Compression Issue

jscraiderfan said:

the coolant is a nasty rusty brown and looks like it's never been changed so that might have played a role.. I haven't changed that yet because I figured I would do that when I dealt with the compression issue. I know my heater core is probably plugged because my heater is pathetic, defroster still clears the windows though.

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Ok so this was the first sign of a couple pending issues for me and my truck.

That nasty brown coolant? I had it too, I flushed that sonuva*%$#@ within an inch of it's life twice within six months trying to chase it out. Several mechanics told me "it's probably just rust from the block, no worries, it's an old truck"

Welp, turned out that it was my water pump. The fins on these bad boys will literally rust away to nothing essentially turning your 'pump' into a water 'saw'. I would strongly recommend taking a look at the water pump, make sure it's not rusting and getting ready to give out on you. Also the rust caused my sending unit to go bad, so after watching your video I have a feeling it might be similar.

As to cylinder heads/valve seats I solved my problem with both of them when I changed my head gasket recently. I bought a pair of reman'd cylinder heads off ebay from a company called "DoverCylinderHeads".

For $450 flat (free shipping) I received two reman'd heads that had hardened valve seats as well as a set of head bolts and a full gasket kit. Considering that the gaskets and bolts alone cost ~$100 and you need them anyway, it was a good price. All told it matched or beat the quotes I was getting for similar work on reconditioning my old heads.

Loss of compression: Look to the heads my friend, could be deeper but start simpler. Be sure to get that coolant issue straightened out first though.

jscraiderfan said:

I might just try that, beats trying to change the dang thing out, I've never changed a heater core on a Ranger (or any truck for that matter) but I hear they're a nightmare of a job on most vehicles.

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Yes, on some year Rangers and some other vehicles you need to pull out the dash to swap out heater core.
But on my 1994 Ranger it is very simple, 4 screws and 20min to swap

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

Ok so this was the first sign of a couple pending issues for me and my truck.

That nasty brown coolant? I had it too, I flushed that sonuva*%$#@ within an inch of it's life twice within six months trying to chase it out. Several mechanics told me "it's probably just rust from the block, no worries, it's an old truck"

Welp, turned out that it was my water pump. The fins on these bad boys will literally rust away to nothing essentially turning your 'pump' into a water 'saw'. I would strongly recommend taking a look at the water pump, make sure it's not rusting and getting ready to give out on you. Also the rust caused my sending unit to go bad, so after watching your video I have a feeling it might be similar.

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I've been suspecting the water pump impeller so this makes sense, past experience has taught me thats usually pretty rusted when the coolant looks like a lahar lol. Also i've heard about these 3.0 blocks having rust issues and needing some kind of rust flush remover when changing coolant.. My Saturn (all aluminum engine) started doing that awhile back when I pulled the water pump out the impeller was so rusted it was practically breaking apart, I figure I may end up just changing the pump when I have everything apart anyway I know they aren't that expensive was already planning on a new thermostat anyway and past experience has also taught me that changing the thermostat can often send a water pump out as well (has happened to me about 80% of the time).

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

As to cylinder heads/valve seats I solved my problem with both of them when I changed my head gasket recently. I bought a pair of reman'd cylinder heads off ebay from a company called "DoverCylinderHeads".

For $450 flat (free shipping) I received two reman'd heads that had hardened valve seats as well as a set of head bolts and a full gasket kit. Considering that the gaskets and bolts alone cost ~$100 and you need them anyway, it was a good price. All told it matched or beat the quotes I was getting for similar work on reconditioning my old heads.

Loss of compression: Look to the heads my friend, could be deeper but start simpler. Be sure to get that coolant issue straightened out first though.

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I will look into that, everybody is telling me I should do both heads though i've kinda been on the fence about it because the compression on all 3 cylinders on the passenger side is good no problems there. If I can get a deal like that and take care of both heads then I might do that at least I should hopefully never have to worry about having to tear the engine apart again, Unless of course I want to lol.

RonD said:

Yes, on some year Rangers and some other vehicles you need to pull out the dash to swap out heater core.
But on my 1994 Ranger it is very simple, 4 screws and 20min to swap

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Ah yes the pre airbag era at least for trucks.. Mine being an 03 knowing my luck i'd have to yank the whole dash out Yeah i think i'll try flushing it lol.

If you do one cylinder head definitely do both.

