Hello everyone, I am new here, Jeremy is my name, I come here for help. I have an 02 escape 3.0 with 92k miles. It was grandmas and never got driven so it has low miles, it’s always ran like a top, really great and got good mileage, but now I am having some issues I can’t figure out and I’m hoping someone else here smarted than I am and knows more about engines can help/answer my questions.

To start off, car has never had any issues other than gas and oil changes it had no issues until the headers recently started to crack and the crack opened bigger and bigger every heat cycle, and the exhaust leak got loud and louder. It was so ghetto that it came to a point I didn’t want my wife or myself to drive it so I decided I need to fix it. Car ran great otherwise and had good power. Just was terrible sounding. I took of the front cat/manifold and tried brazing it but that didn’t work. So I ordered 2 Dorman header/catylitic converters for front and rear. Figured I’ll just get both done at same time as there is allot of stuff you need to remove to replace these. So I got them replaced and the terrible exhaust leak finally was gone but now there was a new problem. The car now had no power at all. The car literally could not go up a 2% incline hill with the throttle floored. The car was missing really bad and codes came up with 4,5,6 cylinders missing. So I ordered and replace the factory coils with factory ford oem coils. Problem didn’t change. On a forum someone talked about replacing the PCV valve, I noticed the 90deg elbow hose that goes to pvc was being sucked almost flat. So I got a new PCV valve, but no change. If felt like the exhaust was so restricted, like a banana or rag was in the tail pipe, so one night a thought came to me…..maybe bonehead me left a rag in the pipe or something stupid and plugged the exhaust. Today I removed the second stage cat/muffler assembly and I was shocked to see the front of that cat plugged with honeycomb pieces and silver looking converter dust form the cats that I can only assume came from the ones up by by the engine. I tried to shine a light through this secondary cat but can’t see anything . It is severely plugged up! So I figured maybe the original cats/exhaust manifold/headers that I just replaced were failing and falling apart. I still had the old ones so I look inside the exit end of them and they are in perfect shape. Not clogged and certainly not falling apart or any pieces missing. I literally had chucks of honey comb fall out of the second stage cat. It was allot. So if my original cats were not the case of plugging out this downstream cat, then what can it be from. Tomorrow I plan to remove the “y” pipe and look at the brand new Dorman/manifold/headers I just replaced. I’m betting I’ll find one that is missing chunks. And if I do find pieces missing, how is that possible on a bran new catalytic converter?

so it seems being plugged is the cause for the severe loss of power. I mean even on flat ground the car barely moves at full throttle. Now on to my concerns/questions that I came here for advice on.

I started the car and idled/revving up the car without the secondary cat/muffler on to see if there was any change. And it did. It didn’t feel so sluggish, it actually felt like revved up like it used to without hesitation. But the funny thing is now when I remove the crank case breathing tubes or oil fill cap, at idle actual exhaust gasses are coming out of both banks, it’s not smoke it’s actually exhaust fumes. Puff..puff…puff..puff..puff..puff..puff..puff….pre tty steadily. However, this didn’t happen before because during my checks for intake leaks I pulled these tubes off and they didn’t do this.

So, I am wondering if anyone has an idea why this may be happening? Could replacing the pcv valve do this? Could the exhaust being so blocked causing allot of back pressure and actually popping up a exhaust valve stem seal or seals? I don’t know if they are pressed fit or if there is a retailer on top of them. Never been into this engine. It can’t be ring blow because it doesn’t even have 100k miles on the engine and it ran great before I changed the manifolds. Perhaps running the engine with the muffler and secondary cat removed lowered the back pressure and cause the exhaust to come out of the valve cover oil fill hole and crank case vents? Or possibly one of the new Dorman cat/manifolds that is coming apart has plugged the pipe and causing to much back pressure so it’s being forced passed the valve guide seals? I know on some engines the intake valve stem seals have an actual oring or Teflon seal and the exhaust doesn’t have any seal because the heat ruins them. The fit between the guide and positive crank case pressure keeps the gases from blowing by. But I’m not sure how this engine works.


I tried researching this but all I find is people asking about each coming out of valve cover and the response is you have major problems going on as the people asking are working on high mileage cars

Any help is greatly appreciated.

thanks, jeremy

 

Hi Jeremy,
Seems like when it rains it pours.
What I would suggest you consider ,

Do a compression test and you will have a better idea of what has happened.
Those 3.0 engines had a problem with receding valve seats and because compression is going south the quickest way to correct this ,if your compression test confirms it ,would be to remove the heads and replace them with a set of reconditioned heads .

For this kind of work and expense , always get more than one opinion and diagnosis.
Also that PCV curved hose should not collapse and that needs to be replaced as well.

The saga doesn't end there, while apart , good time to replace the thermostat , water pump and radiator hoses if they feel squishy.
If you would , please keep us informed as to what you find and decide to correct, thanks.

