Possible head machining

Hey everyone,

I've got a quick question. Has anyone ever had the heads on their Windstars rebuilt? My wife's 01 has over 200k miles on it and its developed a bit of a light stumble under a moderate load. It also stumbles if you first start it...until you give it gas, and then it smoothes out and idles.

Additionally, I have been burning more and more oil over the last year or so and I thought I thought it might have been the valve stem seals. I've replaced them and still get black crust on the spark plugs.

So my next step will be to have the heads rebuilt and I was wondering if anyone could give an approximate cost. I'd remove the heads myself and just have them rebuilt.

Sincerely,

Mark

p.s BTW, its a 3.8l

I have used Dover Cyl Head many times ... and for the rebuild on my '99 in particular. Over 110 Kmiles on the repair so far....

I also did a "light" total overhaul to put new seals, and gaskets thruout ... as well as piston rings. Unit has nearly 333 kmiles total on it now .... purrs!

HOWEVER, make sure you do a thorough compression test on all cyls before you start!!! .... there may just be an ignition issue, or something else.

Don't be too quick to jump to the head.....
My '96 3.8L had over 229K miles on it when I sold it.....and the head was never off.....did not use much oil and it ran very well.
Look for signs of leakage, etc and other possible things before going to a major repair.
Is the black crust from oil?
Also look into the TSB mentioned for the 1999 and newer windstars......as they had issues with oil coming in through the intake.....
PCV valve, as well as the baffel in the front valve cover where the PCV valve plugs in.

In other words.....you may bennefit from the head overhaul.....but I recommend that you eliminate the cheaper/easier possible causes first.

Mark, based on my own recent tough luck experience on my 99 3.8L Windstar w 160 K, next time you get the slight miss pull it over right way and check for codes. If you get any of the P030X where X is the number of the cylinder, pull the plug to investigate. If the plug is spotlessly clean, as it was in my case, then you have coolant leaking past the intake manifold lower gasket and into the intake tract. When it gets worse you can end up hydrolocking the engine and bending a rod like I did.

Mine set a code for the cylinder that was eventually found to be a culprit, but the code would erase itself once the engine warmed up and the misfiring would stop.

A compression test will usually find coolant leaks also ....