The lower intake manifold gasket failed on my F-150 and the front engine cover gasket also failed allowing coolant into the cyclinders and oil. Now my engine needs to be rebuilt.

Seem that people have rebuilt engine and immediately had the same problem reoccur. Does anyone know if Ford has a fixed this problem with the new gasket sets or should I consider a new engine rather than rebuilting this one?

I found the following info:

Ford recall but only good until 2001.



The manifold gasket failure allow coolant to enter into the engine cylinders. If this happens while the engine is running, the coolant, even though it is non-combustible, will simply leave as steam through the exhaust with With the blown intake gasket as long as the engine is running, the coolant entering the combustion chamber poses no real threat to the engine. The real danger comes when the engine is shut down and the cooling system remains under pressure. This pressure will push the coolant into the intake port and if a valve leading into the combustion chamber is open, this coolant will then fill the chamber with non-combustible coolant. The coolant will not compress. Something will give if that engine turns over. The piston rod will either break or bend and the engine will need to be rebuilt.

It's important to understand the danger of the intake manifold gasket leak. It is a very familiar scenerio with this engine that everything will seem fine when you shut the engine down, but upon restarting in the morning, the engine will be hard to turn over and when it does fire, it begins knocking very loudly. What has happened is that the intake manifold gasket failed and leaked coolant into the cylinder through the night. Starting the engine broke a piston rod.




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TSB #99-20-7 was issued to inform dealerships that on certain engines, coolant may be leaking into the engine oil through a failed engine front cover gasket and/or a lower intake manifold side gasket.

Although the engine front cover gasket failure may only




As you can see in the photo above, the lower intake manifold gasket separates coolant and air intake ports by mere millimeters. When this gasket fails, it may allow coolant to flow into an intake port, where it will eventually reach the engine's combustion chamber.

The

Attempting to start an engine that has a cylinder filled with coolant can have catosrophic consequences. The coolant will not compress in the combustion chamber like a fuel air mixture would. When the crank shaft turns to push the piston upwards on the compression stroke, the Any owner with an engine build date listed on TSB #99-20-7 must fight any urge to start that engine if it does not immediatley turn over or if something just doesn't feel right. Determining if a cylinder is full of coolant before attempting

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Go to http://www.leakingfords.com/index.html for more infomation. </PRE>

Also visit http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/pr...in/results.cfm and view ENGINE AND ENGINE COOLING:ENGINE complaints. </PRE>

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wow

We here in the 4.2L forum all know well of the 1997 and some 98 models for this..butyeah

 

Hey jjgsix. What year is your F 150? How many miles when the dreaded gasket leak got it? Automatic or standard? I have read so much about this I am curious about what possible kinds of driving or kind of use may help cause this to happen more on some than on others. There may not be any correlation at all, but I wonder if things like a lot of heavy towing, high speed, a lot of low speed driving, etc may relate to this problem. Probably not. It happens to some and not others.

Does anybody out there have any clue as to what percentage of 97's and 98's this has happened to?? I am at 112,000 miles on mine and ok so far. Knock wood. I keep a close eye on the exhaust for any unusual amount of water vapor. That is one of the first clues it's going down as I understand.

 

Hello homer4.2,

Yup, I' a newbie to the site and I am looking for some advise from the experts that have gone though these issues on my F-150. My engine runs really good other than the rod knock but I afraid to rebuild if this problem is going to re-occur? Would you advise me to rebuild or get another engine? Will a model year 2000 fit in my 1997 or will I have to do modifications? Please Help!

Jeff

 

dumpsterdan

My F 150 is a 1997. It has 90,000 mile on it. Standard transmission.

jjgsix

 

Umm im not sure, i have an 01 so i dont have to worry or havent had that problem occur. If I was you I would fit the 2000 model engine in your truck... or any 4.2L just make sure it's not 97 or 98. That probably didnt answer you question completely but just keep bringing them on!!

 

jjgsix,
From all I have seen and read, replacement of the inferior gaskets with new style gaskets is a "permanent" fix. I put that in quotes only because nothing is perfect. But, I do not think the new style gaskets fail ANYWHERE near the frequency of the old ones.
The problem was with the gasket material. New style gaskets are a different material and are not prone to premature failure like the original ones.
I'm at 143,000 miles on my 2000. So far, so good!

 

brian how do you put that many miles on ur truck???

 

I drive it a lot.

 

Brian A,

But the 2000 model year did not have any problems! Isn't there anyone out there that had his or her 1997 F-150 manifold and front cover gasket replaced with success? Or that was disappointed with the repairs?

Regards,

jjgsix

 

Yes, there have been many engines that have had the gaskets replaced prior to failure. From what I know, the new gaskets do not fail.
Maybe I'm missing the question ???

 

Brian A,

Thank you! But you said you have a model year 2000 and they did not have this problem. Did Ford just change the gaskets in the 4.2L model year 1999-200X or did they change other things?

jjgsix

 

I believe that they changed the gaskets. I'm not positive on that, but it makes you think that they would have since they had a recall on the 97 and 98 gaskets, they obviously would have had to replace just the gaskets in those and leave everything else in the engine alone.

 

Gaskets only. The changed occured mid-stream for the '98 year run.