Ford Escort 1.9 Engine Performance Diagnosis

[WOTStang]

I have a 1996 Escort 1.9L that has had a lot of work done to it (rebuilt engine, new head, timing belt, water pump, radiator, hoses, egr, mass air, fuel pump, spark plugs… etc the list goes on and on. Pretty much rebuilt to stock like performance)

The car has run well for 20,000 miles until yesterday coming home from work. I am an auto tech myself so im pretty much looking to confirm my suspicions before i start diving into it.

Drove it home and got a few blocks from my house and it started running really rough. Definitely a bad misfire / low power condition. I got it to the driveway and it was idling really rough, almost wanting to die. If i gave it gas it responded well to it, but you could still feel the miss badly.

I pulled all the spark plugs and #2 and #3 looked like that were seeing a lot of insufficient combustion. beginning to foul and had a small amount of unburned gas on them. I checked each cylinder for spark and they were confirmed to have good spark. Reinstalled all plugs and ran the car again. It was able to idle at a constant rpm, but was clearly misfiring.

I then pulled power to each injector to check for RPM change and they all responded to a big drop in rpm and a stumble, as they should. I checked each injector for pulse and they passed. Listened to each injector with a screwdriver and they were all opening and closing evenly.

Next step was a compression check.. This is where it ended badly…

Cylinder 1 : 180
Cylinder 2 : 30
Cylinder 3 : 28
Cylinder 4 : 180

So my initial thought was that it could only be a burned/bent valve, or worn rings (but no oil was burning at all.) Than i thought about it for a minute and realized that two cylinders adjacent to each other have low compression and I believe it to be a blown head gasket. Im not getting any coolant in the oil pan, or bubbles in the radiator so it may just be between cylinders.

I then loosened the rocker arms for cylinder 2 and 3 to close the valves, and used the fitting for my compression gauge, taking the valve core out and screwing in the fitting and hooking it to my air compressor to pressurize the cylinder as a sort of poor mans leakdown test. but im not sure this worked as well as a real leakdown test. although cylinders 2 and 3 really were leaking a lot of air when i did this, even with the valves closed.

Sorry for all the info, but i wanted to put all the steps i tried in there so it could be as clear as possible what it could be. I know im going to have to pull the head regardless, which is no big deal… but i wanted to see if all the other techs out there think that it is a blown head gasket with the symptoms i described above.

If you have any other questions about symptoms or things i tried, feel free to post them here.

Topic

[Its me]

Hard to make a definite call on this one…

Can be warped head, bad valves, blown head gasket, cracked block, cracked head (unlikely)

You are correct, either way you have to pull the head (which is not fun)… It all will be revealed very quickly when you pull that head…

As far as repair expense, at this point the best you can hope for is a blown head gasket without warpage…

Good luck..

-Karl

[WOTStang]

Ive pulled the head on this car multiple times (for my self, and for work). I can do it in about 90 minutes now, so thats no problem.

The car originally suffered the common #4 valve seal drop that these engines are plagued with when the original owner had it. he replaced the head and then the piston was damaged from the dropped seat and the connecting rod seperated from the piston 250 miles later, and he was going to scrap the car..

I bought it from him for $200 and put a good junkyard engine in it with a re manufactured head (among a lot of other parts) and it ran very well for 20,000 miles as i said above.

So ill definitely be pulling the head, but i just wanted to get some input on what im seeing. you are correct.. it is hard to make a definite call.

[WOTStang]

Well, I put the plugs back in and retorqued the #2 and #3 rocker arms and took off the radiator cap, kept spark and fuel disabled and took this video…. i’ll let it speak for itself.

http://youtu.be/2QIm9ZgnBhg

I think its safe to say the headgasket is popped between #2 and #3 cylinder and pressurizing the water jackets only.

Any opinions/suggestions?

