My Son Purchased a 2006 Lincoln LS Sport 3.9 V8 and It Looks Like It has a Blown Head Gasket With Piston Damage

[A.K. McNeil]

Right now when you drive the car for a while, of course the car starts to overheat. When we took the car to a shop, they said that the head gasket is blown, and there is damage to a cylinder. We were looking at possibly rebuilding the motor, but we can't find anyone that has pistons and rings in stock for a 20 year old motor. My son really wants to try to make this situation work. Does anyone have any ideas how we can pull this off?

I have seen used motors out there, but at the prices that are out there, and their mileage, I am afraid that I am looking at more problems. The car has 86000 miles.

 

[Searcher1]

OK, first off these cars develop air pockets in the cooling system like it's their job so I'd suggest doing a cooling system purge first (lots of threads about this around here) and retesting.

Also, instead of rebuilding it's usually cheaper and easier now to use salvage engines. Car-part.com lists many available at varying distances, mileages and part grades so you might look into that instead. That said if it does need an engine it might be better to just get another car since they seem to max out in the $6-8k range now and you'll spend 3-4k getting a shop to re-engine his.

 

[Liquidlounge]

I would dig into this a little further: when you drive the car before it overheats, does it run OK? If it does, I would strongly suspect one of, or multiple common cooling system maladies that affect these cars. I would first address the the thermostat and the housing - they are famous for the tab breaking in the housing and having the t-stat becoming an obstruction. Next, replace the coolant reservoir; if it's the original it's bad and if it's been replaced, it's probably bad - use one of the $90 aluminum ones on Ebay. They now have aftermarket aluminum cooling system parts for the 03-05's and so far, they seem to work great. Lastly, get a basic understanding of how to purge air from the cooling system - it's easy and it's also a great way to diagnose your cooling system's health. If the the car has not been severely overheated, your head gasket is probably just fine. The "damaged cylinder" thing would be rare.