'00 Focus needs head gasket

This year, April, or 5 month ago I bought this from FL to use as a business delivery vehicle.
'00 Ford Focus Z-tech engine w/ 69k miles. It now has 10k more miles in the past 5 months.

Last week one of the drivers ended up on the side of the road, out of coolant.
The culprit seemed to be a cracked coolant reservoir. Easy fix.
Seven days later the same car is again on the side of the road, again out of coolant.

Into the shop. On pressure test they see leaking that seems like it could be waterpump.
With timing belt cover off and pressure test the leaking is coming from near the t-belt tensioner above the water pump. Seems to be head gasket.

How many book-hours is a head gasket on this?

Im trying to figure what this will cost to have done in a shop.

That's a really weird one. Usually the water outlet fails. That's on the other side of the engine.

It's really the Zetec engine and not the SOHC engine? Because if it is the SOHC engine, just walk away from it, it will drop an exhaust seat very soon after running at all hot.

Either way the water pump is directly under the deck IIRC and the only way to be sure it's not a leaking water pump gasket would be to take it down to that level. Which you'd have to do in order to R&R the head, anyway.

It is a true Zetec.
Photo found on the web.

Under pressure tester, water comes out from the silver tab area of the yellow roller.

These cars did not have a low coolant level sensor in the reservoir and overheating/dropping valve seats was quite common since most people don't check fluid levels.

With the coolant filled, the car drives fine. To get the car off the highway, I filled it and drove it. No high temps in that 8 mile drive.

The Zetec is solid, it doesn't drop seats. I know of one that ran practically a full day of rallycross without coolant in it, engine didn't really care either way Still going strong as far as I am aware.

I can't remember if there is a core plug under there or not. That high up makes me think that the tensioner arm rides inside a recess that is sealed by a core plug. That would be my first assumption, since that looks like it is higher than the deck surface.

Either way the rear timing cover needs to come off before you know for sure. An external coolant leak on an engine not known for external head gasket leaks is very, very bizarre, and I'd want to make 100% certain before doing Major Surgery.

Did some digging. Found an excellent image that I cannot get to hotlink, but this should be good too:

That bolt hole to the left of the core plug is what the tensioner bolts to. As you can see, the head gasket is well below where the tensioner pulley is. A coolant leak from above that point would not be from the head gasket. I'd be more inclined to think that the core plug blew out. The threaded plugs seal oil passages.

I personally witnessed the leak coming from that spot.

My usual fleet maintenance is done at an independent Tire/Brake/Alignment type shop. They are very capable but don't really like jobs of over 3 hours. Longer jobs tend to tie up a bay too long and hamper business for them.

They buttoned it back up and I drove it the 2 miles home today on fully topped fluid.
I have an appointment at another place that my regular guy recommended and who I know has a quality reputation. As such, the earliest appt I could get is Weds.

In reply to Knurled:

I don't think you're that far from me. Do you want the job?

Strange! As Knurled said it is usually the water outlet on the other end of the block and in a few cases the water pump gasket. In 15 years working on Zetecs I have never seen one leaking there.

In reply to JohnRW1621:

I'm a bit over an hour away.

I'm also working with something like a three week backlog of work, probably longer actually, so unfortunately no.

The good guys are always booked up!

As for the distance, I'd likely just had AAA drop it at your door. I think your under 100 miles but I'll admit I'm not sure where you are. I think North Ridgeville but could be Mentor too.

Just on the other side of Ridgeville, actually.

I'd figure that it would be the labor for timing belt R&R, plus additional once we'd get in there and find the leak. And since it is apart, it'd be silly not to replace the belt and idlers, especially if it's the flavor of Zetec with the plastic idler low on the exhaust side that LOVES to fail and cause the belt to come off/shred itself... it's the while-you're-in-theres that add up, but also result in the car being "Done" instead of back every two weeks for something else.

And I'll admit to being optimistic that it's just a failed/blown core plug. For all I know, the head could be cracked, which is another weird thing but I've seen weirder. (It's always the weird things that stick with you, not the mundane)

An update on this one.

Turned out to be the soft plug as commented above. Still a big job and with 78k miles on the 16 year old motor I had all the "while you're there's" done also.
Soft plug
New t-belt
New tensioners New water pump
Oil changed Coolant topped
(the motor mount on that side was already new)

$590 bill but done and should be good for another 100k of belt, etc.

Never seen one like that before, but you did all the right things to make it good for at least another 100K.

Had the plug rusted through, or was it leaking between it and the head? Odd failure that high up on the motor.