Need some advice
 

I recently purchased a 1997 V-6 Mustang for my son. The car was purchased with a known head gasket issue.

Right now, cash is too tight to fix this car "right". It has 199k miles, and I found a lot of sludge in the engine when I tore it down to change the head gaskets.

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I spent the day today scraping and shop vac'ing the sludge out of the lifter valley, and scrubbed it down with a toothbrush and diesel fuel. I am actually pretty happy with the results, and I am positive that nothing more than a speck made it into the cam area.

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Here is my delima:

I know this engine needs rebuilt. The mileage alone is enough to justify it, and finding the sludge just tells me that is has not been well maintained. My issue right now is time and money...I don't have enough of either.

I have the head gaskets (Fel-Pro, MLS set). I was able to get these for nothing (Amazon Rewards Points), so even though it is a $150 gasket set, I am not "really" out the cash.

I had intended to send the heads to a machine shop to be surfaced and cleaned, and checked for cracks. I have $200 to spend on getting this car back together, and I have to get it back on the road in 3 weeks before my son starts school.

My question is this: Should I just check and surface the heads as best as I can myself, and save the $200?

I am concerned that the engine has a limited amount of life left in it anyway, and that I should be able to get maybe 10k miles out of it, regardless. So I may as well save the cash, and prepare for a new engine in the future. If I could get the car to last just until fall, I would love to do a proper, split port swap.

So what are my chances of getting ANY results without having the heads surfaced? And is there anything I could do to have better chances...like copper-coat the gasket?

I have built several engines, but I am by no means a "mechanic". I have never "half-assed" a rebuild. I have always had everything properly machined, and rebuilt with new parts.

I personally would never recommend reinstalling heads without having them milled. It's just plain asking for it.

$200 is a bit on the high side for aluminum heads, I would shop around for pricing and most important quality of work.

There is a basic at home test you can do to test the flattness of the heads but it's by no means perfect. Bascially take a known straight edge and place it on ever possible angle on the heads. Then take an extremely thin peice of metal or a piece of paper and poke all over. If at any point the metal or paper goes through, or you can see clear light shinning under the straight edge (when you press down on the head) then it's warped and needs to be milled.

Don't think, oh it's just a little light, or well the paper barely went through, there is litterally ZERO tollerance here.

I'd have the heads done, but not for $200. Shop around alittle more. That seems pretty steep.

yeah, i had my heads milled and checked for 80.00

if you dont do it right this time, it will just cost you more a lot sooner then later.

How much oil is leaking out of the rear main seal? (you'd see it coming out at the front of transmission housing?) If you have a leak there, you'd be looking at a total rebuild soon. Its possible that the previous owner was religious in his oil changes, but perhaps not. The sludge thing isn't a good sign.

Is the goal to get the kid off to school and then have his car require $1000's worth of repairs five months from now when its 5 Degrees outside, or to take an extra week getting the whole thing to "nicely reliable" status, worthy of at least 60,000 more troublefree miles (less alternator, water pump, accessories issues...)

199K is a lot of miles. I'd sure consider a DIY rebuild (plus machine shop to hone bore, check head and check crankshaft bearing surfaces) new rings, new bearings all new seals. How much are short blocks, anyway?

Pay now or pay more later, your call. Will the kid be close enough to be able to walk to class from where ever he is living? If so, not a problem. If not, hmmm...

Best price I have found so far has been $75 per head. I have called every machine shop in the book, asked several local shops who they use, ect.

And sadly, the $75 a side quote is from a shop that I have been warned about. It is all but "guaranteed" your heads will be cracked or warped, but they will just "happen" to have a set for your car ready to go.....for a couple hundred extra dollars.

My goal is to get him back on the road before school, bank the cash we have now, and save up for a newer engine. I would like to swap to a later model, lower mileage engine...and the extra HP would just be a bonus.

Not too worried about the weather, as I have a pretty nice, heated shop to work in.

My hopes are, that through a combination of careful checking, and blocking the heads...along with coating the head gaskets, that I can get through to next spring or summer. No more than he drives, if I can get 10k miles, that would be great...even 5k would be good.

If I find the heads are warped in any way, I'll bite the bullet and get them milled. But if they pass the flat edge test, my only concern is with not having the proper finish on them. PermaTorque gaskets and MOPAR gasket coating should make up for surface imperfections.

Actually, the seals look pretty dang good. The underside of the car is quite clean, all things considered.

My biggest worry, honestly, is how gunked up the pan, and thus the oil pump is. With as nasty as the lifter valley and heads were, I have to assume the pan is full of crap too. Been very tempted just to yank the motor, and check...but at this point...I don't want to know.

Anyhow...just for an update, I have started cleaning the heads up. So far, just soaking and scrubbing with diesel fuel. Going to start pulling the springs and replacing the valve seals, and seating the valves tomorrow.

How smooth do the bores look? Is there a lot of wear? My initial thought was if you've got lots of dirt in the oil, that would translate to lots of bearing wear, which will propagate to you as oil leaks out of the front or rear main seal. If no leak, thats good news.

Good luck with it. Note do you really want lots of horsepower in the hands of anyone (male) under the age of 28? You may want to re-think that. Been there done that, and frankly its never pretty.

No offense intended. Good luck.
zip.

On a 2000, is there an oil pan gasket or just silicone ?

How can you fix a oil pan seal area without dropping a lot of framework ???
thanks

Got 1 head pretty close to finished today. New valve seals installed, and lapped the valves with a fine compound.

So far, everything has looked better than expected in the heads. Very little carbon or sludge buildup on the valves or in the chambers.

I spent at least 4 hours blocking the head surface. Started out with a 320 grit until all signs of the previous gasket were gone, then have made several passes with 400 grit, 600, and finished with 800. (all wet sanding, using clean oil). Head surface is like glass now, with just a fine haze from the 800.

Going to blast the hell out of it with brake cleaner one last time, blow out everything with air, then get it reassembled.

Sounds like it's coming along well for you.