Help me Obi Rod Kenobi! Multiple issues. rough idle, Mystery ingredient

[CrapaTaurusWrecks]

Ok this one is for Jedi masters only!
I've been driving a Taurus for more than ten years. My Ford has made me a great mechanic. I haven't had to post on here for awhile.
This one has me stumped.

2001 Taurus SE wagon 3.0 flex fuel ohv vulcan. 170,000 miles

My car was running perfect with no issues. I was driving home from work and noticed the temperature gauge was reading very hot. I was on a very long, elevated freeway interchange so it took me a couple of minutes of driving like this before I could safely pull over. My code reader showed the engine was 280 degrees when I turned it off. There was no obvious signs of a blown gasket or anything as a result of it being so hot.
When I got the car home I discovered that I had a bad thermostat. I replaced that and the overheating went away but when I drove the car it had a rough idle and would intermittently go into a open loop fuel system fault (according to my code reader) and lose power. after about 30 seconds it would pop out of the fault and resume running normally in a closed loop. I commute 30 miles to work and this would happen about 4 times. Each time the CEL would flash on and off until it went back to a closed loop. Once it was back in a closed loop the only code I got was P0301, Cylinder 1 misfire.
Since this started I've replaced the thermostat, and for good measure I replaced the water pump and serpentine belt. I've replaced the spark plugs and coil pack. The old spark plugs looked pretty good, the coil pack was reading low resistance on the ohm meter.
While I was under the hood I was explaining how an engine works to my teenage son and when I got to the PCV valve I removed it to show him and this is where it got very weird. When I took the hose off that goes to the air manifold there was a sludge in both the hose and manifold. The sludge had the consistency of runny pudding and was tan in color. It didn't have much of an odor. I am confused as to what that could have been or where it came from. I replaced the upper manifold gasket a couple months ago and there was nothing in there at that time.
So I cleaned the sludge out thoroughly ( I removed the upper manifold and checked below it and there was no sludge under it.)
After cleaning it out and reassembling everything I started the car and it runs worse that before. After running rough for a minute I turned it off and reinspected the PCV hose and there was a tiny bit more sludge and some water drops. The front catalytic converter was glowing orange, the rear cat looked normal. The engine was normal temperature.
I thought maybe the spark plug wires may be bad so I checked the resistance and they were all different.
1- 8.4, 2- 7.5, 3- 7.1, 4- 5, 5- 5, 6- 3.4 ohms. I don't know what they should be.
Sorry for the long post, I didn't want to leave anything out because I need to get this fixed so I can drive to work tomorrow.

For anyone that made it through this post I'd really appreciate some advise on what to check or replace next.
Anyone have any ideas as to what that sludge is and where it might be coming from?

Thanks,

TaurusGLenn

[65comet]

My guess is bad head gasket or cracked head. Though these tests don't always show it, I'd do a compression test on the cylinders and a pressure test on the cooling system. I think coolant is leaking into the engine, being heated up and evaporating then traveling through the PCV and condensing back into sludge.

[CrapaTaurusWrecks]

I did a compression test and the numbers were lower than the last time I did the test six months ago. All of the cylinders were in the 150psi range before. When I performed the test yesterday I got;

cylinder 1- 90 psi
cylinder 2- 127 psi
cylinder 3- 151 psi
cylinder 4- 150 psi
cylinder 5- 110 psi
cylinder 6- 158 psi

All of the cylinders held the presser. There was no drop on any cylinder after 5 minutes. I retested the low psi cylinders and got the same reading.
All of the spark plugs looked good and dry.
There was some steam coming out of the tail pipe and some water was in the PCV hose again.

My next question would be, why would the cylinders hold pressure? Shouldn't it have leaked out the crack?
Why would there be a low pressure reading on both banks? Did I blow both sides?
My dad always told me to never use Bars leak but I'm at the point where I'm thinking about trying it. Has anyone had any positive results with it? I've seen some people on YouTube that say it worked for them.

This car is only worth about $1500 so if I can't fix it myself this may be the end of the road for Goldy.

Thanks for any advise,

TaurusGLenn

[TaurusKing]

I would have a leakdown test done, much more accurate than compression test. I had one done on a 1993 Taurus w/ the infamous 3.8 L, confirmed what I thought, blown head gasket.