"How Bad Is It?" What's Wrong With Our Ford Excursion

Our 2003 Ford Excursion 4x4 started leaking coolant again, about 3 months ago I replaced the small blue hose between the oil cooler and EDR cooler as it started leaking coolant from it. Now the leak is back, and we've noticed it blowing black smoke now under acceleration. We decided to run a cooling system pressure test and we find it building pressure under load unto 16psi which is where our reservoir cap releases at. Also during this test the engine developments a major miss. So we return back to the house incase we have an injector stuck open. Once home, we hook up our scanner and fine a #7 cylinder contribution engine code. We conduct a key on engine off injector test, all 8 pass. We then run a cylinder contribution test and confirm #7 cylinder isn't firing. Our suspicion is that we've blown a head gasket around the #7 cylinder. The family took a vote and the Excursion just got pushed up to the top of the project list.
So we pressure wash and clean up the Excursion to get ready to start working on it. I go over what we have planned for it, including a 2006 F350 chassis that we have to convert it to 1 ton running gear, and coil spring front suspension, upgraded rear suspension. While we're at it, we are going to upgrade the engine to 2005 and new, stc fitting & stand pipe updates, remote external oil cooler, remote oil filter, performance shocks, air bags with cradles, regulated fuel return and more.

Music: "www.bensound.com"