2004 escape 3.0L no start after a cold soak

Matt Saunoras · December 14, 2010

man did this one take a LONG time to figure out. i scratched my head so much i think a bald spot has formed. it was brought in on the hook from an independent. they did plugs, front 3 coils and couldn't get it restarted the next day. vehicle has 105k on the clock

I get it and of course it starts for me so i grab IDS and go for a ride. nothing really showed up for a while, once it got hot i noticed #5 dropping out a little on decel. pretty unusual I thought, not your typical ignition related misfire. get it back to the shop, pulled the intake on a hunch and found the #5 gasket torn and half completely missing. score one for me, put gaskets in it and it runs like a dream. park it in my stall and head home patting myself on the back the whole way. next day it's dead in the water, cranks fine won't start to save my life. pull the front three plugs and they're soaked. well no wonder, we have autolite platinums gapped .045" certainly that's gotta be the problem. put plugs in it, fires right up, never missed a beat all day. every warm crank results in a running engine. next day, nothing, once again. pull the front plugs out, soaked again so i dry them out, get it running and start on some tests. not a damn thing showed up on round 1. so off to type up a story for hotline. they're insisting fuel pump and leakdown is slightly out of spec so i'll buy that. even though i've never had a leakdown issue ever before, yeah that's gotta be it, i have every thing else i need. good spark, relative compression, relative injector, all my coils are good and the thing never misses a beat when it's warmed up. so i put a pump/ filter in it and it fires right up. "We" decide to let it go. before i can even begin to forget about this escape it's back in on the hook. blow the front plugs out(they're just wet from excessive cranking right? yeah gotta be) and pull it in.

I ran every fucking gas engine performance test known to man on this thing and i'm still drawing a blank at this point, is it possible i'm going to be demoted back to base engine class? fast forward to friday i have all my injectors out and i even have the little cups out from the 5.4 injector recall(i feel like a chemist). my spray pattern is beautiful and for the second time i verify none of them are leaking down overnight. okay so now what, lets check manual compression on every cyl just for the hell of it. i do one hole in the back, #2. good compression, go to #5 in the front, whoa it's a lot lower than #2. take a peak down the hole, hmm why does the piston look wet, must be still washed down with fuel(all the excessive cranking right?) i'll do a wet compression test but i better blow the fuel out first. stick my blow gun down the hole and i get blasted with a face full of antifreeze.

now the 3.0L duratec has been an engine a lot longer than i've been a technician so i'm far from seeing everything they're capable of. my question is this, do they have any kind of headgasket or other problems related to my concern? i've never even remotely heard of this, infact i never would have guessed this was the problem

it may seem like a long story but that's actually the short version. the long version may or may not involve a pcm

Fredsvt · December 15, 2010

I'll bet the customer never told the indie shop just how hot the car got at some point. Does it just happen to have a brand new water pump belt on it? Seen that a couple of times. Both went away as the customers couldn't afford to put a motor in either.

People love to leave out little details like that.

Matt Saunoras · December 18, 2010

i don't know what's gonna happen with it yet, i got sick of looking at it in my flat stall so i put it outside yesterday. by then there was a shit load of coolant in #5 hole, but i blew it out and it started.

mchan68 · December 18, 2010

Well, for what it's worth, there aren't any separately serviceable parts on these 3.0L Duratec V6s so you might as well price out a short or long block if they want it fixed.

Matt Saunoras · January 11, 2011

cust authorized teardown and didn't take the recommendation of a long block so that's what i did all day today..... the head gaskets are toast on the right bank and starting to go on the left. i did the same thing as doing a 3.5L phaser job. set the whole powertrain on the floor.

got a couple busted exhaust manifold studs on this one too. atleast i've got the heads sitting on the bench and a mig at my disposal

Matt Saunoras · January 11, 2011

Fredsvt · January 11, 2011

How not flat is the block deck and heads? They must've gotten that thing good and hot.

Matt Saunoras · January 11, 2011

didn't check them yet. pulled the heads, put my shit away and left. i'll look tomorrow Posted Image

Matt Saunoras · January 12, 2011

heads were out about .004 between the cyls. block was less than .002 all in spec but sent them out to be safe

machine shop took .006 off the heads today and pulled my studs out. i'll have them back tomorrow and hopefully it'll be done and out of here

Mbl35 · January 12, 2011

I'm right behind you. When i finish the engine job i'm doing now,

there's an 05 escape 3liter with blown head gaskets and a clogged heater core waiting for me. I shall be dropping the complete powertrain to do it. Because the last one i did'nt and it did a real # on my back.

mchan68 · January 12, 2011

With all the shit litres and 6.4L trucks that have been coming in lately, I could use an engine job on an Escape or Edge/MKX right now. It sure would be a nice break from these pieces of rat turds on wheels. But yeah, I always drop the entire powertrain when working on these vehicles. To me, it's not worth the aggravation trying to fight with them in vehicle, for the relative ease that they are to drop.

Fredsvt · January 12, 2011

I hope the machine shop straightened the heads prior to decking them. If not, that warp is going right into the cam bearing bores once they're torqued back down. A seized cam wouldn't be fun after doing all that work.

Matt Saunoras · February 4, 2011

well that escape has been gone since that last post so i hope it's okay for a while. ended up putting a tstat in it before it left. ECTs were a little too hot for my liking

now i have another one to play with. 08 milan 3.0L 26k

this one is leaking oil around the right rear corner of the bank 1 cyl head. the kicker is i dyed the oil and i can't see any coming from the gasket area (ssm). it's right below and appears to be coming from behind the bell housing. either way i need to pull the trans tomorrow.