02 taurus 3.0L vulcan ?? service TECHS. have you have you seen this?

Question

a guy brought in his 02 taurus the other day for a tune up and it was running like **** he said the engine over heated and then started running rough. right away i checked the coolant and it smells burnt i did a compression test and right away the first two cylinders i checked had 50 and 60 psi so i decided to tear the engine down when i got the heads off the gaskets showed no sighns of leakage the heads are straight but i did find that the valves are not sealing properly thats why i don't have good compression does any one know why the valves are not sealing am i missing something i always thought these were good engines and i am hearing that 00 and up are problems galore.

Answer 1

Sounds like he burned the valves when it over heated. causing the valves to warp. I do know they went to a lighter valve in 00 which may account for some of the problems. It wouldn't supprize me with the new head design that he just cooked the top end. I personally have not seen this in my shop here, but I have seen the new motors and the aluminum head sitting proudly on top of that cast iron block. THese two never mix. Give it a rebuild on the heads, plane them down to level them out, and put an after market head gasket on them to make up the difference. should run like new again, course you already knew that so I didn't need to tell you.

Answer 2

I would have doubted a gasket with an uneven reading of 60 and 50. The overheating could have been a cause of valve warp, Better check a little farther and ask the owner how it was running before overheat.

Answer 3

I've got a 2000 Taurus at 80,000 miles and haven't had any problems with the car.

Answer 4

I have found a few vulcans with bad valve springs but they usually break obviously.