Ok, so I recently purchased a 2003 F150 Lariat 4x4 Triton V8 5.4L with about 180,000 miles. The guy told me it blew a head gasket and had been sitting for about 6 months. I inspected it and it was OBVIOUSLY a blown head gasket. Chocolate milk looking oil on both the dipstick AND oil cap. I put a battery in it and THUNK. All it would do is click. Ok, I figured it's hydrolocked. Not too bad. It's fixable. So I talked him down to $500, handled the title, and then took it home. The next day, I took all the spark plugs out and went to turn the motor over and THUNK! Still nothing. That's when I started getting worried. So I took the serpentine belt off and grabbed a breaker bar to turn the crankshaft bolt with. It wouldn't budge at all in either direction. So now I'm not sure what to do. I poured a mix of automatic transmission fluid and 100% acetone finger nail polish remover into each cylinder to hopefully eat and break down most of the rust. (The number one cylinder overflowed immediately) I'm currently letting it soak overnight. If this was just a blown headgasket, I would be fine. But what if the engine knocks after I put all that money into it? My dad says to fix the head gaskets and if it knocks we can just take the oil pan off and roll new bearings in it. I've never done that but he seems confident. I'm just worried about what all ELSE could be wrong with it from sitting up with water apparently on the pistons. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

P.S.
My buddy says that after it soaks with the trans fluid and acetone, we could try to put it in drive and pull it a few feet with his truck to free up the pistons. Does this sound like it would work?

 

Could a rod have bent when it was turned over while hydro-locked? No experience with that kind of deal at all, but since you got it and gonna take the heads off anyway, take 'em off, then see if the crank turns and go from there...

Good luck!

Mitch

 

Honestly I don't think a rod was bent from just trying to turn it over with the key. There was no movement at all, just that clicking sound

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I would go with a Jasper rebuilt engine. You get a warranty.

It's wise to do this to the truck, especially since it's in good condition and you paid $500.

 

A whole rebuilt engine is a bit outta my price range. I'm needing to do this with putting in as little as possible. Trying to save this engine if at all possible. Otherwise, I'll take $950 as is and at least make a few bucks off of it... I mean it is 4x4 after all..

 

Pull the engine, tear it down, and rebuild it. Otherwise, try to sell the truck as is.

 

Can I rebuild the block without pulling the engine? I only ask because I've never pulled an engine. I'm still learning lol

 

You need to pull it, rebuild both the block and the heads or go get a good used engine out of a junkyard. Otherwise, as I said, sell the truck.

If it has a blown head gasket and has been sitting for several months and is seized up, it's not going to be a simple rebuild. Not easy to save.

 

Ten four. Well I almost have the cylinder heads off. Still disassembling. I'm gonna take a look at the condition of the cylinder walls. Man that passenger side valve cover on this 5.4 is a tight fit! Barely any room to do anything!

 

That's why you pull the engine. Things are pretty cramped under the hood with this generation truck. Engine has to be lifted anyway to drop the oil pan, which I'm betting you are going to have to do.

 

Ok, so today I spent a good few hours fighting with the harmonic balancer pulley. Don't laugh. I left the washer on so all attempts to pull the pulley off failed miserably lol. I finally realized my mistake. When I figured it out, I had the pulley off within 5 minutes. I was so mad at myself lol. But anyways, I then dropped the power steering pump, and there was only 3 bolts holding it on, not the usual 4. That tells me that someone has either replaced the power steering pump or someone's been inside the timing chain cover. That hard to get to bolt wasn't there. So then, I disconnected the sensor that's on the bottom left of the timing chain cover and removed the t. cover. Inside, the passenger side chain guide was broke and just laying there. I noticed a good bit of slack on the passenger side chain but no slack at all on the driver side chain. Then I inspected the crankshaft sensor tooth wheel on the front of the crankshaft and I noticed a little wear and tear. My plan for in the morning is to drop the exhaust manifolds, remove the timing chains, and then remove the cylinder heads. As of now, the engine is still seized up. All I've been doing is disassembly. It should still have the mix of acetone and trans fluid sitting on the cylinders.

Could you maybe give me a brief rundown of how to pull this engine out of the truck? I've never pulled an engine but I've successfully completed my own head gasket installation on 3 separate 98 ford 4.6's.
One problem I have is I don't have a motor hoist but I can borrow my neighbors chain fall and I've got trees lol. Do I just unbolt the block from the trans and unbolt the motor mounts?

 

So today I finally finished removing the cylinder heads. Theres definitely a bit of rust on the inside of the cylinders. I'm gonna attempt to gently remove most of it and see if I can get the motor to turn over with a breaker bar on the crankshaft.

 

Update: The Pistons wouldn't move so I tapped them with a wood block and a hammer. The first one I tapped dropped down all the way to the bottom of the cylinder. There's obviously something wrong internally. After that, I took the starter off and removed all the bellhousing bolts in preperation to remove the engine block. Tomorrow, I'm going to drop the A/C compressor and unbolt the motor mounts. Then I'll be pulling the engine block from the truck. After that, it's rebuild time. I've never rebuilt an engine before but there's a first time for everything. Hopefully I'll have a good truck after this...

 

Something you need to keep in mind - the block and heads need to be thoroughly inspected for damage. You may need one or more pistons, one or more connecting rods, maybe a crankshaft, etc. etc. etc. By the time you finish buying parts to rebuild it and paying a machine shop to do the necessary work, it may be considerably cheaper to take a chance on a junkyard engine that is verified to run.

 

Very good point. I will definitely check into a used engine if I can find one verified.