Head gasket concerns
Elder User
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 739
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I'll second that. Granted it is supposed to be able to take more "Abuse" (for lack of a better word) But once it overheats and nails the "butter zone" (again....lack of a better word).
We had the 89TM head on ours. Ran so-so for the white smoke out the tail pipe. Get it to temp? And we could have used it as a fogger for skeeters'. Figure we sent white smoke signals to about 5 tribes.
The world product heads are IMO a superior product. Even with just getting a pair of the 'bare' heads and doing all the checks/rechecks to transfer the valves and such over? It made a world of difference.
(yeah I know...we have a motor that runs decent, and a crap A4LD.)
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Posting Guru
Joined: Sep 2004
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From: Yokosuka, Honshu, Japan
I've 'heard' speculation on whether "89TM" heads ever existed. Regardless, from my best guess at all my research - if it's not a '90-'92 model engine (some say '89-92, but I would venture to guess mid-model-year '89, if so), you can pretty much bet that they were 86TM heads, regardless of stampings - and even with that, I'd have to see picture proof that an "89TM" was ever stamped on an OEM Ford 2.9 head, with all of the different references I have read and all the speculation. Supposedly, the '89-up heads were redesigned and "less prone" to cracking. I agree, though, even the WP bare castings would be a better bet for replacements with transferring over all the 'hardware' from the OEM heads. Funny thing is, Ford let the 4.0 inherit the same problem. I've known several Explorer and 4.0 Ranger owners who have had cracked heads. Not sure at which year / casting number they finally fixed the 4.0 heads, if at all. People wonder why I'm not so falling all over myself to do a 4.0 swap. There's your answer. Why inherit the same problem? Just my opinion, I guess.
Elder User
Joined: Dec 2007
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What makes things even more interesting? These engines built and used in Germany didn't seem to have any of these such problems. As soon as Ford started using them in the USA? Nothing but problems with the heads cracking. Seems Ford took a fairly decent and trustworthy design, and screwed 'em up when they exported the deal over to the US.
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