Hey folks,
Took the lower intake plenum off to replace the gaskets and extract a broken bolt (very front above cylinder 5). It seems like left-handed drill bits are well recommended on this forum, going to try extracting that way after oiling, shocking, and heating.

I'm hoping to get y'all's advice on whether there's anything else I can be checking on while I have everything open, and how the ports look for a 140k mile engine.

- I'd like to clean out the intake ports, any tips for getting those areas clean without dropping too much irrecoverable grit onto the valves?
- The rear coolant passages have a lot of rusty gunk, can that be taken care of with a garden hose coolant flush?
- Anything more efficient than a razor blade to get the original gasket material off?

Thanks y'all.

 

Good luck with the broken bolt. Hope you don’t have to pull the head.

That’s a lot of deposits for 140K. Are you sure it isn’t 240K? The cooling system does not look like it was maintained with regular changes either.

Gasket scraper. Do you have access to a die grinder? 3M Roloc disks will take it off fast. Make sure you use the correct grit disk for iron and a different type for the aluminum intake.

 

https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...r-coolant.html

Here's my thread for coolant system flush. May have some info you'll need.

 

do NOT clean gasket surfaces with abrasive minerals like aluminum oxide while the head is on the engine! not even plugging the ports with towels will help!!

 

Never had a problem Use the disks with little plastic fingers.

 

thats why I said aluminum oxide and other mineral abrasives, it appears your recommended product comes in mulitple types, a plastic finger one is going to be less effective, but also not remove good material and not likely eat the bearings with debris getting in between bearing and crankshaft from the disk

 

I had that exact bolt break on mine. After trying to extract it in truck for 2 days i decided to take it out of truck.
Had to hire a machine shop to remove it.
They did it alot quicker and cleaner than if I had done it.
Money well spent.

 

I would pull the head/s and have a machine shop take care of it or source replacement heads.

 

Really wanted to avoid pulling the heads so I gave it a shot. Penetrating oil > heat > left-handed drill bits.
Filed the head a bit flatter, center punched, drilled a pilot hole, then stepped up the bits 1/64 at a time until it grabbed enough.
Luckily the rust was mostly higher up on the shank where it broke.
Thanks anyways for the luck.

There's definitely 140k on the odometer, I don't know the full history of this truck though.
The gunk buildup seems concerning, there's oil seeping from the breather filter in the air box too, so there must be significant blow-by?

Thanks for the coolant flush thread, I'll do that when the engine's back together.
This truck was originally in the USFS fleet, so I haven't been surprised that the gaskets are all original, and wonder how much routine maintenance was done.

I'll give those plastic roloc pads a shot, sounds great.
Likely going to try scraping the gunk out of the ports and vacuuming, got some detail vacuum tips in the mail.

 

The oil in the filter housing could be from blow by or just a faulty pcv valve or hose. Make sure to get it right when you put it back together and keep an eye on it.

 

I've done my best to clean the large chunks of gunk out of the ports, and I've been able to vacuum the larger bits from the tops of the valves, but there's still some particles that dropped down during disassembly and are difficult to extract.

Anyone have any tips on how to best clean the tops of the valves/cylinders before reassembly? Solvents, piston soak?

I know changing these gaskets is a normal procedure and there's no way to get things perfectly clean, just makes me nervous having any contamination in those areas.

 

You realize some of those valves are open, right? If you want to do it right, pull the heads. Have them serviced. Put them back. Use new bolts.

If you determine that you do have that much blow-by, you should do a ring job while you have it apart.