 

So update…. I finally had time to do a compression test. The findings are really throwing me for a loop. So I removed the intake plenum, plunges etc and started at the front passenger #4-5-6 and each had exactly 60psi, not even a half psi off from one another. And I’m using a new Snapon compression tester, and also confirmed it with a cheaper Napa compression tester and same finding. However the back 1-2-3 cylinders all had 155-160 psi. When cranking over with all plugs out the front 3 make almost no compression noise at all. But the back 3 cylinder have the sound of building compression like it should. I tested each cylinder a number of times with same results. So my question is how is it possible that 3 cylinders simultaneously on the same side all have low compression, and on top of it all are exact the same 60psi? I don’t understand? Most of the time cylinders are never exact but with a certain allowed percentage. So why do these 3 have the same low 60psi. It’s like there is a compression release vale stufk (which is mostly on dirt bikes etc.). I can see 1, or just maybe 2 but not on the same side but here it’s all 3? And reminder this car has been babied it’s entire life. My grandma opened it for ever, around. 40k ford under warranty had to replace 2 engine bearings as it had a slight knock to it. Also I was wrong on my first mileage I gave, it’s 82k, not 92k. Not that it makes a difference.

This car ran like a top with great power, all I did was replace both manifold/cats front and rear because they cracked and the sound was embarrassing, I didn’t want my wife to drive it like that. Now not sure if it’s an issue but I used Dorman cat/manifolds as I couldn’t find oem ones even if I wanted to shell out the cost for them.

i just don’t get how putting the car on ramps, removing skidplate, ac compressor, exhaust, right side half shaft and alternator (which was a PITA, etc. can cause this issue. It makes more sense to me that your driving down the road and have 180k on the car and start to have these issues. The only other thing I changed was the ignition coil’s because it was missing really bad, which was a waste because it didn’t fix the missing issue.

So the day I got both cats/manifolds on and car back together, I started it up and it idled fine, the noise was gone! It was quiet again! So I take it for a drive and at first it has power like normal, then a few minutes into the drive I it was like I lost 3 cylinders(which I did based off my tests). As I’m limping home the power would come and go, it was really odd. Then it got to a point it would barely move on flat ground.

I had a thought maybe the rear cat was plugged, I removed it and sure enough it was, it also has bits and pieces of the honeycomb rattling around in it. Which was another mystery, I inspect my old cats and they weren’t missing any honeycomb, inspected the new Dorman ones thinking maybe one of them was junk, but again with a borescope they inspected perfectly. I know grandma never had them replaced. But when ford did the main bearings they initially thought it was one of the heads and they actually under warranty replaced one of the heads(not sure which one it was). She gets the car back and it has the same knocking sound, so then I get involved because upon getting back there next “findings” was a bad main bearing. You know how this stuff goes, one tech says one thing and they do it then it comes back and another actually find the issue. So they tell her she needs to pay this ridiculous amount for them to fix the bearing. So I had to get involved and force them to make good on the warranty. The car had low ,Ike’s and had year left on the warranty. After arguing with the manager for a few days they finally agreed to fix it under warranty. But I always had a suspicion they sabotaged something. So this unaccounted honeycomb can only be from an outside source when the main bearings were replaced. So maybe the back head is good and the front is toast? I don’t have the old reports to see what they did. Gma died and it all went with her. Guess I can call ford with vin and see what they say.

So my next thought is a leak down test to see where the compression is going. Out intake or out exhaust. I put oil down a low cylinder and it didn’t change reading so the rings aren’t the cause. It’s almost like the head gasket blew between cylinders or something. What would cause the puffs of exhaust coming from the crank case breathers?

Or stop wasting time and yank the head off and see what I see. Unless someone else has an idea? I’m open to any options or tests that might help. Could the timing chain jumped and causing all the valves to open/close at the wrong time or something?

Sorry for the rant…..I’m super frustrated with this car. I always like to give all the info I have because I might miss something or strike an idea in someone, it frustrates me when reading posts and the dude posts no info and is wanting everyone to guess what’s wrong and then tell him how to fix it. So this car has some sentimental attachment but in the end it’s Ford Escape and it’s a car. But with the low miles, I hoped to either keep driving or sell it. But I can’t do either how it is. Just boggles my mind how this happened by itself. If you made it this far, I thank you for your time and patience. Hope your having a good day!

also realized the title says 2.0. It’s a 3.0 v6

 

Anyone have an idea what would cause 3 cylinders to all the sudden have 60psi on one head? I need to find a manual to check the timing chain timing. It would be nice if it was just a chain jump but to fix it is quite involved, if it was the case I guess just replace the one tensioner as the car had low miles. I guess no more then removing heads. Just hard to do in your gravel driveway. I so dream of working on concrete, what a difference it makes!

 

So I finally took it apart today. Was prepared to find timing off. But it wasn’t! I was so angry!😡. Checked it multiple times. Very frustrating. I was so sure that I bought all the stuff to replace the chains etc. at this post I don’t no what to do. I’m in it this far do I pull the head? I actually found out ford replaced this head in question under warranty. And I can tell by the oil stain of the components front bank is allot cleaner. Just don’t get what else would cause all 3 cylinders to have 60psi out of the blue?