Hi,

Ok, so my 60 Lincoln Premiere coupe has been burning an awful lot of coolant, has white steam blowby and doesn't run all that well. Clearly, we have a problem!

Sooo... I just got done pulling the heads, and thisis what I found... Am I crazy or does this not look like an engine that's been burning coolant? Btw, cylinders look real good, was thinking maybe a light hone and new rings while I'm at it? Engine has 45k miles.

Although those stains on the cylinder head did worry me..... I'm planning in taking heads to machine shop on Monday.

Passenger side head:



Passenger side cylinders:



Drivers side head:





Drivers side cylinders:



Third cylinder from front on drivers side..



Whatcha think?

A slow coolant leak into the intake is not necessarily detectable with the naked eye. If it was the headgasket that leaked, you'd see bubbles in the rediator tank.
The blowby is hopefully caused only by a varnished ring. This can be dealt with externally, without having to take the engine apart. Unfortunately, it's too late.
Otherwise, judging by the exhaust valve deposits, the engine looks healthy, as if you take it on the freeway. However, that darker valve on the end is a clue as to which cylinder is giving you worries

Stig,

Thanks. It does see a lot of high speed driving on the freeway, it routinely cruises at 60-80mph so that makes sense.

I'm going to smack the cylinders in solvent which should free the rings up. Long terms plan to build a hotter engine for the car but for now I'd just like to get the poor thing functional.

Heads are going to the machine shop on Monday and I hope to have it back on the road within the week.

Ill post what the machine shop says. When I took the intake off the intake gaskets did come apart so that's possibly a big part of the problem. I did soak the cylinders in gasoline and they did hold fuel for over an hour.

You can do the same with the cylinder head. We used to evaluate valves and seats by turning the head up on its belly and filling the combustion chamber with gasoline (if I remember right). I wouldn't do it with modern fuel, because the junk they add in will evaporate (well, at least the unleaded here in Germany gets cut with additives like benzol, as well as with a certain percentage of mandatory ethanol), leaving you with a falsified conclusion. The viscosity of diesel oil might be a little high for that. I'd ask around as to what's suitable.
You can check out the valve play yourself, if you can get hold of a simple valve spring compressor. When you remove the valve, put it back in backwards and see how much it wiggles.
When you do the preliminaries yourself, you'll know if your machineshop is taking you to the cleaners, if you get billed for unnecessary valvetrain service

Looks like the head gaskets weren't sealing properly.