[Its me]

When the burst of coolant times with the cranks (sorry to see this)…. You already know what is happening…

You know what to do next….. Pull the head… Take some pics if you can…

Good luck and keep us posted on the progress…

-Karl

[Bill]

Yeah, I think your video speaks for itself. Since you need to remove the head you can do a thorough inspection. When valve seats fall out of those things they make lots of noise.(obviously) Since you didn’t mention any noise the head gasket is the most likely fault.

I drove the crap otta a 2.0 Ford Focus with a dropped valve seat for 25 Kl. By the time I got to the shop it ran rough but all the noise was gone. I guess all of the pieces of the seat blew out the tail pipe. Miserable sucker just wouldn’t blow up 🙂

[EricTheCarGuy]

I do the exact same thing for leak down testing, have for years. In fact, the only reason I bought a tester was to use it in the video I made about leak down testing. That said, looks like you know where this is going. Did you rebuild the engine? If so, did you have it checked over by a machine shop. I don’t know if my memory is accurate but I think those engines had head problems. Can’t remember though.

Keep us posted and good luck.

[WOTStang]

I’ll be pulling the head tomorrow to confirm my diagnosis. I’ll post pictures here to keep everyone updated.

I just can’t figure out exactly why it happened. No overheating issues. No predetonation..etc.

Thanks again for reaffirming my detective work. 🙂

[WOTStang]

So I came home from work tonight and ripped into the head job (nothing like working a busy 8 hour day fixing other people’s cars, to come home and do it all over again for yourself!). It took me exactly 90 minutes to get the head off, including TDC and dropping the exhaust.

So here is what I found when i lifted the head…

Exactly as I thought.. burned right between #2 and #3 cylinder. The metal piece of gasket was still hanging there when i pried the gasket up. I checked the head and it is as flat as could be, and there is no evidence of wear or any reason i can think of for it to pop right there. This is a daily driven car that doesn’t even make enough power to get out of it’s own way.. so im really wondering exactly what caused this. Any ideas? Anyone have any experiences with these kind of head gasket failures?

Anyway, tomorrow ill clean it up and put it all back together. New oil, New coolant.. i plan on using the same plugs, just cleaning them up, since it has $12/ea Iridiums in it and making absolutely sure it is shiny clean and torqued perfectly to prevent this from happening again.

Also Eric: It’s good to know that works perfectly for leak-down testing. I didn’t think it had any difference from an actual machine. Also, i’ve been a huge fan of your videos for years and i guess you could say your like a true mentor to me in the automotive world and even my own career. Thanks for doing what you do!

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[Its me]

Burned through in the middle…. Oil and some scuffed up cylinders… Can you post some more pics, preferably some of the head as well…

-Karl

[WOTStang]

Those pictures were taken literally 30 seconds after i lifted the head off. A lot of coolant and oil dumped into the cylinders and i used my streamlight flash light (extremely bright) instead of flash for the picture.

I’ll take a few more pictures for you and clean it up and post them in a couple minutes.

[Its me]

Yeah, I want to see the head… Did you check with straightedge and feeler gauge?

Did you rebuild this engine?

Also, Does this engine use stretch bolts? If so, did someone try to re-use old ones?

-Karl

[WOTStang]

Best pictures i could get in a dark garage.

#2 and #3 Piston

Cylinders

The back of the uncleaned head

Also I know a lot of oil & coolant can mix in the water jackets when you pull the head.. but all cylinders had oil in them except for #4. (You can see this really well in the 2nd picture above.)

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[WOTStang]

I checked it for straightness and no problems there at all.

Spent 30 mins cleaning the head and block and put it all back together.

I have 70 miles on it now and it runs better than before. Seems to have more power than it did the days before it happened. Maybe just my imagination…

Anyway. I’m still at a loss as to why it happened. But I’ll be keeping a close eye on it.

Thanks again for the posts. Still good to share all of this here just in case it helps someone in the future.

[EricTheCarGuy]

With a gasket that new it throws up a red flag. There was either an issue with the install or the head is warped. I know you say you checked it for straightness. I guess time will tell.

Keep us updated if things change.

[Author]

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