head apart to fiddle with the valves, keep the cam followers in order as best you can. They wear into the lobes a bit, and will be happier when put back from whence they came.
tom

 

[RogerRabid]

Head was disassembled, and cleaned. I then used a MagnaFlux kit and checked for cracks. There does not seem to be any. Starting reassembly tomorrow.