Cylinder Head Help

Jonnysig · 06-30-2009, 09:24 PM

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Wife has an 02 Ford Escape that has had me busy for months. I am in the Service and unfortunatly do not have the money or time to keep up with it. #2 spark plug keeps blowing out on us. First occurance was 3 weeks ago during our base move from FLA to Cali. I checked the threads and they werent horrible so I put in a new spark plug and ignition coil and got back on the road to our new base. 2 weeks go by and it blows out again...same one! called many friends and many shops and decided to change out the helicoil in the head. Applied high temp locktite to the new helicoil and even bought a torque wrench for the spark plug so i knew for sure i was doing everything right. She held and ran great for 4 days and today (my 1st official start of duty at my new assignment) she blew out again on my way to work. I am a victim of the horrible housing market skam and own a home in florida and was forced to move to cali...cant sell the house cuz i will take an unmetionable loss and havent even found renters yet. so im paying that and rent in an apt in cali. Well needless to say i will not have the money to get the head removed and taken to a machine shop to properly install new threads. Luckily i got it to the shop on base who is going to give me an estimate which im sure will have a comma in it. The shop allows us to do our own work and fix it ourselves which im leaning towards. Heres the kicker..... I am new to automobile mechanics and new to fixing cars. I am an airplane mechanic in the Air Force and i am more than comfortable in my mechanical skills but just lack the knowledge. Although my nose is burried in the hanes manual...you can read it all day but if you dont have the knowledge youre going no where fast. I may not even know where all the other parts being removed are. I can read and have great mechanical skills....Is this enough to get the job done????? Im extremely worried about the estimate and if its too much i will be considering tackling it myself. Can I do it??? Can a very experienced jet mechanic but inexperienced car mechanic handle removing and installing the head???? I hope someone can help or at least boost my confidence in this matter. Thanks... take care everybody!

John

theoldwizard · 07-01-2009, 06:19 AM

Already answered in Engine forum

JFUSION21 · 07-01-2009, 07:24 AM

removing and reinstalling a head is not difficult it just takes time. I've done it on many vehicles and I am probably less mechanically inclined than you, in fact I know so. Best advice I can give you is to place each part that you remove in Glad zip loc bags, if you take off 6 cylinder head bolts keep them all together in one bag, same thing for manifold bolts, etc..... . Keep things organized and clean. Learn the proper bolt removal and reinstallation procedure for main bolts such as head bolts and mainfold bolts, there is always a particular routine for removing and reinstalling such things. It is tedious to get all of the ancillary parts removed before you get to the head, but the head itself is relatively easy. If you can get a real Ford shop manual for the vehicle that would help best as they tend to have more diagrams and descriptoins, but the Haynes should suffice too. Good luck , and follow all of the proper torque specs when reinstalling parts and bolts. Torquing down the head to proper spec and keeping the mating surfaces clean will ensure long term reliability.

As for plugs in the future, try to remove and install them when the engine is cold, always use anti-sieze on the threads, and always torque them to spec, this should help reduce the chance of future thread damage on the head. I believe the factory puts them in dry and this can cause issues when the plugs are left in place for long periods of time, I never leave the same plug in place for 100,000 miles like the factory recommends, I think that is asking for trouble.

12Ounce · 07-02-2009, 02:24 PM

The Duratec engine goes back a few years now. The first, that I was aware of, was in the '97 Ford Contour. You see one of them, you've seen them all. You might be better served to also read the Haynes for the Contour.

Aluminum heads and block. Chain driven cams.
Front engine cover does not have coolant in it. ... because water pump is on the engine rear.
The cams run bare (no bushings) in the solid cast heads. There is a definite cam cap removal/installation sequence that must be followed ... or the head will be wasted.
Front cover, chains, cams ... must be removed before access is had to all head bolts.

I have rebuilt an Duratec engine for a Mazda MPV. I have helped, overnet, a person do a head job on his MPV ... I think he felt more challenged than you might.

You may want to read accounts:
MPVClub.com :: View topic - gonna need some help on this!!!!