Mate bought me his car over the other evening. Despite running fine it sounds more like a traction engine than a V8. He's had it for just over a year and it has always had a slight noise but recently it has been getting worse. He's already replaced the exhaust manifold gaskets thinking it was blowing from the head to manifold joint but that made no difference. I was starting to suspect a head gasket blowing out of the side of the block. See what you think..... https://youtu.be/dKEqPY5rX7A
That is definitely head gasket blowing between cylinder and outside world..
Like this one!
It’s blown either inwards, ( pressure out of oil cap) or outwards as mentioned,
It's definitely outwards, it's much louder underneath the car and no different with the oil filler off. I was expecting to be able to see flames blowing out of the gap and was a bit disappointed when I couldn't. That would have told me which pot it was too but using the infra red thermometer on the manifold was a pretty good clue and pulling the HT lead definitely confirmed it. There's no immediate rush for it but I'll probably make a start on it Sunday and then do a bit in the evenings. Got to order a gasket set anyway and I suspect the head is going to need skimming too. It'll be interesting to get it apart as the engine was rebuilt 3 or 4 years ago. It's already got a stud kit fitted and when he bought it he was told it has a Kent cam and stage 2 heads. It's certainly quick, even running on 7 and a half.
I skim them just as a precaution, but to be honest, as it’s a gasket failure and not a overheat I doubt if they need skimming.
Normally a light rub with some 1200 wet and dry cleans them up nicely, I’ve come across 5 in the past 2 years that have done exactly the same, seems there at the age of the gaskets doing this, unusual on a rebuilt engine unless they used a cheap gasket set.
Almost nice though when its easy to diagnose like that! My flex plate had me looking all over the place... swapping pulleys, alternators etc.
Pleasing to actually find the problem in the end though... even if it meant pulling the engine out to fix. Still didn't get that bloody oil leak sorted though.
Sloth wrote:
Almost nice though when its easy to diagnose like that! My flex plate had me looking all over the place... swapping pulleys, alternators etc.
Pleasing to actually find the problem in the end though... even if it meant pulling the engine out to fix. Still didn't get that bloody oil leak sorted though.
You know you love a challenge 🤬
I'm actually going to try cork gaskets on that rocker cover next... if the oil continues to appear underneath with no evidence from the rockers, then bollocks to it.
Long term I still need a new engine. It's got water glass in the coolant now to hopefully sort the #6 problem - if it works for now, great. If not, oh well. It got a new header tank on the weekend as I noticed stress cracks on both sides of the one it had.
Gilbertd wrote:
It's definitely outwards, it's much louder underneath the car and no different with the oil filler off. I was expecting to be able to see flames blowing out of the gap and was a bit disappointed when I couldn't. That would have told me which pot it was too but using the infra red thermometer on the manifold was a pretty good clue and pulling the HT lead definitely confirmed it. There's no immediate rush for it but I'll probably make a start on it Sunday and then do a bit in the evenings. Got to order a gasket set anyway and I suspect the head is going to need skimming too. It'll be interesting to get it apart as the engine was rebuilt 3 or 4 years ago. It's already got a stud kit fitted and when he bought it he was told it has a Kent cam and stage 2 heads. It's certainly quick, even running on 7 and a half.
You're going to want that 12 point socket back then! I better get it in the post to you.
Not necessarily, I've got a set of deep ones too. Got the coils, LPG injectors, alternator, PAS pump and AC compressor off it so far so I'm down to the engine. Head should be off by tomorrow evening so I can drop it in to be skimmed on Saturday. If I get it in first thing, they may even be able to get it done by lunchtime. No gasket set yet either......
It's now in the post anyway, I can't keep it forever :)
Received and with the extras you'd put in there, thanks.
Anyway, back to the plot. Got stuck in pulling it apart after I'd spent an evening moving the non standard coil location out of the way, taking off assorted plumbing and wiring for the LPG system so I could finally get to the engine underneath.
The engine itself looked pretty clean on the outside, but taking the plenum chamber off and it started to look a bit strange. The inside had a layer of brown oil emulsion on it
and the intake trumpets looked even worse and appeared to be covered in mud!
Yet once the inlet manifold was off, the inside of the engine was spotless, even the rockers looked like new
But with the head off, the cause of the noise was all too obvious
Having cleaned up the head, it does need a very light skim so will have to wait until my local machine shop is open again on Monday before I can drop it in.
Being a bit curious of the state of the inside of the plenum, I told the owner about it. When he had bought the car he'd spoken to the previous owner who had rebuilt the engine. It had suffered an overheat which had caused a liner to leak so he took it to a mate who took the engine out. That went away to be rebuilt with top hat liners, the Kent cam and Stage 2 heads (allegedly, although they don't look much different to standard to me) and was refitted by the same guy that had taken it out. The lazy sod hadn't even bothered to clean anything before putting it back together so the gloop inside the plenum has been there since before the engine was rebuilt and it as a result of the overheat that caused it to have to be rebuilt in the first place. I reckon I'm going to have to spend more time cleaning than I am putting it back together!
If he couldn’t be bothered to clean it, I wonder if he even replaced any of the supposed parts, this is always a gamble if you don’t know them personally.
Inside of the plenum is the classic slipped liner, the last one I had with a slipped liner was obvious as it had a builders bucket full of oil mix water before I’d even stripped it.
It’s weird to go in such a short time, any way of knowing what gaskets were used ?, any red lines on the gasket ?
The basic engine was built by V8 Developments but it was then refitted and the intake assembled by the guy that had taken it out. He obviously took it off and just bunged it back on without doing anything with it. If you look very carefully at where the gasket has blown, there's a tiny hole in the casting right where the fire ring would be. I suspect it was a microscopic air bubble in the original casting that wasn't noticed when it was put together. You can see the marks where the head was skimmed, it has spacers under the rocker pedestals to make up for the metal that had been removed from the head face, top hat liners and stud kit.. Gasket had the Elring red lines on it too. So the actual engine is fine, except for the blown gasket, it was the refitting that wasn't done well.
One other thing I found was that Island no longer list the head gasket set with Elring gaskets but LRDirect list an Allmakes head gasket set that doesn't include head gaskets but also list the Elring gaskets on their own. So I ordered the head set and an Elring gasket. It arrived yesterday and LRDirect tell lies, the set does include head gaskets so I've actually got 3, an Elring and two Allmakes (with no markings to show who might have made them).
The cheapy Br*tp*rt gaskets I bought when I did mine earlier this year (in the snow!) looked identical in every respect to the Elring gaskets apart from not having Elring stamped on them.