Well, I knew it was bound to happen sooner or later. The 4.6 in the ol 98 decided to blow a head gasket (or two). Leaning towards replacing with a new motor instead of doing a head gasket job, don't believe that it has much life left at about 250k. On top of that it hasn't been taken care of for its life. Anybody know an estimate to replace with a 5.4? been looking around and can't find anything solid.

 

https://www.f150online.com/forums/ar...wap-notes.html

 

Thanks, that has a lot of really helpful info. Guess I'll get the money ready!

 

Well, because of the mass amount of white smoke the family and I believed it to be a headgasket. The thing is, it only smoked once. After it smoked the entire 5 miles I had to drive it, I shut it off for a couple days to do some more research. We called the mechanic we just had it at, and he took a look. He told us to drive it about 5 miles and back on the highway to get it warmed up. No smoke at all the entire time. Now I'm not sure what it is. If those block testers (the ones that go into the reservoir to test for exhaust gas) are a good investment, I might get one. This truck is beginning to be a royal pain.

 

You should be able to get a hyrdocarbon test kit as a loaner at O'Reilly's, all you would have to pay for is the bottle of chemicals.

It would be worth it to do a compression test.

 

That sounds a lot better than outright buying one. I believe I can rent a compression test kit from there too, if not Autozone. Here's hoping the compression is good.