Possible leaking head gasket causing rough idle.

[GreeCguy]

Howdy again fellow Bitogers and a good afternoon to all:

On a previous post about my leaking radiator, one reply got me to thinking. Back in November of last year, my son was driving the world renown "Bluesmobile," (1993 Ford Taurus GL 3.0 V-6) when the upper radiator hose let go. He didn't notice and pegged the heat gauge. When he got it home, I installed a new upper hose and flushed the cooling system and all was well. But I noticed after that that at idle, the engine runs a little rough, like it has a slight irregular miss to it. I've run several kinds of injector cleaner though the fuel system with no improvement. Plugs, wires, cap, rotor and coil have all be replaced about 25,000 miles ago.

Going down the road is no problem for this car and it has plenty of power, although I noticed lately that it does "ping" under hard acceleration.

While there is no oil in the coolant and no coolant in the oil, is it possible I have a small leak in my head gasket that is causing the engine to idle rough?

Thoughts, opinions, ideas?

 

[ARCOgraphite]

Maybe you have Oxygented fuel down there now?

 

[99Saturn]

What's the recommended interval on the car for plugs, wires, cap and rotor?

Could that be a good place to start? I had a very similar problem to what you outlined as the symptoms and it seems to be solved by new plugs. At most the ones I replaced had 38K on them, but I think it was less.

 

[SuperDave456]

Taurus's have Double Platinum plugs.
I've had one go bad at 80,000 miles.

I have a 2002 Taurus with v6 3.0 Vulcan SOHC.
I also have a similar issue.
I had really rough idle until I recently replaced the solenoid pack. Moral of that story is buy OEM, Denso in this case.

However, much like you, I'm still losing coolant somewhere and I still have a periodic rough idle.
I can fill up my pressurized coolant tank and after a couple hours driving around town, it is low again.
I know these tanks are prone to cracking and leaking every 5 years or so, but last time that happened it was obvious.

Good question.

 

[eljefino]

Maybe the ping is a warped exhaust manifold? Maybe the intake is also warped and leaking air?

 

[exranger06]

Originally Posted By: SuperDave456
I have a 2002 Taurus with v6 3.0 Vulcan SOHC.

The 3.0 Vulcan isn't a SOHC, it's a pushrod engine.

 

[TFB1]

If it's not leaking/mixing coolant or oil, chances a head gasket is defective are slim(I have blown one between cylinders without oil or coolant issues, but obviously it ran poorly)... You should run a compression/leak down test to confirm the engines engines integrity..