1997 (I believe) 5.4 with 236000 or 237000 miles. It's run hard towing. It has been smoking and going through a LOT of oil. I'm assuming it has worn rings and valve seals but it's really been using oil. It hasn't been leaving puddles so I was thinking it was just losing all of the oil past the rings and valve seals and consuming it. I thought the burning oil smell was just exhaust with a lot of oil leaking out of the ehaust manifolds and y pipe that are rusted out. Guess it's just burning off of the head -- the exhaust manifold is cracked and shoots exhaust right right here. I'm not using any coolant, it does drip a little from the upper radiator hose but I seem to be refilling about what it uses.
This seems to be pretty typical on a lot of the early 5.4s. Also note my Dorman exhaust manifold and studs with 5000 miles and 18 months on them. Not cool.
Unfortunately the truck is not worth a head gasket job. These trucks are miserable to work on. Whoever thought that sticking an OHC engine under the dash on a truck with no dog house needs to never work as an automotive engineer again.
I'll either run it until it catches fire, or mixes oil and coolant then list it on FB Marketplace/CL or run it to the scrapyard.
On a good note, that casting plug will never rust out
This seems to be pretty typical on a lot of the early 5.4s. Also note my Dorman exhaust manifold and studs with 5000 miles and 18 months on them. Not cool.
Unfortunately the truck is not worth a head gasket job. These trucks are miserable to work on. Whoever thought that sticking an OHC engine under the dash on a truck with no dog house needs to never work as an automotive engineer again.
I'll either run it until it catches fire, or mixes oil and coolant then list it on FB Marketplace/CL or run it to the scrapyard.
On a good note, that casting plug will never rust out
