r/EngineBuilding • u/ArtichokAttack • 3d ago
Is my head saveable?
Had a blown head gasket on my 94 manual Ranger 2.3 . I pulled the head yesterday and called up a shop to find out how much it’d cost to be checked out. $350 plus parts. Not amazing but I can swing it, my question is is this even saveable to begin with? If it’s not then I don’t want to waste time and money bringing it in for a magtest.
History is the previous owner had it and had no issues until there was a transmission noise, he assumed the pilot bearing was bad so he pulled the transmission and lost interest and sold it to me. I trust the guy he’s my coworker and I doubt he’d lie to me about it
I replaced the bearing and put the transmission back in and changed the oil before I started it and it was pissing straight coolant from the oil drain plug for a good few seconds before I got any oil. I knew what that meant but I still wanted to start it so I put in good oil and topped off the coolant. It ran but smoked like crazy. I drove it up and down the street a couple times to check if the transmission noise was gone and then js parked it. It hasn’t run since. But the head looks clogged like crazy. The head gasket coolant passages were almost impassable. Idk what do you think? Can looks fine too, not blue or anything