Just an update.

I manged to get the oil dipstick bracket off the stud by:
1) Slipping a 1/2 box wrench behind the bracket to tighten up the nut. So less stud was sticking through the bracket.
2) Bending the bracket a bit while simultaneously loosening the nut at the bottom of the dipstick.

Total pain in the butt, but I got it apart!

 

Wow, great thread! Kudos to the OP for a great write up!!

My truck only leaks a tiny bit right now, to the tune of a few drops per week landing in the driveway. I don't know for sure that this is the source of my leak, but it is looking like a possibility. I have a grimy, oily mess down the rear drivers side of the engine, so I need to get it cleaned up and see if I can better see the source of my leak. Is there another common leak point on these engines that would make a mess on this part of the engine?

 

The mess you have sounds a lot like mine. I'm almost positive it's your lifter galley cover gasket (also called a pushrod cover gasket). It could also be the valve cover gasket. It could have leaked enough that the crud built up and nearly sealed the leak, that's why you aren't seeing a significant loss of oil.

 

Good to know! Thank you for your thoughts on this. I guess I'll be making this one of my many projects to get into as time and money allow.

 

I need to do it, too. The gaskets are pretty cheap. Read back through the thread to get recommendations on which gasket to use - I would stay away from the cork gaskets.

 

I took a couple pics of the mess I have. Thought some of the more experienced folks on here could confirm for me if the leak I have is in fact a bad lifter galley gasket.

 

^definitely looks like it. I replaced mine just to find out that it wasn't actually leaking- it was actually (and still is) the rear main seal on the engine. You know, the one sandwiched between the transmission, and possibly the most inaccessible part of the engine?!

Like yours, very small loss of oil so I pretty much just deal with it. The amount of crud built up inside that lifter valley cover made me not regret the time I spent cleaning everything up in there anyways. I switched to Rotella T6 and change every 10k, and it's almost a quart low at 10k. Definitely not worth yanking a strong but old motor at this point.

 

I've been meaning to post this question. I got the cover off. It looks pretty clean inside. However, I'm finding green coolant inside the cover.

I found coolant in the pushrod "wells." I highlighted the areas I found coolant with the red boxes.


I don't have any tell-tale signs of coolant in the oil. The oil isn't milky. The coolant doesn't have an oil slick in it.

I suspect that I'm not loosing much coolant? Do I have a bad head gasket? The truck has a replacement radiator, so I assume it may have overheated at some point.

Thanks guys.

 

Man, that's not good at all- there's no serviceable amount of coolant that should be anywhere near an interface with oil.

Following your theory about a previous overheating episode- try to find any thing that might look like a crack up near the deck for the cylinder head. Leaking so very little coolant, it's probably not even visible, but absolutely vital for the long-term health to find it.

It's probably more likely that your head has a small leak. These head gaskets are much easier than other head gasket jobs you may have done. With coolant in the oil system, I would find some time to do the job. It probably won't hurt it if you have to drive it for a little while before you get to it, since it's not loading up the oil and causing the milkshake, but any water will displace oil and lead to a rapid disaster.

My head gasket sprang a small leak back around 225k. I noticed when I changed the oil, that it was a milkshake coming out. I kept on with my oil change and changed the head gasket the following weekend, which was probably too long to wait, but I'm almost 100k since then and still running.

 

watch out the ford manual specifies 24 inch lbs, I used 100 inch lbs and bent the cover.