> I'm busy planning a car upgrade, involving some complicated transactions.

You need to take the head to a machine shop and have it planed.

wrote:

You need to take the head to a machine shop and have it planed.

It's highly unlikely a blown head gasket is due to warpage.  I'm not going to find the 3m across / 6m along difference.  The current owner is used to gunning the engine in municipal vehicles, so he probably blew the gasket from running it hard.  That reminds me, I've gotta check the head for signs of worn or decayed springs.

  Care are worth more if they come with rubber tires instead of concrete blocks.

ImperialExecutive wrote:

It's highly unlikely a blown head gasket is due to warpage.  I'm not going to find the 3m across / 6m along difference.  The current owner is used to gunning the engine in municipal vehicles, so he probably blew the gasket from running it hard.  That reminds me, I've gotta check the head for signs of worn or decayed springs.

I'm not familiar with windstars, if it's an aluminum head it would be worth the money.  A blown head gasket is usually a symptom of a problem.  It would be worth the money to let a pro look it over(springs, cam(s), warp, etc)

wrote:

I'm not familiar with windstars, if it's an aluminum head it would be worth the money.

I'm fairly sure the head is Al.

{googling}

Hmm, it seems I'm wrong.  Some specs say cast iron block and cast iron head.

As a Machinist with 40+ years experience, my honest opinion is stop doing ANYTHING; it's beyond your capabilities, you'll just be throwing money at a problem that has NO SATISFACTORY SOLUTION.

Heekee wrote:

Windstar

NO ONE CAN REPAIR THEIR OWN VEHICLE!  THOSE CHILTON AND HAYNES MANUALS ARE ONLY FOR SHOW!
     /


Dickdogs.

ImperialExecutive wrote:

I checked.  It's a cast iron head.  That's more resistant to warpage.  So it's likely the head blew from Mr Engine Gunner treating his Windstar like his muni vehicle.

Thanks about the bolts.  I already knew that they aren't designed for more than one use.  In fact, all bolts are like that.  When torgued down to spec and then released, they lose something like 30% of their holding strength or reliability.  When torgued down again and then released, they fall to something like 50%.  Metallurgy is fascinating.

A few things.  The job is a PITA.  The engine is wedged in there.  Try and get a welding sock to put around your arm, the exhaust manifold is in an inconvenient place..

If I recall, they used a variety of 3.0 and 3.8 engines in those things.  Some were very prone to head gasket leaks because of the proximity of the water jackets to the cylinders.. Even if the metal is the same for block/head, make sure its truly flat.  They also make better silicone gaskets for those things that blow less often..  The other issue is the O2 sensor is probably coated with antifreeze, something else I commonly replaced when I had to do a head gasket cause the O2 sensor will produce a false lean, the computer to feed additional fuel, and often fail emissions.

One of the reasons the minivans are so cheap used is that they are major pain to deal with if anything breaks.  They are designed to last the duration of the factory warranty before bad shyt starts happening.  Shyt thats really annoying to fix.  Try changing the spark plugs, trivially simple on most cars, 1/2 of them are really tough to reach on the minivans. (GM/Ford/Chrysler - they're all mounted basically the same)  The solution?  100k spark plugs, long out of warranty before the dealer has to deal with it..

If I really really had to do this job, I'd probably see if I could pull the suspension and drop the entire engine tranny and work on it that way.  Often times the head gasket was just the initial complaint.  Ya get in there and start finding leaking seals and dead water pumps and the extra time to drop the whole thing isn't that big of a deal. 

A 2 post lift comes in VERY handy.

Edit: And that 10 hr # is bullshyt if you've never done one before..

ImperialExecutive wrote:

I checked.  It's a cast iron head.  That's more resistant to warpage.  So it's likely the head blew from Mr Engine Gunner treating his Windstar like his muni vehicle.

Thanks about the bolts.  I already knew that they aren't designed for more than one use.  In fact, all bolts are like that.  When torgued down to spec and then released, they lose something like 30% of their holding strength or reliability.  When torgued down again and then released, they fall to something like 50%.  Metallurgy is fascinating.

Warpage  comes from the fact the engine probably overheated after the gasket blew.  The head would expand into the area where the leakage occured.
In addition a machinist will gauge it on a fixture with a plane bar.

Wilsons_Face wrote:

Warpage  comes from the fact the engine probably overheated after the gasket blew.  The head would expand into the area where the leakage occured.
In addition a machinist will gauge it on a fixture with a plane bar.

I always thought you was a hen.  Not that a hen can't be a mechanic.

And check the transaxle - one of my friends had one of those and it also blew the head gasket - he fixed it, put the engine back and about 3000 miles later the clutch mechanism in the axle broke, so he had to pull it all out again...