There are a number of reasons for it ranging from:

Convenience
(you're there anyway)

to Prevention
(yeah one failed but the other one may or may not have suffered warping from overheating as well and give out the next time temperature hits 100F outside)

to Reliability
(so you upgraded one side but not the other? Now you've got uneven compression and something will go sideways sooner than later)

Also if you want to be proactive get heads with upgraded valve seats and head that problem off at the pass if you plan on hanging on to the truck for a while.

I did a quick search and didn't see any of your year's cylinder heads in stock for DoverCylinderHeads but there were some available from other sellers. I'd still maybe give them a shout and ask if they have any that just haven't made it to posting or if they deal in having you send yours in to be reman'd properly. Can't speak from experience on other sellers but I was pleased by my experience with DCH.

I've never heard of changing the thermostat causing a water pump to go out, honestly so long as it's installed correctly and you run the correct fluid at the correct mixture through then it should keep on ticking for a while. Most water pumps fail due to owner neglect or misuse of the cooling system, something I have learned myself from past mistakes perpetrated by my younger dumber self..

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

If you do one cylinder head definitely do both.

There are a number of reasons for it ranging from:

Convenience
(you're there anyway)

to Prevention
(yeah one failed but the other one may or may not have suffered warping from overheating as well and give out the next time temperature hits 100F outside)

to Reliability
(so you upgraded one side but not the other? Now you've got uneven compression and something will go sideways sooner than later)

Also if you want to be proactive get heads with upgraded valve seats and head that problem off at the pass if you plan on hanging on to the truck for a while.

I did a quick search and didn't see any of your year's cylinder heads in stock for DoverCylinderHeads but there were some available from other sellers. I'd still maybe give them a shout and ask if they have any that just haven't made it to posting or if they deal in having you send yours in to be reman'd properly. Can't speak from experience on other sellers but I was pleased by my experience with DCH.

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I dunno about convenience lol it just means more work. But yeah I do understand the logic here and it makes sense. I also looked at DoverCylinderHeads and didn't see anything for that year but thats why I asked initially if other year heads would work just in case I ran into this situation. I did find these though while looking around eBay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cylinder-Head-Ford-Taurus-Ranger-3-0L-F6-OHV-98-06-PAIR/222881751817?epid=1223136389&hash=item33e4c9a309:g:RS8AAOSwXrdaCl2s&vxp=mtr

Says it'll fit my truck not sure if the seats are upgraded or not though, and i'm not sure if they're FLEX heads or not I emailed the seller to ask. Free Shipping is a nice plus

Nearly ready to get started with this, i'm searching and ordering parts now as well as watching various YouTube videos on the subject and of course searching this site over

Almost got this down but my two (well technically three) major points of concern are..

Removing the AC/PS Bracket some say I can slide it forward, but looking behind the Compressor the AC Line is wrapped around the Fuel Line (see pic).
I was hoping to get away with not having to disconnect the fuel line as i'll be working in my garage and wanna keep the fuel odor down if possible I understand that means i'll have to remove the injectors from the intake manifold and replace their o rings but i figure that would be easier then dealing with open fuel lines.


And my other big concern is the head bolts that are outside the valve cover some look pretty rusted and I'm hoping they don't break when I go to take them off. (also have a pic of that). I have an electric impact I can hit em with but if they are on there too tight (and they do look like they have never been removed) I'll have to whip out the breaker bar which is where the breakage concern comes into play.

And of course theres the exhaust manifolds still debating on which route to go with them, I could leave them on the heads and and take them off with the heads out of the truck (might be easier) or try and take them off while they're still on the engine. If I do the first route I'll have to fuss with the Y Pipe but the reason i'm thinking that route is I've already got one broken stud/bolt on the passenger side and that probably means more will break.

Didn't get a pic of the broken exhaust stud/bolt as its hard to get my phone camera down in there and actually take a descent pic but i'm sure most of you have seen those and know what i'm getting at.

Hit the rusted fasteners with PBBlaster every day for a few days before a wrench touches them.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

The Verdict

Got the drivers side Cylinder Head off today (those YouTube videos make it look so easy when it was anything but... ). 2 Exhaust manifold fastners broke but I was kinda expecting that.. Def an exhaust valve problem on Cylinder 6. What concerns me though is Cylinders 4 and 5 don't look any better and infact they all failed the water test tho Cylinder 6 it was pouring out of the exhaust ports so apparently it is the only one bad enough to cause a misfire but the others aren't far behind. 4 and 5 didn't leak AS bad but there still was some leakage. All intake valves appear fine, no water came out of the intake ports so they're sealing at least. On the up side it did not blow a head gasket and I think the bottom end is ok none of the pistons appear clean like they've been steam cleaned all have the usual carbon buildup. Tomorrow the passenger head comes off, i'm curious to see how well the exhaust valves on it are holding up, we shall see.. I'm honestly surprised 4 isn't misfiring or leaking even worse then 6 as it looks like its recessed into the valve seat even further..

