What year heads will fit & work on a 89 3.0?

Thanks

 

Rebuilding The Ford 3.0L Engine - By Doug Anderson, over at TheRangerStation

 

That link really doesn't answer my question. I have a 89 aero & I have a 93 parts van. when I look up a head gasket Kit it shows a different number for the two. But I was told that the 3.0 heads would work from 87-97 were the same. I don't think they are. That was why I asked.

 

I can see your point that the page did not answer your specific question, but it did provide info to make some good guesses.

Let's step thru...
The first chart says that the head castings were the same 87-95, then a different one thru the end of the Aero MY's. The valve stem diameter stayed the same at 8mm.

Then we check for different machining and/or parts and we see that there
was a change over from tappet style cam to roller style starting in '92. So associated parts will be different.

My conclusion would be that the castings are swappable but that I might then have to do addition work to either retain my old rockers, etc. Or I might make use of the opportunity to convert to roller style.

As for the head gasket kit, I would check to see if the part number change occurred at the start of '92. Then I might conclude that the change was likely due to the change to roller rockers, especially since Anderson says the block had different style pushrod holes.

Edit: Anderson allows us to go one further step and concluded that if your '89 block does not have the mod'd pushrod holes and the retainer spider, then it would not work as intended with the '93 roller head assembly. So if valves are identical (length), and casting are that same, then I might gamble on swapping the castings but plan on retaining the '89 rocker system.

 

I would seriously doubt the heads off the 93 are any good. Every one of these heads I have ever seen with more than 120,000 miles or so had severe valve recession problems and the seats were pretty well toast. Its amazing these engines continue to run smoothly anyway, but the difference in performance and fuel economy versus a fresh head is quite noticeable. You should at least check the condition before just blindly swapping the heads, especially since you will likely have to get the heads resurfaced anyway.

You can check them, them may be fine, but the heads from the factory on the 3.0L really don't have hardened seats at all, so they just wear out really quickly.

 

I was going to have the 93 heads gone completely through. I'm just not going to if the 93 heads won't work on the 89.