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Looking For Leakers In Ford's Duratec 3.0L Engines

Ford Duratec engines manufactured for the 1999 model year vehicle applications may have a greater tendency to leak.

If you have ever experienced the joy of doing a plumbing project you learn very quickly about how the proper amount of heat in the right place will literally leach the solder into the joint to seal the copper pipe properly – or not. It becomes obvious where you failed to do so once you open the main water valve and you suddenly realize you have a leak.

That is exactly what can happen with the 3.0L DOHC Duratec Ford engines. In particular, those engines manufactured for the 1999 model year vehicle applications may have a greater tendency to leak.

It seems that engines built prior to 6/15/1999 used one head gasket and cylinder head/block combination and after that date used another. All of the casting numbers and details will be coming in an article later this year but for right now we are going to give you the basic information and images to keep you from having a leaker.

There are three different areas which clearly identify which head gasket is which and a small change was made to the coolant port area between cylinders No. 2 and No. 4 on the right bank.

If the wrong style head gasket is used you will have a coolant leak to the exterior of the engine, which on initial start up changes your shoulder posture from bold and robust to hunched over and distraught, usually with a small moan connected to it. So before that happens let me give you that "one thing" you need to know: if you have an F5 or F7 block use the early gasket; if it is an XW block use the later gasket.

If you look at the pictures you can see why. First compare the head gaskets early and late (Figure 1), noticing the three different color boxes on both gaskets, and corresponding expanded views with the same color borders (Figures 2, 3 and 4). All the pictures show the early view on the top and late view on the bottom. Then look at the expanded view of the cylinder head (Figure 5) and you can see the minor difference in the castings.

Put the wrong gasket on the wrong head and you'll have your leaker.