After Digging all the way in This is what I Found - New Head Gasket? (Pix)

[webby88]

Some background, this is my mothers '02 LS V6, I got it for her like 7 years ago off a repossession auction for dirt cheap ($2k) and at the time it had around 40,000 miles. Today it has just over 70,000 and my dear brother got swiped and damaged both the drivers side front and rear door.

Afterwords the car sat for a while and after going to try and start it began giving me tons of trouble, including but not limited to; long crank no start, finally start and severe misfire and on and on.

I did some diagnostics and found that the MAF was bad and once I unplugged it the car started right up, also my code scanner said one of the coils under the Upper Intake was bad. So I decided to tear the top apart and do a proper tune up, only once I pulled the COP I found oil in the Spark Plug Wells.

So new Valve Cover Gasket right? I figured once I have the top off I should take off the Lower Intake and this is when I found the serious problem, oil pooling in the valley and it is deff coming from the Head Gasket.

When I crawled under the car I noticed A TON of crud all over the bottom and front of the engine and thought that maybe it came from the Front Crank Seal, but once I got the entire intake off it became quite obvious that the source of the leak is at the heads.

So here is the real question, should I dig even deeper and do the heads? (As a note I am comfortable trying to do it but I have never done service to something the messes with Engine Timing)







(also note that the picture of the front of the engine - where I already removed the Crank Pully, Idler and Water Pump - is after I sprayed an entire can of engine degreaser and cleaned much of it up with rags, its was infinitly worse looking before.)

 

[Ranchero50]

That's a tough call for me to make. There's a ton of bad stuff that can happen between getting the head off and getting it running again. 70k with body damage '02 in NY (rust?). How much is it leaking? I also wonder if just putting a gasket on will stop it (warped head or...)?

I'd say go for it if you can afford to be without it. You'll either be a hero or learn a lot about V6 engines.

 

[webby88]

Well there is nothing to suggest a warped head, the engine ran fine before the teardown (minus the misfires due to a bad coil and MAF), and I never lost too much oil on the dipstick... The body is so-so without considering the damage, interior is clean, suspension has some sag and bottoms out over bumps.

I am thinking of just throwing it all back together and running it till she dies... Though it would be cool to take a peek under the heads

 

[mikeyg03ls]

I agree with ranchero but if you have the time and you're ambitious why not. It's mostly labor, gaskets won't be too bad. And if you have it all apart you could do the valve cover gasket as we'll. if it hasn't overheated generally the heads shouldn't be warped. Just check it with a straight bar and feeler gauge while they're off

 

[oddball]

I'd be really surprised if it's the head gasket. You'll get exciting combustion or coolant leaks before an oil leak. Tracing the source of old oil leaks is very difficult.
I'm not familiar with the V6, but isn't there one or more openings to the crankcase in the intake valley? I'd suspect that, valve covers and timing cover long before a head gasket.

 

[Ranchero50]

I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't just oil finding it's way under a head bolt and seeping out of the gasket. Might even be hydraulically pumping it out during heat cycles.

Oh yeah, brake cleaner works much better at cleaning oily messes then engine cleaner does. Gunk is just kerosene with a foamer and propellant.