98 Ford Escort, removing head??

[sparkync]

My daughter has a 98 Ford Escort. It started knocking a while back and she took it to a garage. He told her one of the lifters was bad and advised replacing them all. This we did at $ 316.00. She drove it home, and it started knocking again. The next morning it wouldn't crank. We called the garage to have a wrecker to pick it up and take it back. They examined it again, and said that a valve had busted. They pulled a "flattened" sparkplug out of the cylinder, with other pieces. They estimated the price to repair it at $ 850.00, not counting the $ 316.00 they already charged us. And that price was only if the piston wasn't busted and no more damage was found. My daughter decided she didn't want to invest that much in it not knowing how much more it would be. She got her another car. We had the wrecker to tow the car back to our house. I'm thinking about taking the head off myself and checking it. Note: I'm not a "real mechanic", just a very minor back yard one Question #1 Is there anything special I need to do or check before I start taking out bolts?? Marking timing belt, etc. etc. etc......????
Question #2 What is some of your advice for a price I should ask for it "as is"??? The rest of the car is in good shape ( paint, tires, interior (fair). Thanks for the help and advice.... Steve

[Davescort97]

You are between a rock and a hard place. Search the forum for cylinder head dropped seat. It will give you the benefit of what some others have had to go through. What is it worth? I don't know. I guess it's worth what someone is willing to pay for it and with the engine toast that person may not want to take a chance on it.

If it were mine, I would find a good used low mileage engine and have it put in. Chances are it dropped the valve seat on no. 4 cylinder. The seat pounded the you know what out of the piston and valve. The piston probably is going to sieze from being pounded on and then you will have an oblong rod and main bearing talking to you. You can have a used engine put in for around $1200. Then if you wanted to sell it you would be able to get your money out of it. Either that or cut your losses and have it towed to the boneyard.

Just don't give any more of your hard earned money to the last guy that worked on it. If you do have the head redone have them clean out the debris from inside the intake manifold. If they don't it'll just get sucked back into the combustion chamber and the whole scenario will occur again.

It's not a big job to pull the head. Most people that know which way to turn a wrench are capable of it. The only special tool you'll need is a torque wrench for the head bolts. If you can do it, get a Haynes manual at one of the larger parts dealers. It'll tell step by step what to do. There are marks on the engine to line up the timing belt and gears when you put it all back together. Like I said, my only concern would be the condition of that piston. Give it a try if you have some place to work on it. At this point, what have you got to lose? You can do it. Go for it.

[12Ounce]

I agree with Davescort97. Especially about not using that mechanic again ... he could had made a couple of phone calls to machine shops and learned the sad history of this engine, .... and diagnosed the valve seat situation better.

It's a great engine design ... too bad the manufacturing guys didn't do their job.

If you rebuild it yourself, you may do okay ... use a reputable head shop such as Dover and the valve seat problem will be history. But you will have to pull the block to do a good job ... that piston and rod are gonna be toast. Of course this means a full set of rings. Maybe oversized pistons or a cylinder sleeve back to "standard" ... I went for the sleeve.

Good luck .... BTW, unless the tranny has been taken care of very well ... and I mean "VERY WELL" ... it will fail at 150k miles or so. Figure $2400 for a Ford reman.