I have mentioned the problems of my '92 Ford Taurus GL (3.8 engine) a few times, lately, on this board. One matter a mechanic told me about was the apparent wear on the head gasket (it’s a V-6 and thus has two), which has caused billowing white exhaust and spritzing leaking oil appearing on surfaces surrounding the engine block.
What I have wondered about, however, is that the engine has also sometimes lost its pep. It will get weak and stall. This morning I had the hood up and kind of pushed at the distributor end of the spark - plug wires to make sure they were snug. When I started the car it roared into power; no struggling or stalling.
So is the loss of power independent of the head-gasket wear?
You may have had a misfire caused by a loose HT lead - on a V6, having one cylinder not firing isn’t usually a huge problem other than being short about 1/6 of the normal amount of power.
The bad head gaskets are a much more serious problem. :eek:
Well, I know that. I just want to make sure I understand aright that the loss of power has no connection with the head gasket(s)–a major headache in themselves. So far all that has obliged me to do is keep adding water to the radiator, not that I think that won’t prevent something worse from happening farther down the road (even literally). Oddly enough, the engine DID lose power–and stall–on two occasions during the day after it overheated and I had added water–both times after I had tried to remove the radiator cap before waiting long enough and the nearly-boiling water started to spurt.
um, you had better make sure coolant isn’t getting into your oil or you’ll be trashing the engine.
It would seem that the easiest way to check that is to examine the dipstick. Look for telltale water on it. (I have been adding plain water, not coolant–the cost of coolant being what it is, and the cooling system leaking the way it is, I don’t add coolant at all.)
To answer your question, yes and no.
Yes, you can have a power loss due to a bad spark plug wire connection. Fixing the connection will restore power.
No, that is not your only loss of power. The bad head gasket is costing you power, as well as likely to ruin either your cylinder heads, you engine block, or both. If you aren’t going to fix the head gasket problem, you need to be looking for another car.
Well, I know that has to be done, and I want to make arrangements for it; I’m thinking of something short-term–a week or so.
Given the car’s age (23 years) on one hand and the cost of a replacement car on the other versus the $1400 that one garage quoted me for several things wrong, I’m looking at the moment for a stopgap idea which can buy me a bit of time while I make more permanent arrangements.
The real bummer, for a non-mechanic like me who has only a rudimentary knowledge of engine parts, is the difficulty of access of the spark plugs and wires (or “HT leads”), since replacing, or tightening, them, which would seem to buy me some time, is all but impossible on this kind of car, given the configuration of the wiring.
You lose compression somewhat where the gasket is leaking. That’s loss of power. You cause the plugs to foul from coolant entering the combustion chamber. That’s loss of power. The combustion process itself is also less than ideal in the affected cylinders. That’s loss of power. Head gasket leaks cause local hot spots. That’s going to permanently warp the aluminum and trash your engine. In the severest cases, enough coolant can enter the cylinders and hydrolock the engine, which could result in bent rods and total engine loss.
you won’t necessarily find plain water on the dipstick; if coolant is getting into the crankcase the oil may be muddy or milky looking. if the oil looks normal then this is likely not happening.
It sound like the head gasket is leaking between cylinders. A compression test will reveal that.
Is there a special gauge mechanics test that with?
Yeah, it made to screw in spark plug holes and then they crank the engine to get the readings.
I’m impressed. In my car I can’t even find the spark plugs, much less touch them with anything.
The mechanic will know where they are and what to do to get to 'em.
I’m glad I’m retired. My back can’t take that bending and twisting anymore. 
A compression test probably isn’t going to tell us too much here, since we already know you’ve obviously got a bad head gasket. A leak-down test, where they pump compressed air into the cylinders and see how much it leaks and where it goes, might be a little more informative as to whether the head gasket (or gaskets) have failed in such a way that you’re going to be able to keep driving it and adding water for a while or if it’s imminently doomed if you don’t fix it.
One quick test , How about open the oil filler cap when the engine is running ? the extra air is from cylinder gases coming out through the holes instead of the normal way.
But forget testing, the oil leak and water leak are going to kill that engine soon.
Another problem is the leaking oil gets onto the ignition system leads and injector wires and everywhere causing electrical problems…spark problems, injector problems,etc
You must cure the oil leak and the pollution filled exhaust…
I’m not exactly sure if this is what you’re saying, but I wouldn’t recommend spending $1400 on repairs for a car that old, I would put it towards getting another one. You can advertise your old car with the blown head gasket on Craigslist as ‘For Parts’ and maybe get a couple hundred for it.
There isn’t anything ‘magical’ about a compression tester. They look like this, and will be just as difficult to use on a car with a bank of hard to get at spark plugs as a socket wrench. Much more so actually, because you still have to remove the plug ***and ***screw in the tester (real mechanics don’t use the rubber, ‘jam-in’ kind). A car lift can sometimes provide easier access to the rear bank from underneath, but believe me car mechanics hate impossible to reach transverse V-6 spark plugs too!
A mechanic who used to work on my car tried his damnedest to fix leaks in the power steering system. He has since retired and I have not been able to locate him; his shop is closed.
The car had been at least usable despite its problems–until yesterday. Then it started leaking power steering fluid really badly. Like a sieve, almost. The car became extremely hard to steer and I gave up any further plans to drive it anywhere.
It is almost as if the reservoir had sustained a large breach in the underside–I don’t know if any part of the system is visible from below.
Since you have been adding water instead of coolant, your engine is not protected from freezing. If you live in Florida, no problems. Well, no problems aside from the rust protection & water pump lubrication that the coolant also provides. If you live much farther north, you can freeze the engine, which often breaks the water jacket in the block +/or the heads. If you do not get enough antifreeze in the engine, & it freezes, replacing the head gaskets will not fix the engine. I have seen this happen fairly often. Folks often trip over a dollar trying to save a dime.
Explain again why you are not fixing things as they happen. What good does it do you to keep adding water instead of replacing the bad gaskets. Consistently overheating the engine will cause even more damage to occur. Why do you do this? Do you hate this car? By this time, you will have to have the heads milled & perhaps the block has warped as well.
It sounds to me like you need to fix the head gaskets, or perhaps a new-to-you car is in order.
The power steering lines are often visible from below the car. I suspect that one of them is split & that the reservoir is fine. You can probably see the leak if you add fluid to the reservoir, start the car & look for where the fluid is coming from. You may have to move the steering wheel for it to leak.
The answer is purely financial. As noted upthread, the mechanics who replaced my radiator (whose own leak I could see) told me it would cost $1400 for the various other things they found wrong in the process, including the power steering. I have discussed this with several people I know, including the lawyer I work with, and he says that it’s likely that other things will go wrong after such costly repairs–after all, the car is 23 years old.
I just don’t have the wherewithal to get things fixed right away, and even in the best-case scenario I am not encouraged by the odds in finding another car for $1400 or any similar sum.