The most expensive car I've ever owned.

In reply to frenchyd :

Agreed.

The parts have no idea what name is on the outside... as long as they are good parts and well matched.

Kinda like Checker cab...

If there are gouges in the bore, don't try to get them completely out.  As long as the bore is smooth, yes a tiny drop or two of oil will get by the rings but typically not cause a massive cloud of smoke behind the car. Remember on two of the 4 strokes pressure will be forcing oil out.  
 

Does the engine have to come out to drop the oil pan?   

Great news.... blown head gasket!

#8 Blew directly rearward straight to a chamber that is connected to the crankcase.

No scoring on the head...

Damaged gasket.

No scoring on the block... still have to check deck and block to see if they warped.

They say if a nikasil engine made it through the years when sulfur content was higher... its a great thing to have now the sulfur has been lowered. At a 186,000 miles, I'd have to agree. 

No lip. No marks you can feel.... WOW!

frenchyd said:

If there are gouges in the bore, don't try to get them completely out.  As long as the bore is smooth, yes a tiny drop or two of oil will get by the rings but typically not cause a massive cloud of smoke behind the car. Remember on two of the 4 strokes pressure will be forcing oil out.  
 

Does the engine have to come out to drop the oil pan?   

Yes, to drop the "structural sump" (#4 below). The oil pan is just a place to open and access the oil pump pickup.

Oil pan covers this part of the structural sump.

A few other observations....

A cursory inspection of the head and block don't show anything obvious.

The cat was halfblow out, half melted... guess ill never need any new downstream o2 sensors.... lol.

Pretty sure there is supposed to be a seal here....  this the where the water pump mounts. I think I found about 30% of it still in place.

The timing components are all from 2010 ish. According to the paperwork I got with the car, in 2010 it would have had about 126,000 miles on it. So since they are of the imporved design, still look this good after 60k and assuming that they are OEM, Im going to leave well enough alone.

So at this stage it looks like gaskets, hardware, cleaning, and maintenance items like hoses, etc.

Also found that the sway bar bushing was shot from oil leakage, which explains the big clunk sound.

Ill pull the other head and plan to pull the engine and transmission as a set too..... soooooo much has to be cleaned..... soooooo much.

Ill probably put it all back as a unit after all of the little things are done.

In reply to a_florida_man :

Since you work fast can we expect burn out video next week?

Stampie said:

In reply to a_florida_man :

Since you work fast can we expect burn out video next week?

Ha, no. Sooooo much too clean.... lol... I do hope to have it all apart and out soon though.

Since today was good news, it will help keep the pace up!

In reply to a_florida_man :

Very nice.  It's nice to see such careful work going on with disassembly.  

Thanks Frenchy....  I try to listen to what the car is telling me...., but I don't always get it right...lol.

I just took a second look and the chamber to the rear of #8 is a coolant passage.

I did not have any compression to coolant symptoms.

I did have a definite hiss to the crankcase when I pressurized the cylinder.

I'll take a closer look when it is all out and on the stand.

I can leak test the rings with fluid and with compressed air on the stand....

Is it possible that the headgasket leaked INTERNALLY TO THE GASKET?

IE between the layers of the headgasket? It is clearly deformed.

Like Paul Harvey used to say... "Stay tuned for the rest of the story..... "

Anything is possible. I'd say you have quite the smoking gun.

Why pull the motor? Unless the block is warped, couldn't you just reinstall everything after checking the heads?

In reply to jfryjfry :

It was probably easier getting to the heads with it out. Did you pull the motor completely intact? Or did you disassemble the topend first?

The engine is still in the car.

The decision to tear it down in place had a number of reasons.

1. I wanted a faster resolution to the big problem question.

2. If the answer to #1 was catastrophic, then the remainder was most mobile in the car until a project decision could be made.

3. A lot of parts are brittle and the car is complex. A slow methodical disassembly tells me more about the condition in situ.

A further decision to proceed has been made. Although the head gasket issue does not directly or completely explain the pressure test results of loss of compression directly to the crankcase (and the obvious history of excessive blow by), there is no cylinder damage. This will likely mean that I will be pulling one or more pistons. To pull pistons, you must pull the engine.

Those are the logical mechanical minimum reasons to partially tear down the engine and pull the short block / transmission combo.

The real reason is that it is a filthy mess. I mean horrible. English undercoating everywhere....

:)

Elgish undercoating, hehehe. 

I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread, because I definitely also want to make a very poor V12 Jag-related decision someday.  

Can I post FMV assessment requests here, or should it be its own thread somewhere?

Thanks guys

Put it in the challenge thread. But be ready for some people who really think everything should have a recept ( as if receipts aren't easy to fake) 

Pulled the passenger side head off after work.

Rotated the engine several times, wiping the bores down and inspecting them.

They all look and feel really great for 186,000 miles.

Pulled # 8 up to near the top and probed it with a .0030 feeler gauge.

I can confirm that the top compression ring is broken at about the 4 oclock position.

However there is no evidence of damage or pattern on the cylinder wall.

Let's give a cheer for Nikasil !!

So plan now is to pull and refresh the engine.

Im also going to start more detailed parts cost research.

Ill keep this as a Challenge car if I can, but I'm not going to shortcut anything important.

From what I understand so far, a lot of the Lincoln LS 3.9 parts (TTY bolts, etc) will fit at a lower cost but keep the quality above the level of the worst Chineseium.

Did I mention it was dirty in there?

Notes....

Engine serial #

9909230711

Sept 23 1999 7:11 AM

Pistons Grades

3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Build Date

October 1999

VIN

SAJJA42B8YPA01704

Wow.... that is groooossssss

In reply to a_florida_man :

As a small manufacturer they have to batch build the engines. So the smaller pistons go into a batch of blocks with smaller bores.  Etc. 
At this mileage you can fit any piston into those bores.  Hoping  the pistons are reusable I'd buy one set of rings, carefully check end gaps and reassemble. 
   The temptation is to rebuild properly with overbores and new pistons etc.   trouble is you'd get nothing for your effort.  No more power, no more reliability, no greater value.   
 The rest of the car still has the miles it has.   
Assume  it'll get another 100,000 miles, keep filling it with 93 octane.   ( and it should)  and you'll get whatever a nice running,   clean, one will. 
  I suspect whatever broke that ring had to do with detonation from lower octane fuel.  
    

jfryjfry said:

Wow.... that is groooossssss

Its worse in person... lol

In reply to frenchyd :

100% agree.

The refresh in mind is de-glaze, re-ring, inspect bearings / crank and clean, clean, clean clean. Gaskets and hoses as needed. Then some more cleaning...

I think the ring may have been due to overheating (combined with carbon and crud from no t'stat), as the top of the piston does not really show classic detonation signs. Pulling the piston will tell the story. Especially measuring the ring grove clearance and inspecting for debris.

Its entirely possible that the head gasket was compromised at the same time the ring was broken. As luck would have it the broken ring likely kept compression down to the point that there was no real combustion pressure and the head gasket failure did not accelerate. I'll go a little farther out on a limb and say all of that happened when the expansion tank blew and the car was driven to a parking lot.

Hey if we can bench race, we can bench mechanic too right?

Also agree that with good gas, keeping it cool, keeping it running well, and using good oil (back to the clean, clean, clean issue lol) it has a lot of fun and life left.

Also going to check and set valve lash... which will be all new to me with the bucket and shim system...