Guess now its decision time.. Take the heads to a machine shop and get em reworked or buy reman heads off ebay or Amazon or wherever.

Yeah I was on pins and needles the first time I took the heads off. All those stories out there about scuffing them had me terrified.

For me the passenger side was absolutely perfect and of course it was the first one I took off. I was already gearing up to be mad as hell that I had misdiagnosed my issue and done all that work for nothing, but then I took the driver's side head off. Made me feel much smarter when I saw standing coolant in two of the cylinders.

It's a hard call but for me it was made easier by the reputation of the guys I got my reman'd CH from and the fact that they were only slightly more expensive than getting my old one's machined.

I'm sure either way you go will be fine, keep us posted I'm following along with interest.

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

Yeah I was on pins and needles the first time I took the heads off. All those stories out there about scuffing them had me terrified.

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lol tell me about it the last time I did any work with an engine this major was on a Mid 80's VW Jetta and in that case I was removing the engine itself and putting in another one with 2 other people working with me..

As for scuffing i'm legit concerned about that as of this posting I haven't even started on cleaning up the block deck yet, I bought 600 Grit sandpaper to use with my block sander (if you wanna call it that it looks like one you'd use for body work but a bit shorter), was affraid of going overboard and messing up the surface causing the new gasket(s) to fail but now that i'm in there i realize theres alot and I do mean alot of leftover gasket material on the block surface almost looks like the gasket is still on even though I took if off. Looks to be an OEM Gasket too far cry from the FelPro PermaTorque ones I have replacing them. Beginning to think I need tougher sandpaper or something else (roloc discs? been hearing mixed reviews about them). I'm of course not worried about the heads, machine shop can take care of them if I don't end up replacing them.

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

For me the passenger side was absolutely perfect and of course it was the first one I took off. I was already gearing up to be mad as hell that I had misdiagnosed my issue and done all that work for nothing, but then I took the driver's side head off. Made me feel much smarter when I saw standing coolant in two of the cylinders.

It's a hard call but for me it was made easier by the reputation of the guys I got my reman'd CH from and the fact that they were only slightly more expensive than getting my old one's machined.

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Were your pistons clean, like they'd been steamed? I had coolant in 2 cylinders too but that was likely from when I removed the head cause I heard a bunch spill out the back as the head released from the block. My pistons are def not clean they need a bath lol. As for which direction i'm gonna go I really wanna do reman heads and get all new everything in there so hopefully I can get at least 100,000 trouble free miles out of this truck (already has just over 140,000 on the clock). Kinda worried if I just get the heads reworked they may not last as long.

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

I'm sure either way you go will be fine, keep us posted I'm following along with interest.

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Will do, i'll post some more pics when I get the other head off

Passenger head came off without much difficulty, only real issue with it was a stupid wiring harness clip on the back, not a whole lot of room to get my cat claw in there. Didn't break any fasteners on the passenger side Exhaust manifold so theres that (gotta love PB Blaster). I still need one though for the very back (that was already broken) and of course the two on the drivers side that I broke yesterday. Damn rust. Now I know how those guys in the rust belt feel lol.

So thats the good, now for the bad the passenger head valves look ok but they leak too all of the exhaust valves failed the water test though not like Cylinder 6 on the other head, and even the Intake Valve on Cylinder 3 is leaking so def glad I went ahead and pulled both heads instead of just the drivers side like I was initially planning. As you can see from the pics the cylinders in the block look good (save for the carboned up pistons) and yes the gaskets are both off although as bad as that surface looks you wouldn't know it lol. Slowly but surely its coming along cleaned out the head bolt holes a bit, don't have an air compressor but that canned air duster stuff that you would use to clean a computer has been my best friend here.. I may need to run a thread chaser in them (tried using a dab of oil on one of the old head bolts and I do feel some binding in there), I've heard of some folks making thread chasers with some of the old head bolts.

Also does anyone know what the heck that white sensor like thing in the back left by the Cam Synchronizer is? Its not in the transmission like I first thought its near the very edge of the block.

