Picked up a "new" engine for the Grand Marquis

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Apr 9, 2008
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The last time I bought a house, I seem to remember having another 2v modular with a trashed cylinder 5. Hmm.

Ever since ive owned the car, its set a cylinder 5 misfire almost immediately when it warms up and is in gear. Doing a clear flood crank, it sounded like there was no compression on a cylinder. Brought it to my mechanic to get an actual diagnosis to determine if I need to change the whole engine or just a head. Apparently it's leaking past everything including the helicoil. Not quite sure the chain of events, but there's a very poorly done helicoil, damage to the valves, damage to the piston and a scored wall.

These 2v modular engines tend to last a while except when I have them. A replacement engine was only $500 pulled from a local salvage yard with a warranty. Could have got one less as there were a few for $300 but I'd end up spending just as much in fuel to get them.

They broke the heater outlet off of the intake manifold so I'll have to change that. Not too big of a deal as the intake has to come out to remove the engine anyway. It apparently had the tsb to upgrade to metal tensioners and when I pulled the valve covers I saw the guides were good and chains had no slack, so won't be doing cam chains. I will do the oil filter housing gasket, oil pan gasket and valve cover gaskets before dropping it in. The exhaust manifolds are okay, but I want to do the gaskets and studs so if it ever needs manifolds, it won't be impossible.

Guess I know why the car was significantly cheaper than other rust free panthers....
 
Sounds like a plan. Going to do the rear main seal too, or is that a low failure rate part on this mill?

Going to do a idocars worthy post mortem analysis when done?
 
Sounds like a plan. Going to do the rear main seal too, or is that a low failure rate part on this mill?

Going to do a idocars worthy post mortem analysis when done?
Here's some pictures



I'll definitely pull off the heads to see what happened. The passenger side head is something I want to hold onto as it'll work on either my 2001 5.4 or 2001 4.6 if needed. There's a few other things I'll hold onto ... sensors , IAC, throttle body, oil filter housing, timing cover

I don't believe the rear main is a problem on these. The oil pan is dry near that on the "new" engine. My 2001 5.4 leaks from everything but that - including head gasket!
 
Guess I was super lucky that my ‘03 4.6 2V still had original, undisturbed plugs at 130K, and I was lucky enough to get them out & replaced without damaging the threads (Deep Creep down the holes when warmed up, let it sit overnight, little 3/8 drive Milwaukee electric impact removal the next morning while thinking happy thoughts).
I took 7 original plugs out of this at 123000 when I got it. #5 was not original.
 
Guess I was super lucky that my ‘03 4.6 2V still had original, undisturbed plugs at 130K, and I was lucky enough to get them out & replaced without damaging the threads (Deep Creep down the holes when warmed up, let it sit overnight, little 3/8 drive Milwaukee electric impact removal the next morning while thinking happy thoughts).
2 valves dont have any problems with plug removal, they are the ones that jettison the plugs on their own with the original design plug, hence why one plug on OPs was replaced and helicoiled, because it blew out. 3 valves are the ones that the plugs stick and break off.
 
Here's some pictures



I'll definitely pull off the heads to see what happened. The passenger side head is something I want to hold onto as it'll work on either my 2001 5.4 or 2001 4.6 if needed. There's a few other things I'll hold onto ... sensors , IAC, throttle body, oil filter housing, timing cover

I don't believe the rear main is a problem on these. The oil pan is dry near that on the "new" engine. My 2001 5.4 leaks from everything but that - including head gasket!

I’m in the leaking head 5.4 club. Engine was replaced under warranty many years ago and the replacement leaks too. Thanks Ford.
 
I’m in the leaking head 5.4 club. Engine was replaced under warranty many years ago and the replacement leaks too. Thanks Ford.

Passenger side head gasket right? This one leaks a LOT depending on its mood. Sometimes I've had it leak up to a quart every 150 miles! Now it's down to maybe a quart every 500-700 miles. I don't really change the oil any more, just the filter.

However, it is a junkyard engine with almost 1/4 million miles so ...

With that said, it's a real bear to do a head gasket on these trucks. Probably easier to pull the engine. So Ill just keep it full.
 
I don't think my heart could take another thread about the Intech 32V 😂

Yeah but ...

These were already sitting on the ground in the junkyard. What could go wrong there? And likely the wrong bolt pattern - I think thee sideways intech engines used the old small Ford v8 pattern , not modular.
 
