Ok, I didn't take the advice of many of you and now I'm going to pay for it. I did a mock up of my new motor by bolting on the heads using the actual head gasket to check valve clearances. I reused that rather expensive set of head gaskets rather than buying a new set. My feeling were that I never fired the motor, so I felt like they should be good to go.

Before I change head gaskets, let me run down the symptoms because they are kind of conflicting. First off, the block was magged, then half filled with Hard Blok, so very little chance of a cracked block. There is steam coming from the exhaust and it's running a little rough. The amount of steam was cut down considerably when I retorqued the heads. Here's the funny part, no bubbles or oil in the antifreeze but water is present in the oil. HUH!? Could the water be entering from the intake? Or worse, a cracked AFR head!

Those of you that told me to change gaskets as a precaution can keep the snickering to yourselfs. I'm feeling the humiliation enough as is.

 

I know your not going to want to hear this but water in oil is a sure sign of a bad head gasket .... when you retorqed the head gaskets and it cured part of your problem you should have known what it was

 

Thanks for the repy. Yeah, I'm am not thrilled about the task ahead but in the interest of "making lemonade", I wasn't thrilled with my piston to deck clearance. It's a wide .060 (.015 deck + .045" gasket thickness). I found a gasket that's .028" compressed thickness. That will tighten it up to a better .043.

 

Leakdown test and coolant pressure test will tell you for sure.

 

THEGENERAL

QUOTE
"I know your not going to want to hear this but water in oil is a sure sign of a bad head gasket .... when you retorqed the head gaskets and it cured part of your problem you should have known what it was"

I was told that if any coolant got in the oil that your engine was shot. Bearings would go bad quickly and a rebuild was the only way to go. From your response to wesilva it seems like this is not the case. Please let me know. I too have coolant in my oil and do not want to do a rebuild.!!

 

DNSTA, There's a simple solution for you. Drain your oil (sounds like you already did), pull all the plugs and using a wet/dry vacuum suck at each spark plug hole pulling standing coolant from the cylinders. Coat each cylinder with WD40. Then put a couple of fresh quarts in the pan. Use the same procedure for preoiling your motor as you would if the motor was new. This will flush out most of the coolant contaminated oil, at least long enough for you to change head gaskets. It's leaving the oil in there like that for an extended period that is bad. After the head gasket change, I would complete the oil fill and use Berryman engine flush as directed on the can. Change the oil again and your good.

For me, the situation was terminal. I discovered a cracked block during the head gasket change. Hope you have better luck!