Yeah I had a wiring harness on my driver side that was a real surprise when I first went to move the CH and almost missed the nearly invisible grounding line.

I should have bought stock in rust buster before I did mine, 20 years of gunk and garbage. I took the time to clean everything up while I was down there and it made a huge difference afterwards, if there's any leaking I'll be able to actually spot it now. I didn't have too much trouble with the fasteners for my exhaust manifolds but getting them back on proved a bit challenging as they kind of flexed where they met the y-pipe and did not want to go back to seat properly against the new heads. It's pretty common for those to break but I was able to find direct fit replacements at my local ACE hardware, when I put them back in I coated them pretty good with some white lithium grease to help protect them a little better.

Canned air and a shop vac were my best of friends, I bought a case of the stuff and bought a good quality vac with attachments I jury-rigged to fit in specific channels.

The carbon deposits on the cylinders really aren't as terrible as most people make them out to be, yeah the engine is better without them but after cleaning mine I didn't see too much improvement vs the work it took to clean them up. I'd recommend cleaning them but not going overboard. Definitely chase those threads and use paper towels and a shop vac to clear them out, even a little bit of oil or gunk can change torque values by causing binding. I dipped a rolled up paper towel down each bolt hole and saw if any oil or coolant was present and then did it multiple times until it came up clean and plastic wire brushes afterwards (like you'd use for gun cleaning). I cover a lot of this in my HG walkthrough in the tech submissions section, it's not gonna be a 1:1 fit for your engine but the general processes are going to be the same.


Decking the block: was probably the second scariest part of this for me. I saw so many contradictory opinions on how to do it right and what you should "never do" that it was straight up confusing. What I settled on was Acetone & gasoline applied liberally with a plastic razor blade to chase down every single gasket fragment and then used a straight edge and slip gauge to assess flatness. In my case the block was pretty true from the get go so I didn't have to do much, before you go attacking it definitely check it first. Some folks swear by roloc, others by high grit sand paper and others will say "0000 steel wool only" but at the end of the day there's the same two concerns: debris & gouging. When you deck the block still in the engine, the debris you make making it flat will get everywhere, I blocked up all of my cylinders, bolt holes, & channels with oil soaked rags and vacuumed several times after I was finished (a mechanic friend of mine showed me his Barbasol that he keeps in his shop to block those channels, who knew right?).

Key takeaways if you deck the block: Never use steel on, it you will gouge it; Manage that debris, nothing worse than getting it put back together perfectly only to find that some debris is now floating around in your engine.

I did an oil change immediately after swapping my CH and then again after 500 miles. This was to hopefully filter out any debris that might have been lingering in the oil. This was probably the best advice I got through the whole thing.

On the upside if you get reman'd heads then you won't have to worry about the valves

The focus is definitely on symmetry: flat surfaces, clear bolt holes, torque symmetry

Took both heads over to the machine shop today and needless to say I wasn't there long, the guy took one look at the exhaust valves and knew they were all bad. They did test it for leaks using two magnets and some fine metal powder like stuff. never seen anything like that done before. Basically all the exhaust valve seats are bad and they did confirm what I discovered about the Intake Valve on Cylinder 3 having a leak as well.

Here are my options.. I got an estimate of $405 to have both heads reworked, this includes the $126 charge to basically thoroughly test the heads and make sure there are no cracks. Or... Buy reman heads from eBay for $310.62 for a pair. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Cylinder-Head-Ford-Taurus-Ranger-3-0L-F6-OHV-98-06-PAIR/273157431386?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649
I know with the remans i'm good to go if I go the machine shop route it's around $95 more IF the heads are good if not I'd be spending the $310.62 on top of the $126... Junk Yard is another route but no guarantees..

As for prepping the block..

So far cleaning the engine block surface has been the most time consuming and most challenging part of this whole endeavor, been using a razor blade and the 600 grit sandpaper wiping off constantly with brake cleaner on a rag. I had contemplated buying Roloc bristle discs, some people swear by em others say they'll cause damage to the engine so idk what to make of that (dude at the machine shop was adament about not using those).. I did notice a small amount of pitting near a few of the coolant passages like maybe the coolant got acidic and ate the metal in that area, theres also a matching indentation in the OEM gasket that came off, they aren't deep. The camera makes it look worse then it is the metal around it is smooth.

