[nosho96gl]

How are the vulcan headgaskets? My uncle is telling me that my car will need a headgasket at 100'000 because they are garbage and before i get parnoid and buy a new car i was wondering what people have experienced.

 

[Rockledge]

He must be thinking about the 3.8L.

The Vulcan is not known for HG issues, although they can blow if you overheat the engine. But you can say that about virtually any motor.

If your cooling system is working OK and you flush the coolant regularly then you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Guest]

Mine went at 80k, but it was my own fault. Misfire, low coolant, car overheated. Been fine ever since though. The good thing is, it was easy as hell to do.

 

[tmonster]

Never had a problem with any Vulcan, not even head gaskets. Tell him to do some homework

 

[Ecomike]

If a lower radiator hose suddenly leaked while on the freeway, and the sudden loss of coolant caused it to overheat, would that blow a head gasket? In other words does it matter if there is any coolant pressure left or not when it over heats as to whether or not a head gasket leak is likely? In my sons case he says it overheated and died literally in just a few seconds, so I don't see how the head gasket or head could get damaged that quickly? It is 96 Vulcan 3.0 L. The battery died just before or just after the coolant leak (+/- a few days), and now its throwing misfire codes, mostly Cyl #1, and no other codes, with a rough idle.

 

[carfixer68]

The #1 cyl. is the most common area bllown on these engines. Pull the plug and see if there's coolant on the plug. Also, do a compression test.

 

[gohim]

Blown headgaskets were common on the Vulcan engines of 86-90 cars due to overtorquing of the headbolts by Ford's computerized bolt tightening machines, and inferior quality headbolts. This usually occured between 60-100K miles.

I know at least a dozen people who bought new Taurii with Vulcan engines during this period, and all of those cars had the headgasket/broken bolt problem.

Overheating was also caused by broken intake manifold bolts for the same problem, which also lead to blown headgaskets.

The problem was not completely solved until the 91-92 model years. Since the affected cars are all well over 100K, and have all been repaired by now, most people have not heard of this once common problem, or have forgotten about it.

 

[mwt]

Pull the #1 cylinder which is on the rear bank closest to the passenger side.

Do a compresssion check

Mike
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