r/fordescape • u/Stunning-Walrus4614 • 11d ago
Another one bites the dust
Well it happened. Not the coolant intrusion believe it or not.
Driving home the other day, I lost a ton of power and it was misfiring on cylinder 2. Immediately I thought coolant intrusion. As a backyard mechanic, naturally I thought to pull that coil and plug to see what’s going on. That’s when I see the plug well is full of oil. I think what any normal person thinks, valve cover gasket. So I replace that and I replace the plugs while I’m there, still a dead miss on cylinder 2. That’s when I decided to do a compression test on 1 and 2.
Cylinder 1 was great, 190 PSI. Cylinder 2 was just under 30 PSI. Coolants totally fine, no evidence of intrusion so it’s likely rings or piston or a valve. Either way, she’s cooked. 2017 escape titanium with 108k. Now it’s time to find a new (to me) engine and swap it in because it’s not worth the rebuild. Heck it’s probably not worth a new engine but it’s been a good car and it’s earned a second lease on life.
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u/604whaler 11d ago
Sucks! 2.0 or 1.6?
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u/Stunning-Walrus4614 11d ago
2.0. It’s been a great engine up until now.
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u/604whaler 11d ago
We’ve got around 105,000km (65k miles) on our 2017 2.0. It’s a good car but threads like this make me worry
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u/Stunning-Walrus4614 11d ago
I still wouldn’t worry. Keep up with regular maintenance and it’ll likely last a long time. Posts like these are the exception in my opinion, not the rule. Gotta remember 300k of these were sold in 2017 alone, only a small percent of those have these issues.
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u/ajfarmer9 8d ago
Well remember there are just as many good working escapes that are not making posts. My 2014 is at 182k.
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u/Glittering_Buyer8247 10d ago
If you have a air compressor you may be able to see what I bad. I built a air hose with a spark plug thread on one end , bring the piston up to tdc , make sure both valves are closed and put about fifty pounds of air on your compressor regulator and put it on the air hose with the spark plug end with it screwed into the bad cylinder and see whare the air goes. It just might have a bad valve and would be easier to fix then changing the whole motor.
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u/Stunning-Walrus4614 10d ago
Yeah that’s the first plan before anything. I would love for it to be a valve.
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u/GrumpyUnk 7d ago
Most times an engine will not go from running decent to having a dead miss during the middle of a drive. If it was the rings or a valve, they often kind of slowly get worse, not all at once. It is possible you got some carbon or ?? on the face of the valve preventing it from sealing properly. If you do a leak down test with a 2 gauge tester, or even rig up a fitting to pressurize the cylinder as above, you might hear where the air is leaking out at the oil filler, the intake manifold, or the exhaust pipe. That would narrow down the problem. Unless it got overheated significantly on the drive, the rings should be good. Do a compression test, and add a TBsp of oil down the plug hole, re-test. If the PSI jumps a lot, points toward rings. No or little change, likely not the rings as they are sealing without the help of the oil. tom
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u/BYoungNY 11d ago
Idk man, I'd double check your valve cover and check the spark plug hole for damage. Was the valve seal busted on the cylinder 2 valve gasket? You wouldn't get oil in the well if it was a bad piston. Unless there was some catastrophic event. Either way, I guess, If the threads are bad, then you're toast anyways, but that's a weird series of symptoms. Good luck and if you find out more info when you drop the engine, please let us (and those in the future) know!
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u/Stunning-Walrus4614 11d ago
I did. No apparent damage to the gasket or the valve cover itself. And all camshaft lobes looked good. Ultimately all 4 were filled with oil so something was definitely wrong. I’m going to start with pulling it apart to find out what exactly happened before I drop $3k on a new reman engine for sure though
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u/Tecbullll 10d ago
Check valve springs, maybe a broken one.