Tough call on the heads, from an outsider's standpoint it seems like reman'd heads would be the preferred route, bonus points if they come with hardened valve seats (you'd have to contact the supplier to confirm directly). But either reman'd or reworking your current ones seem like better options than junkyard without seriously looking into the salvage.

I'm hesitant to comment on prepping the block due to my own work hasn't given me much hands on experience doing it myself and there are a lot of contradictory methods floating around. I know that those low spots can potentially cause a lower quality seal with the gasket, but the Fel-Pros are supposed to be rather forgiving compared to the OEM versions. You're spot on with the coolant causing that pitting, it's what happens when exhaust gases reach the coolant, turns it acidic and since it's hot it just wreaks havoc on the metal.

So two options before you: Trust the Fel-Pros to seal those low spots or deck the block.

If you go with decking the block then all I can say is have a powerful shop vac handy and manage the debris as much as possible. Stop up those bolt holes, channels, and cylinders some how.

From what I've seen Roloc discs can be amazing and fast... but it depends on the operator. You spend too long in one spot or sneeze at the wrong time and you've just caused yourself a lot of trouble.

For myself I'd opt the traditional hand route: Using a truly flat surface like glass or granite to back your sandpaper/grinding material and make sure it can cover the entire surface at once. Then use suction cups to hold onto the flat backing and then with even pressure go over the surface one stroke at a time. I've seen several instances of people using layout dye to make sure they're hitting everything evenly.

Slip gauge and machined straight edge to assess any low spots.

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

Tough call on the heads, from an outsider's standpoint it seems like reman'd heads would be the preferred route, bonus points if they come with hardened valve seats (you'd have to contact the supplier to confirm directly). But either reman'd or reworking your current ones seem like better options than junkyard without seriously looking into the salvage.

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At this point i'm thinking remans just for the cost factor alone, any other route means a trip to the machine shop.. The JY route is tempting but my luck all the heads out there for that year range 3.0 would probably be in as bad or worse shape then mine (might even be why some trucks or Tauruses out there got junked in the first place).

ForTheLoveOfMonkeys said:

I'm hesitant to comment on prepping the block due to my own work hasn't given me much hands on experience doing it myself and there are a lot of contradictory methods floating around. I know that those low spots can potentially cause a lower quality seal with the gasket, but the Fel-Pros are supposed to be rather forgiving compared to the OEM versions. You're spot on with the coolant causing that pitting, it's what happens when exhaust gases reach the coolant, turns it acidic and since it's hot it just wreaks havoc on the metal.

So two options before you: Trust the Fel-Pros to seal those low spots or deck the block.

If you go with decking the block then all I can say is have a powerful shop vac handy and manage the debris as much as possible. Stop up those bolt holes, channels, and cylinders some how.

From what I've seen Roloc discs can be amazing and fast... but it depends on the operator. You spend too long in one spot or sneeze at the wrong time and you've just caused yourself a lot of trouble.

For myself I'd opt the traditional hand route: Using a truly flat surface like glass or granite to back your sandpaper/grinding material and make sure it can cover the entire surface at once. Then use suction cups to hold onto the flat backing and then with even pressure go over the surface one stroke at a time. I've seen several instances of people using layout dye to make sure they're hitting everything evenly.

Slip gauge and machined straight edge to assess any low spots.

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I've heard mixed opinions on decking the block, some say it causes compression issues cause you're lowering the deck height and too much you gotta start using gasket shims I have heard about the FelPro gaskets being somewhat forgiving but even still i'm concerned about it not holding up more then maybe 50K miles, from what I can tell from closer examination of the OEM Gasket it was on the road to failing.. Fortunatley the fire ring areas on the block all look good so theres that..
Curious Question though.. What about using small amounts of JB Weld in the pitted areas to fill em in, and just using a razor blade and fine sand paper to make it flush with the rest of the block deck? I've read some places and seen a few YouTube videos saying that could help. I've had success with JB Weld in the past plugging a radiator hole more then 10 years ago thats still holding up to this date in our 85 E150, obviously this would be drastically different.

Also one other note... I've noticed that 1 out of the 16 head bolt holes is deeper then the others, the one closest to the water pump on the passenger side of the block.. Does this hole go into a cooling passage in the block or something? I mean obviously with the heads on it shouldn't matter the bolts should all be same and all i'm just curious. I filled 15 of them with brake cleaner to clean em out each one took a couple seconds.. Spraying into that one however seemed like an eternity and never filled. (not worried about the coolant as i'm flushing that anyway)..