String of bad luck. Bad valve too?

[Leadfoot281]

Just sold my daily driver '96 Jeep Cherokee to a friend for $50. Rust finally started eating the electric grounds. It was thoroughly shot. Anyway I pulled my '04 Marauder out of the garage, put plates on it and went looking for a new daily driver.

Picked up a stone and busted the windshield. The next day a coil went. A week later it throws a check engine light. I notice a light stumble in the idle. Seems like a bad coil but less severe.


Shop tells me I have low compression on #6. (180 psi across the board while #6 is at 140 psi).

They're telling me $1,500 to R/R engine and $750 for a reman head. They also said there's a TSB on the valves. I hadn't heard this before.

Car is stone stock with 73k miles. I've put 3k miles on it since 2009.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[Invective]

You don't drive the car enough. It's committing suicide!?!? I bought my Mustang from its original owners in the spring of 2011 with just over 6k miles on the odo. It sat in a heated garage all of its life under a cover. Car looked and smelled brand new. One glaring problem: It kept killing its battery and the dealers and Ford claimed they didn't have a clue - I bought the paperweight for $18k, a steal.

A bit of research revealed a small number of Ford products with the newly introduced 'smart modules' would not power down and reset correctly. The 'smart module' keeps power going to various accessories for up to a minute after the key is turned off. Turned out that a 'hard reset' that consisted of disconnecting the battery negative first and reconnecting the battery negative last after about 5 minutes would solve most of the problems. The other big battery killer was the new radio that wasn't powering down correctly even though it had been turned off manually.

Shortly after solving this, the leatherette door upholstery began delaminating and falling over the armrest. After that, the gauges began to fail - both reported issues with the first gen S197 - my car experienced ALL of the known issues. The final big issue was a faulty fuel tank that was replaced during a recall under its original owners (wouldn't vent correctly). They were all corrected and the car has been trouble free for a long time now. Most people should know about the two piece sparkplug debacle from this period - my car still has its original plugs at 28k miles from new.

Long winded? Yeah, but the mobile auto detailer came out and began cleaning up my cars and motorcycles yesterday and finished today - I'm happy.

[Turbov6Bryan]

Bad valve? If that was the case your compression would be a ton less.

Drive it, get rid of the carbon build up and drive it.

Or sell it to me :)

[Marauderjack]

Do an "ITALIAN TUNEUP"......and......forgedaboudit !!:burnout::beer:;)

[Haggis]

Farmer John, how you been? It has been a long time my friend. Sorry to hear about your problems empty that old gas out of the tank put fresh 93 in her and ride daddy ride.

[BAD MERC]

That's not a lot of miles. That compression may increase when those idle rings find their home. 50K on my '04 but I run it once a month to operating temperature to keep the moving parts happy. I hope your compression issue is just a dry cylinder.

[Leadfoot281]

Farmer John, how you been? It has been a long time my friend. Sorry to hear about your problems empty that old gas out of the tank put fresh 93 in her and ride daddy ride.

I've been busy. Insanely busy. Local town of 1,500 people is building a new 37 million dollar school and my property taxes went up 137%. On 985 acres, that's a pile of money. This project also diminished greatly what I can charge for land rent as well as what it can sell for.

As much as I would love to give the car an "Italian tune-up", with my luck I'd really bust it up. I figured a bad valve would be on a rear cylinder since that tends to be where the heat builds up...as I understand it.

It doesn't get driven enough and it does need to go to a better home. Selling stuff isn't easy for me since I live in the middle of no-where am generally very busy.

I have exceeded 100k miles on two wheels though. Just got back from motorcycle camping tour of the plains states with an emphasis on Nebraska and the sand hill region. Seen a lot of battlefields, old west history and stuff. Incredible time. Still plan on hitting Georgia and the coast this month.

[Leadfoot281]

That's not a lot of miles. That compression may increase when those idle rings find their home. 50K on my '04 but I run it once a month to operating temperature to keep the moving parts happy. I hope your compression issue is just a dry cylinder.

I run mine once/year. Get it up to operating temperature and go for a 100 mile ride on backroads. If I put plates on it then it goes for a tank or two (300 miles or so).

Shop is convinced it's a valve issue though. Seems crazy to me. I haven't beat the car but it's certainly not been excessively babied either.

[03MERCMARAUDER]

Just sold my daily driver '96 Jeep Cherokee to a friend for $50. Rust finally started eating the electric grounds. It was thoroughly shot. Anyway I pulled my '04 Marauder out of the garage, put plates on it and went looking for a new daily driver.

Picked up a stone and busted the windshield. The next day a coil went. A week later it throws a check engine light. I notice a light stumble in the idle. Seems like a bad coil but less severe.


Shop tells me I have low compression on #6. (180 psi across the board while #6 is at 140 psi).

They're telling me $1,500 to R/R engine and $750 for a reman head. They also said there's a TSB on the valves. I hadn't heard this before.

Car is stone stock with 73k miles. I've put 3k miles on it since 2009.

Thoughts? Opinions?


I would think the compression would be a lot lower. I have the same stumble/rough idle and cylinder 8 in my car is around 90 psi. Have they done a leak down test to prove out the valve is the issue? Figured out mine is the exhaust valve after the leak down test. If the stumble continues the car will throw a CEL light for misfire detected at startup. Try swapping coils around and see what happens.

Joe

[crownvic97]

My compression was in the 80s on cylinder 8 when I had an issue...20psi difference is almost certainly not a valve issue.

Put some seafoam in it and run it hard.

[Leadfoot281]

My compression was in the 80s on cylinder 8 when I had an issue...20psi difference is almost certainly not a valve issue.

Put some seafoam in it and run it hard.



The difference in mine is 40 psi. The fuel had Seafoam in it when the problem developed. The car has always been stored with a full tank of non-ethanol fuel in it.

[Leadfoot281]

It was a bad valve (sorry, no pics of it). Car is done and runs fine. Shop asked me to bring it back in a few hours and get the bill paid.


HVAC is in-op though. Air currently come though every vent and changing selection doesn't seem to do anything.

Is there something involved in the engine removal/reinstall that would cause the HVAC to quit working? I had new seals put in it a few years ago and it ran fine when I took it into the shop two weeks ago. Thanks.

[justbob]

Vacuum line. Probably disconnected at the vacuum rail mounted in the center of the firewall.


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[Leadfoot281]

Vacuum line. Probably disconnected at the vacuum rail mounted in the center of the firewall.


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Nailed it. Move to the front of the class.

I had the HVAC controller removed and new O-rings installed in '13 or '14 and the shop had a jumper hose installed which only allowed it to run on vent. I haven't driven it enough since then to actually notice it. Lol.

[justbob]

[emoji1303] Now drive it!


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[BLACKMARAUDER04]

My silver had a burnt #6 exhaust valve when I purchased it.
Same systems. Thought it was just a COP till it was torn down.

[1Marauder]

Farmer John, how you been? It has been a long time my friend. Sorry to hear about your problems empty that old gas out of the tank put fresh 93 in her and ride daddy ride.

^^^^^^This^^^^^

Bad old gas? One of my Marauder's had been sitting a while in Storage when I first bought it. Couldn't find anyone to drain 15 gal of gas...

Marto insisted that I gently get it out on freeway and simply burn it up.
Seafoam or another gas additive, a fresh tank of high quality gas, and maybe even new fuel filter.