Ford 5.4L 3v Triton Engine Melted the Intake Manifold: Let's Find Out Why!

intake

for cylinder number seven, just so we have a comparison to show you what a good valve looks like with this kind of mileage, okay? so there are some basic tests you can do with these tubes, okay, a very crude test before you start miking them and working with the machine. Basic tests that I do to check for warping on these valves, I'm going to get them on a nice flat surface, okay? then I'll push the valve down and see if it wobbles like that, of course, you can be on a nice smooth metal surface, a hard surface, which is a basic check.

The other check you can do is to turn the valve. check that there isn't any kind of deformation in the stem or the valve itself should turn nice and smooth so I went ahead and checked both and they seem to be fine, turning them back and forth I put my hand to press a bit and I have a feel for them and they feel great so I didn't see anything wrong with any kind of warping. there or they are bent for whatever reason so the other thing you can do at this point is we know they leak more over there on the valve face here and both valves, especially the one that's really leaking, were leaking a lot with our air test.

What I noticed there is that there is a lot of pitting right in the area where the leak was. It's not that bad, but it was definitely enough for it to get through and leak. You can see all the traces here at the entrance. The port in there the same in this a little bit of pitting on the other side was a lot worse and, you know, it can be more condensed in one area, that's why we're having a lot of leaks, but the same thing there's a lot of carbon deposits that come up go through the combustion process and then go up the valve here, so for comparison, look at the number seven here and you'll notice where it goes through the guide here in the head that this part. it's nice and shiny here, okay, no carbon coming back, I've already been there, a normal amount of carbon on the top of the valve here and more importantly on the face here, look at that on all senses, this is absolutely normal for this guy. of mileage compared to something like this, you see the pitting right there, some of that is pretty deep, let me see if I can bring you a little bit, you know it will focus better on that so you can see the amount of pitting that is correct. here especially it comes beyond that, it's quite deep right there and then this one here look how deep that is that goes beyond its minor, you go back further while this this one is the other one from number six You can see that yes, there is bites, but it doesn't seem so bad that one is quite bad, so on number seven here we can look for bites.

You see, it's something like that. The other thing you're looking for is to make sure it has the same shine every day. around that valve, you can see the shine there, which means you're making good contact all the way around the valve. These are all important factors for a proper seal, but also for proper heat transfer from the valve, so into these others. I don't really see, I mean you guys are probably

engine

builders and everything else, guys with more experience in

engine

building and stuff like that. I don't see a burnt valve here. I see a pitted valve.

It's definitely causing that leak you saw when. we get close to how bad it was here is the bottom side, the combustion side, the wire brushes are very fast for that test down there, I mean it looks good all the way around and same thing on this one, it's no different to number seven on this one. It wasn't cleaned but you can see it so I think it was just a real problem with the pitting here, now what caused the pitting, it could be the quality of the fuel, it could be many things that would cause the pitting here, some say which can.

Well, you know, coolant intrusion into the cylinder, I'm not really sure there are many factors involved, but obviously the problem with this particular failure is that we have a lot of pitting and those hot exhaust gases from the combustion chamber. Coming back up, you can see how much of that is actually trapped here, it's coming up through um and getting into the

intake

and melting it, so you have a misfire and an intake that was melting, so there's definitely something going on. ,uh. for a while before they brought it to me, uh, for the misfire due to lean caused by the

melted

intake, I mean, it's been going on for a while, you just don't burn a valve like this and puncture it like that, uh in a few hundred miles, so I don't know, give me your guys, give me your opinions guys, let me know what you think based on that close-up of these valves.

Either way, we know what the problem is, it's the valve that causes all the problems and I think this customer was right in deciding to use a new engine. At this point, 150,000 miles, it's time for an engine change.