http://www31.addr.com/~stealthe/irocz/rebuild/heads/

The head gaskets I used were from summits stock rebuild kit. At the time I didn't put any thought into them, but now it looks like they are more shims then a conventional gasket material. As mentioned to me before...the brown sludge (oil/coolant?) seeped up the head studs. I'm more concerned about how oil was getting in.

As soon as I started untorquing the bolts oil started dripping everwhere down the the side of the block where the head/block mated together. As you can see, there was alot of seepage. I never had coolant disappear on me, the oil is what concerns me. Is there a different head gasket I can use? All that seepage can't possiblely be due to the studs can it?

 

Looks like there is some coolant/ oil mix especially on the studs in pic #6. Did you put any sealer on the head studs?

 

Yep, sealer was used.

I was told by RB I think, that studs will always leak...don't know how accurate that is. I could care less about the coolant, if it was REALLY leaking coolant wouldn't it be milky? It looks like alot of oil was seeping, which concerns me.

 

I have heard that studs will always leak also, and RB knows his stuff. Unfortunatly I have no experience with studs. I just thought that may be a simple explanation. Good Luck!

 

Coat the threads on the studs with Permatex PST pipe thread sealant...they won't leak then.

I had a set of those Summit gaskets on my heads too and they failed in about a year. The fire rings seperated from the gasket and caused all kinds of problems.

 

Sounds good. Any suggestions on what gasket I should use?

 

There is something wierd about the hone pattern on the cylinder walls. Looks like the hone was held in place while spinning in the bore . Instead of going up and down creating a "cross hatch" pattern on the cylinder walls.

like here

 

I noticed that too, looks like a very very poor hone job, no cross-hatch at all. As far as gaskets I have always had good luck with plain old Fel-Pro head gaskets.

 

damn that does look bad. i'd be finding another engine builder or machine shop, maybe both. i'd also trash the studs and use bolts and fel pro gaskets.

 

Ive never ahd a problem using Fel-pro gaskets, give em a shot.

Everyone I know that had heads studs hated them.

That cross hatch is brutal!! Id take it apart and get that fixed. That will hold up too much oil. Looks like they didnt retract the stones when the machine ran out of strokes and let it sit and spin. Either that or they were trying to take out some more material at the top and let it dwell there for a while to take out some taper.

Do you know your piston to wall clearance now? Is there any room? Id at least take a quick ball hone.

Basically Im saying what everyone else did, and they are correct.

Look here for a better explanation:

http://www.hastingsmfg.com/Service%2...efinishing.htm

 

Is it just me...or does the gasket look thinner then a normal fel pro gasket? I'm just wondering if the gasket is to blame for the oil seepage.

 

Looks like typical head stud mess to me.

I'd recommend doing away with the studs, and using bolts.

The gasket looks mostly OK; there's one cyl that might have been leaking fire, but there's so much rusty water on everything, it's hard to tell.

You might want to consider using a sacrificial anode in your cooling system somewhere. Maybe one of those chrome water outlets that always leaks; the reason they develop leaks, is because they're made of a zinc alloy, and it dissolves from electrolysis; but by acting as the anode, prevents corrosion elsewhere.

Use Loctite PST (pipe sealer with Teflon) on the head bolt threads, and under the heads of the bolts, and on the washers against the head casting.

One more vote for that being a totally unacceptable bore finish.... looks like every cylinder you can see is like that.... somebody deliberately did it wrong. There's supposed to be a "crosshatch", at around 30-45° ideally, from the hone moving up and down as it spins. It's not supposed to just sit still and spin horizontally like that. The crosshatch makes the rings spin around the piston, among other things.

 

Gotta ask....why would you want to use head studs on a motor like this anyways?
I'd look the block over real good for a crack too.

 

I took the crank over to the machine shop today and thats getting cut.

Tomorrow the block is going over. I'll have them do everything (cam bearings, hot tank, rehone etc etc.)

The place I'm going is really good, so I'll see what they think I should do for the rebuild.