I'm trying to figure out a white smoke out the exhaust problem. It started after overheating my 350 at 260 for about 10 minutes. I was hoping to to find a blown head gasket for the sake of low cost of repair. But anyway, when I pulled off the head gaskets, I really didn't know exactly what I was looking for cause I've never seen one that was blown or had a problem. Should it be something obvious, or could it be so small that it could go easy undetected? I haven't ruled out a cracked head cause that would be the next logical thing if the gaskets check out ok. And by the way, they are Fel Pro's .015 compressed embossed shims that are metal with a rubber coat.

 

My friend just bought a set of those head gaskets today.... it would be quite obvious if one of those were blown. I suppose it's possible that you cracked or warped a head. Only thing I can suggest is putting on new head gaskets and hoping that it solves your problem.

 

well I already checked the head surface for flatness with a very striaght edge and feeler gauges and they seemed to be ok there. I already have the motor out of the car now so I really want to get it right the first time so I think that instead of saying to my self "they might be cracked, I wonder if they're cracked, nah they wouldn't be cracked" yadda yadda yadda...I'm just going to go to a machine shop and find out for sure.

 

Good idea. Reminds me of something I should have done. I wish I would have had new valve guides put in my heads before I dropped my engine in. The guy that I bought the heads from had completely redone the heads with new everything except the valve guides. Instead he put valve guide sleeves in there. A couple people told me not to trust the sleeves and just pay to have new guides put in. I didn't listen and now my passenger side valve guides are leaking.

 

Not familiar with the gaskets, but anyway..

There should be a silver ring around each cylinder on the gasket. If there is an area where its brown rather than nice and shiny, it was probably leaking there. The head and block should have a clean 'ring' around the cylinder from the gasket. Any breaks in that ring are areas where it was leaking. Common places for leaks are the areas between the cylinders and the side where the spark plug is.

If any of the pistons or the combustion chambers are really clean, water was getting in there. Heres an example:

 

Number 2 cyl sure is purdy an' kleen...

I have a set of those .015 thin gaskets and I just havn't felt good about trying them yet. I can't convince myself that little compression is worth the possibility of a leak. I have been using the GM composites of late. And have never had a prob with those or any other of the thicker Felpro gaskets.

 

Madmax, the gaskets he's referring too are completely shiny metal gaskets that are .015" thick.

Tom91Bird ...... what did you use to seal those gaskets? With those metal gaskets you're supposed to use a specific kind of sealant .... it's a tacky spray on sealant made by Felpro specifically for those gaskets to seal them. If you didn't use this then it's possible that's why you had the leak.

 

Well in the instructions that came with the head gaskets, it said to use some of that compound if the block or head surfaces weren't completely smooth, but the looked pretty smooth to me. Maybe Fel Pro and myself have two different ideas of what smooth is. But I'm taking the heads to the machine shop tomorrow morning. If the check out ok, I guess I'll just put everything back together and use some of gasket compound this time and hope for the best.

 

I like your car.

 

Thanks for the compliment on my car. I have to get a new pic of it with my 17X8 Konig Five-O's on it.