So a while back I picked up this car for $1500. Sortoff gambled it with the higher milage, but I couldn't see the car go to waste, plus I gave spare parts sitting for it. I got good mechanical work docs with the car and all I knew about it is that it had a blown head gasket on the drivers side.

So a few month later I'm finally tearing into it.

Started the teardown yesterday.

 

Took the valvecovers off. Looks like it needs the tensioners. I hope that wasn't the reason for the blown headgasket. I guess I'll know once I tear into cam timing. Anything else I should look at?

 

Sorry can't help .. But ... how do you like your Maxjax?

 

Fallen in love with it over the past 6 years. Had to use jackstands last week, for the first time in years, to free up a stuck shifter cable. Made me realize how spoiled I've become

 

It's hard to see if there's a problem with the tensioners with all that milky oil, but if the flats on the cams line up when you rotate the engine clockwise from the front, they just need changing.

Blown gasket on a SC engine not unusual. Use 4.2 gaskets on the rebuild, they're steel and less likely to fail. Make sure the head and block surfaces are clean and level, and inspect the valve seats to be sure none have dropped when the engine overheated.

 

I checked the timing yesterday and they do line up so looks like that is fine. If you look closely at the pics, the tensioners are different bank to bank. One I believe is broken as the chain is gliding on a metal part.

 

That's a missing shoe. It's in the oil pan and the pieces will end up in the the pump pick up screen. So in addition to replacing the head gaskets (use multi layer steel as on 4.2) and the tensioners, you should remove the pan to clean out the plastic pieces.

Of course, you need to remove the pan anyway to get all that emulsion cleaned up. And I assume you will be replacing the primary tensioners, chains and guides while you have it all apart.

 

The primaries look pretty good, but I will definatelly change secondary, front seal and clean out the oil pan/pickup. Will also run synthetic vs dino oil.

 

So I tore into it further today

 

Looks like I'll be doing a full timing kit: tensioners, guides, chains

The primary tensioners itself look ok, but the guides are falling apart.

I'd recommend anyone doing the secondaries to do primaries too.

I looked at parts and evay has jag kits for $320.

I looked up a kit for a lincoln ls and it looks same and costs $170. I will order it and report back if it's the same.

 

Done for today. Looks like I'll be going with new headbolts too.
I took the heads off and when taking the passanger head off (the one with good head gasket) I realized that one headbolt is broken off in the block. I've almost had a heart attack as the thread starts like 3" into the block. This almost screwed up my weekend, but I was lucky enough to get it out using the broken bolt as a wrench. I'm glad I decided to do both heads at once.

 

 

I know very little about cars, but the removal of that broken bolt is very impressive!!!

Looks like you have a good handle on the project though...

Good luck!

Jolly

 

Your failure looks a lot like mine. Notice the ring is displaced inward and it appears that it might have happened during the "crush" of the gasket. See the mark corresponding to the cylinder wall arc?

 

To be honest, pretty much any blown headgasket that I've seen that was blown between the cylinder and coolant passages looked like that.

I think that the combination of vacuum from the intake stroke and the pressure in the coolant passages bends it like that.

 

I'm not gonna lie, it came out rather easy. I really thought I'm in for a rough ride when I realized the bolt is broken.

 

Got the LS timing kit. Everything is the same with the exception that the one I ordered comes with the 4.2 primary chains. So tensioners and guides are the improved design and secondary chains are the same.





The LS headbolts have washers and are same thickness for all length where the jag bolts are thicker for about 3"from the bolt-head





Also got the supercharger rebuild kit so I will probably also do a writeup on that for interested parties.

 

As promissed by others, parts of tensioners found in the oil pan





There it is in the pickup

 

The above pics are for all the guys who ask if they can drag out replacing tensioners.
Honestly if this cat was driven by anyone else than an older realtor lady it would've granaded itsel.

 

I've decided that I'm also gonna do valve seals on this car. The plugs seemed to have some fouling even thou the cats seem to be in good shape.

To my surprise the cylinder walls have no ridge. Is this normal?