My 89 2.9 has gotten water in the oil. One year ago I pulled this engine to replace the crank shaft (defective Ford design 1/2 thust bearing created a nasty grove in the crank allowing it to slide back and forth1/4 inch), new bearings, oil pump, timming chain, all seals and gaskets (not head gasket). The engine had great compression so I didn't do any thing more. Now I have a leak. No oil in water. NO compression leaking off into the water jacket. No "steam" coming from the exhaust. I've replace the intake manifold gasket. It showed signs of water leaking through the gasket, actually bubbles of water trapped inside, so I hoped this was it, but I still have water in the oil. I have now removed the intake and driver side head (head gasket shows now sign of leaking). No signs of water in cylinders. Is it possible to have a warped intake manifold? I have removed it twice, and I was told that some V6's need to be slowly removed VIA de-torque the bolts. I didn't do it the first two times I removed it, today I did. I plan to remove the passenger side head tommorrow. I will take the intake down and have it tested for warping. I have read many stories on this web site of the heads getting cracks, but they all seem to be in or near the valves, I assume that allows water to be burned off as a steam engine OR compression being pumped back into the water jacket.
Is there any other source of the leak that I'm missing? Is it possibly my intake? OR should I go ahead and repace the heads?

 

Well wait one minute before you replace the heads. I would suggest pulling them and carefully looking over them, might even have a metal shop do it, to find any problems. Check that intake and see if it is warped. Replacing them would be a mighty expensive way to throw parts at it.

 

The common location for the crack is the number 1 or 6, take a real good look at those.

If you do find a crack I would really like a pic(s) to show other people with this problem.

 

Thanks for your input guys, I'll check back later. If I find a crack I'll try and picture it to you.

 

To:KEN00
I found the crack!!! I have pictures!!! Where do you want me to send them?

 

post them i would love to see

 

I'm stumped! I can't seem to be able to post them, I could email them to you, and maybe you can post them. I have a total of 4 pics, two are the heads (1) dirty and (1)wiped at the crack. The other two I have are marked (1) dirty and (1)wiped where the cracks are, very obvious.

 

I'll drop you an email and post them.

 

nice i have seen a blown on a ported 302 but never cracked. its always good to have the image just incase planted in the back of my head

 

Here are the pics....

THANKS!!!!!!

 

And the rest...

 

wow it looks almost unreal. i never thought they would ever be that big or wide i always thought something smaller

 

looks like he used the Word or Paint program on his computer to color over the crack to show us where it is.

 

Yep, a nice way to show where to look.

 

I would like to add to this thread.

I just pulled the heads on my 86 2.9 and one of them had a crack just like the above picture(thanks for that picture). The picture told me where to look but it's curious how I found it. I was cleaning the heads with brake cleaner. The brake cleaner gets rid of all the oily residue,, but leaves a brown film behind when it dries. But I had this curious wet oily line in the same spot as the picture above. I washed the heads down again with the spray can of brake cleaner and this curious oily line came back again. It has to be a crack, the oil must be oozing up out of the crack.

And if this was not happening, no way could you see this crack with the naked eye. Maybe with a magnifying glass, not sure. But you can't hardly tell it's there. Only the oily line is a clue there is a crack there.