[NathanE]

My cousins 2001 Escort SE auto with 134k on it decided to drop and eat the valve seat in montana... She's a 105lb blond who knows how to check the tires and the oil, and the mechanic told her
"main bearings went out, one seized and spun on the crank and hit a piston head and the piston came apart, so now it's running on only 2 or 3 cylinders...

says the man at mr. t's"
Towed it back to wisconsin, cylinder head came off, #4 piston got it's ass KICKED by the valve seat. I "think" it might be useable still, but I'm unsure. I will remove it from the bore to see if it damaged the ring lands or anything.
I'll get pix up eventually, its pretty cool

~Nate

 

[cklaubur]

I'd really be interested in hearing that mechanic explain how a spun main bearing could hit the piston...

To be honest, I'd replace the piston anyways, just to be certain it will be reliable. I know, some people on here have reused pistons that have been damaged by pieces of a valve seat, but if it was me, I'd only want to deal with this problem once.

Casey

 

[denisond3]

I would only re-use the piston if it still met the original specs - for diameter and roundness around the skirt, for clearance in all the ring grooves, and here is the hard one: the wrist pin to its bore clearance was still the same. Any amount of piston distortion that makes the wrist pin bore 'bent' would cause me to throw the piston away.

You know you also have to clean out any bits from the intake manifold right? I blew into the int. manifold with carb cleaner, then with gunk degreaser, then flushed it with water and suds.

What the mechanic said makes me wonder how many folks he has spoken BS to.

 

[NathanE]

Removed piston, it's junk. Crushed the ring lands. Bearings look great, they're going back in. New piston, install of old rod, and install of rings $50 or so. Not bad. Bores looks great. Passes the fingernail test, MINIMAL skuffing on #4.

Total so far is about $500 for J&C reman head, all gaskets, all fluids/supplies, a new battery, and a seat for my neon (her dog ate the seat in the 30 secs we left him in the car)

The mechanic wanted the car (01 no rust full option esocrt in a collage town with new struts, brakes, and tires)

He said that "he'd junk it"
She said she'd rather have it towed back to wisconsin...

Pix will be up by the weekend. Not a hard project at all.

~Nate

 

[LOWETGT]

Good catch! There are some real crooked S.O.B.s out there that are either truly incompetent, or make their money with misdiagnosis.

 

[NathanE]

Yeah, or dickheads who take a short skinny collage chick for a moron. Dude saw the dollar signs when the car came in the shop. It would resell for 2500ish easy enough. in a collage town...

Parts come in on Wednesday
~Nate

 

[Strycker]

Might be a dumb question, but does this involve removing the engine at all or is it all fairly simply as long as you have the time? Not sure what went wrong with mine, but it's probably similar. I like tinkering, and am out of a job now with the car having issues, so I have the time

 

[LOWETGT]

Once the head is off and things are inspected, you will be able to tell if block needs replacement. If cylinders prove to be in good usable shape, then the piston(s) can be removed and replaced without removing the engine.

 

[NathanE]

Problems...

I did this over my leave from Iraq, and I dont have pix of anything

I had a BUNCH of issues getting the timing correct, and I think It's still not right (but I'm away)

First I went by the marks that I made on the camshaft, crankshaft, and timing belt. It started up, but ran like hell. Forgot to loosen center bolt of tentioner and reset tension.
Had issues getting the timing correct since...

On the crank there is an arrow, and a tab that sticks up. First timed with arrow up, cam appeared to be less then 1/2 tooth off, reman head, shaved mabey?. Is that normal?
Aligned the cam with the arrow on the head.

Backfired through intake. Baffeled, I thought it "could" be 180 off...

Second time I set the timing, I turned the crank one time (crank turns twice, cam turns once, right?) and set the cam to align with the head (again, less then 1/2 tooth off with no slack in the belt after turning it over twice by hand)

It backfired through the exhaust.

I then set the timing with the TAB alined with the mark on the block, and it ran. It ran good, and I took it for a test drive. It ran GREAT for 5 or so miles, with me shutting it off once to get gas for it and then restarting it. When I first started it it took a while to fire(aprox 3 seconds), I assumed this was to the car learning it's initial values again. Second startup, it was less then 1 second.

Now it apparently wont run (have no more info then that)

Is it possible that it's 180* off still? I know it died when running, that's IT.

Also wondering how to determine if it is timed correctly with a foolproof method (work on the car is switching hands)

Thank you all very much
~Nate

 

[NathanE]

Alt died, I guess.

Found some pix

Spark plug had a small nick on the end of the threads, fwiw. Cylinder number 4 (closest to drivers side of car)

~Nate

 

[LOWETGT]

Yup, sorry bud. That sucks royally and the plug looked ok?

 

[BOOSTER_PR]

well i am a victim to not to long ago...and i am still working on it because the machine shop is making some goodies to the head...now about the piston,well...
i went to a junker for ford only cars and bought a piston for $20 bucks...

 

[white-lightning]

That looks worse than my 96 1.9, I am putting a SPI back in though.

 

[NathanE]

New piston, rings, and labor for installing to the used rod was $100.

~Nate

 

[BOOSTER_PR]

what is strange about it is that your escort is 2001...normally this things happens to the 1997-1998 escort or am i wrong?

 

[white-lightning]

I had a customer come in at work that bought a head gasket set for a '01 and when I asked why he said it dropped a valve seat.

 

[deltacornbread]

That looks familar. Anyone who has one of these engines and has not dropped a valve seat needs to go ahead and pull head and have seats replaced. I think it is a matter of when , not if.

Alt died, I guess.

Found some pix

Spark plug had a small nick on the end of the threads, fwiw. Cylinder number 4 (closest to drivers side of car)

~Nate