Passenger side head gasket right? This one leaks a LOT depending on its mood. Sometimes I've had it leak up to a quart every 150 miles! Now it's down to maybe a quart every 500-700 miles. I don't really change the oil any more, just the filter.

However, it is a junkyard engine with almost 1/4 million miles so ...

With that said, it's a real bear to do a head gasket on these trucks. Probably easier to pull the engine. So Ill just keep it full.
Yep passenger side. Mine isn’t that bad. Doesn’t even make it to the ground but annoying for sure. The mod motors in trucks are pretty miserable to work on. Definitely will never get another
 
Picked up an engine hoist and stand from a friend up the road. Gotta get it off the trailer. I just ordered $150 worth of parts for it. Oil filter housing gasket, oil pan gasket, valve cover gaskets, MLS exhaust manifold gaskets, manifold studs and downpipe studs. Apparently doing exhaust manifolds on one of these cars is an engine-out type of deal.

The new engine has one original manifold and a Dorman manifold. The engine that's in the car now has two Ford ones. I'm going to try to get a set of Ford ones between the two and just do new studs and gaskets. Dorman exhaust manifolds are now $90 a piece for these cars! No thanks - I'll take my chance with used OEM ones. The last time I ran a dorman manifold on my pickup (literally same cylinder head), it cracked within 3000 miles.
 
My buddy had aftermarket manifolds installed on his 4.6 ('97 F-150) and they rusted away in 2 years.
He assumes the originals rotted away whilst the truck sat idle for years after the death of original owner.
He went Ford the second time.
 
Well I've used up all of my luck. I was able to get the exhaust manifolds off of the "new" engine using just a 3/8 ratchet. Surprising for how rusty they were. They are both Ford, apparently. I thought one was an aftermarket.

Unfortunately, I can't get Ford manifolds for this car any more. Because it's Ford, the same basic car made for 19 years with the same engine and trans, the manifolds are almost year specific. So Ford hasn't made these in forever. I may end up just getting new Dorman with new studs and gaskets. Who knows how long I'll keep the car. But when the dorman manifolds rot out at least the studs won't be stuck in the head I guess.
 
? how on earth could Ford justify that? I thought they were spending zilch at the end for this platform—sure, there was the refresh in 04 but still. I thought Detroit’s big idea was to make the same thing for years.
 
? how on earth could Ford justify that? I thought they were spending zilch at the end for this platform—sure, there was the refresh in 04 but still. I thought Detroit’s big idea was to make the same thing for years.
GM is like that for sure. Their stuff is legos. Mix and match from any vehicle for a 40 year span and it just fits and works.

If you bought two identical spec'd Ford trucks with the VINs sequenced one right after another, there would be a lot of parts that wouldn't interchange between the two. Ford has always been very bad with mid year changes and constant running changes to stuff. When I went to buy front wheel bearings for my 2001 F-350 there were like 10 options for a 2001 F-350 4x4 SRW. That's nuts! And while they will all bolt to the knuckle, some things may or may not work.

Halfway through the first year of production of the 2 valve 4.6, they decided to create a new bellhousing pattern for these engines. There's no reason every engine family needs to have it's own bellhousing pattern. Or in the case of 4.6s there's at least 3 different bellhousing patterns depending on application. No reason for that!
The transmissions in these cars are year specific. At some point, police and LTCs got the 4R75 transmission - that makes sense as there's enough differences that it can be its own transmission. But a transmission from a 2000 or 2002 should be able to work in my 2001 car.

They did a lot of weird stuff with optioned. I was going to replace the rubber brake hoses. Of course there's 27 different options and i have to pull a shaft and count the number of teeth on the tone ring to figure out which rear brake hoses I need. How foolish.

External accessories I can get. Maybe exhaust manifolds on x model have to be different from Y model to clear a steering shaft. Maybe you need a low slung intake manifold to fit under the hood of a van instead of a pickup. Buy why so many changes for the same basic car?
 
My buddy had aftermarket manifolds installed on his 4.6 ('97 F-150) and they rusted away in 2 years.
He assumes the originals rotted away whilst the truck sat idle for years after the death of original owner.
He went Ford the second time.
I ordered a Dorman exhaust manifold and sent it back immediately. Horrible. Noticeably smaller ports and looked like a crack from the factory. Got the Ford part for not much more. 1 stud was broken and not easy to access, I called the mobile bolt removal guy. I didn’t want to make it any worse. Used the Dorman hardware.
 
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