Need some engine help on my DD

[caseywan]

My dd is an 02 Explorer Sport trac 4.0 SOHC.

So I was on the highway today and out of nowhere I start to hear this bad ticking sound. Immediatly I checked all the guauges and everything showed normal, so I right away pulled over to the shoulder and got ready to coast and motor started to lose power and then just quit.

I coasted to an exit ramp and got out popped the hood and there was smoke, not steam, coming from around the intake manifold/injectors and out the dipstick tube. I checked the oil and it was a little low but nothing to worry about. Then I checked the coolant because my radiator started leaking a couple days ago and I've been having to add fluid to it about every 100 miles. Well, I can't see any fluid at all in the bottom of the radiator and the overflow is empty. So it must have overheated pretty bad and all the water turned to vapor and the temp gauge did not show it was overheating. But I've popped the hood on some very overheated cars and you can just feel the wave of heat when you pop the hood and everything is hot, but it really didn't seem too hot when I popped the hood.

Well, I added some water, let it cool way off and tried starting it and the motor just spins. Sounds like no compression or anything, just sounds like everything is spinning. I can look down the oil fill tube and see the cam on the passenger side spinnng, but no way of checking the drivers side.

Any ideas?? I'm lost...

 

[GTOreturns]

Well the fact that it's turning is a good sign, but spinning freely like that doesn't sound good. Do a compression test, if it looks good make sure your getting spark and gas.

 

[S&B]

you might be fawked b/c those alum engines got hot quick.

like will said do a comp test but that doesnt sound good when smoke comes out of your dipp stick that means something in your crancase is burning

 

[GTOreturns]

Hopefully you didnt snap the crank.

 

[S&B]

you prolly torched the rings, you can pick a used SOHC up for 300 bux though if you look

 

[Deleted member 87397]

If it's spinning super free like way more than normal it could be you broke your timing belt and a couple things went nuts inside. Just a shot in the dark. Check for fuel and spark definitely and then get deeper.

 

[caseywan]

I can look down the oil fill tube and see the cam turning on the pass. side and I pulled a sensor on the drivers side valve cover and can see that the cam is turning on that side as well, so that rules out that....

I prolly would have heard if the crank snapped, but all I heard was the ticking sound, which sounded almost identical to a really bad lifter, but no lifters in that motor.

I already started looking for a new motor - cheapest I found was local through car-part.com for $650. S&B, where you seen SOHC's for 300?

 

[caseywan]

Oh also, the cam has thick, black, "gunky" buildup on it, and I know that just shouldn't be...

 

[BlownFiveLiter]

Sounds like headgaskets, if you overheated it bad enough. Definitely do a compression test and see what kind of results you get from that. I'm gonna toss this one in Other Auto Tech for some more views outside 5.0 Talk.

 

[S&B]

http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi

start calling around, if you need someone to do the work, i have a buddy in huntley IL that did all the work to my stang and worked on my explorer much cheaper than a shop

 

[caseywan]

http://www.car-part.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi

start calling around, if you need someone to do the work, i have a buddy in huntley IL that did all the work to my stang and worked on my explorer much cheaper than a shop

Your buddy wouldn't happen to be Brett would it? Him and Rich Groh are building the motor for my stang right now. He's a good guy.

car-part.com is where I've been looking, and the best I've found is a motor with 50k miles for $700 and a motor with 900 miles for $1000.

I checked compression on 4 of the cylinders today and they don't even move the gauge, and I know the guage works cause I tested it elsewhere. They barely "puff" when I put my finger over the hole, and I tried spraying oil in the cylinder with no change at all.

I'm gonna start pulling the heads tonight and try to found if the rings are toast or maybe the valves and go from there.

 

[S&B]

Your buddy wouldn't happen to be Brett would it? Him and Rich Groh are building the motor for my stang right now. He's a good guy.

car-part.com is where I've been looking, and the best I've found is a motor with 50k miles for $700 and a motor with 900 miles for $1000.

I checked compression on 4 of the cylinders today and they don't even move the gauge, and I know the guage works cause I tested it elsewhere. They barely "puff" when I put my finger over the hole, and I tried spraying oil in the cylinder with no change at all.

I'm gonna start pulling the heads tonight and try to found if the rings are toast or maybe the valves and go from there.

yeah its brett tell him you know clark from online he obviously knows me he built mr. mootang with rich as well. your in good hands, my t top coupe is at his house, maybe you can take some pix for me I haven't seen it in a year or so

 

[caseywan]

yeah cool. Where do you live? Chicago area? I saw your coupe in his garage there last week and I'll be up there again on monday I think and could snap some pics for ya if you want. after some other bad experiences I wouldn't have anyone but him or rich build my motor.

 

[S&B]

yeah you need to pick someone and stick it out with them and brett has seen more 5.0's in his life than you can imagine.

I used to live in lake in the hills now I live in Minneapolis, bret was up to visit last summer and put my motor back in the stang.
Ill be back when the stang gets finished later this year

 

[caseywan]

I checked the compression on 4 of the cylinders and they didn't even move the guage, and I know the gauge works cause I tested it elswhere. So either the rings are toast or the valves are burned up. Some guys on some Explorer forums are telling me to pull the heads cause it's probably just a blown head gasket, bla bla bla. But in my experience, every time a motor has had blown head gaskets it will still show compression, just low.

I found a new motor for the truck locally with only 900 actual miles on it for $1000. So I'm not even gonna bother trying tearing that sob apart to figure anything out - just rip it out and drop in a basically brand new motor.

Thanks for the input.

 

[S&B]

sounds good, you should get some good money scrap for that motor its almost all alum.