i bought a really clean 97 4.2 4wd for a very good price because the previuos owner had passed away an his son assured me that it only needed a o2sensor an a maf cleaning thats why it ran so rough well short story had it towed home an it wont start at all so i scheduled to have it sent to my mec. an we got like 33inchs of snow so i just put it of until the snow could be removed well today the tow guy came to take it an i decided b4 you hook up let me pull a plug an check for coolant cause this site was polluted with hydrolock stories well you can guess the outcome. coolant in the all over the plug i removed.... so my questions are is it easier to just switch out to a salvage motor/what years motors can be easily swapped with the 97 an finally is it even worth my time to dial up my local ford dealer about recalls on this motor.. any advice would be greatly appreciated.thks sean salem oh

 

Water in the cylinder could be a head gasket. Hydrolock occurs when there is fluid in the cylinder which can't be compressed. In a running engine, the sudden introduction of fluid of some mass into the cylinder will cause catastrophic failure when the water blows out the cylinder wall. If it's just a blown head gasket, it might not be that big a deal. I don't know any recall that's going to replace a 13 year old engine.

 

I looked into this, there is no recall for this known issue with Ford..just a TSB..technincal service bulletin..which basically says there is an issue, here's how to fix it but make the customer pay for it. If you keep this motor make sure you replace the upper/lower intake gaskets and the timing cover gasket. Make sure you get the gaskets from Ford..the Felpro ones are not as good and could leak again.
Check www.v6f150.com they have a whole section dedicated to just this issue.

 

its the intake gasket...I looked and asked for 2 years. ford would never say a word but after I had fixed it i found a si on the jasper engine rebuild site