Discolored FE pushrods

[Eljaro]

I have had to remove the edelbrock heads from my 482 KC sideoiler because coolant was seeping out of the head nuts and too much white smoke was comming out of the exhaust.
The heads have been taken to the machine shop where the head to block and head to intake surfaces have been shaved. 0.008 had to be taken off each head surface to eliminate the low spots.
I have ordered a SCE Titan copper head gasket with water passage seals and one of their intake gaskets, bacause I have mixed feeling about the felpro intake gaskets, which sooner or later leak oil into the intake.
So far so good, BUT several pushrods are yellow and blue at the cup end and I do not know how to interpret that. Is that normal?
Maybe to little oil for cooling going to the head?
I have a restrictor inside the oil passage. Should I take it out?

[Anthony]

I'm guessing you're not getting enough of oil to the cups. Check your rockers to see if there is an oil bleed hole on the back body of the rocker, above the cup, to oil that area. If you don't have these oil holes, you may need to take your rockers off, and drill small holes in the back of the rockers.

[Eljaro]

the holes are there.
I think that maybe with a sideoiler the oil restrictors to the heads are not so necessary. Maybe that was a fix for the top oilers.

[Anthony]

I read somewhere that if you are running bushed rocker arm pivots, you shouldn't use oil restrictors. If you have roller bearing rocker pivots, to use the restictors.

[Eljaro]

Anthony
the Dove rocker setup I have is plain aluminum on the steel shaft. If it is as you say I should take the oil restrictors out.

[ted]

If your rocker arm shafts have just the holes without any slots, you may not be getting enough oil through the rocker so the pushrod can oil depending upon how your rocker aligns with the existing oil hole. Simply grinding or cutting a diagonal across the oil holes can fix this if this is the problem.

Ted Eaton

[Hans-Olof Blom]

Eljaro

Prime the engine with the valve covers off. Then you can see if you get oil to all rockers.

When I assembled my engine I primed it before I mounted it in the car. I had oil to all Dove rockers except one.

The oil grove in the center of the rocker was not aligned to the hole. Part of the grove was too shallow. It was easy to fix with a Dremel.

[Anthony]

I was looking at my rockers today, and I may drill another hole in the back of the rocker, near the adjuster screw, the hole to exit just below where the threads end, to get oil on the end of the adjuster screw to then drain down into the cup. The holes that are present are lower on the body, about equal to where the upper lip of the pushrod cup is.

[Keithc8]

We have seen this with some of the restrictors. It is a thing that you have to play with sometimes on the size needed. To small and you may not get enough oil to the end pushrods or like what was mentioned earlier one of the rocker maybe not being drilled right. We have started using a pushrod with a hole in the center to send oil up to the cup area. The FE rocker system is just not very good at oiling.
We have gotten away from the damn Fel-Pro gaskets and gone to a Comtic or Edelbrock. Let us know how the new intake gaskets work. We have never had any problems with the head gaskets. Did you ever get the engine hot by any chance? I have seen this cause a head gasket problem. It does not hurt to re-torque them if the engine gets a little hot because it causes the head to grow more and can stretch the head bolts or studs and then when the heads cool of they lose some of thier torque.
Give me a call if we can help in any way.

Thanks, Keith

[Eljaro]

After putting together my engine with the new KC 482 pond block and my existing edelbrock heads, and on one of the first rides did I did see on several occasions cooling liquid oozing out from two head nuts. That was already worrying, but I didn’t do anything except retighten the head nuts, which did not move a bit.
At this point I would like to ask: to retorque the head bolts or nut do you have to loosen them up and tighten again?
Then a few months ago when I took the car out to break a speed record and hit 250km/h without problems I came back home and noticed white smoke out of one exhaust, blue smoke too.
I removed the heads and basically nothing was wrong, except the Felpro intake gasket not perfectly located where it should be and some deterioration of the head gasket around the water passage.
I did take the head to have the intake and cylinder surfaces shaved, the later needing 0.008" shaved off to remove the lowest spot.
To go safe I have decided to leave the Felpro intake gaskets hanging in my garage untouched, and have ordered from SCE their Titan copper gasket with water passage seals imbedded, and also their simple intake gasket.
I will get the parts sometime next week and will put all together again.
Since I mount Webers and there is always some gasoline dropping inside the intake, whichever silicone there is, like the beads around the intake and cooling ports on the Felpro gaskets just get softened up and out and I think that is the reason those intake gaskets end up leaking sooner or later.
I will stay away from the Felpro intake gasket. Too many problems related to that, at least in my case.
From SCE I also got the information that the ethyl glycol coolant normally used will eat at the silicone sealant and that it is advisable to use products like Redline or Evans instead to lenthen service life of the gasket with silicone beads.

As for the discolored pushrods I did not notice any discoloration when I used the center oiler block and the same edelbrock heads with the same restrictor in place and the same Dove rocker setup. I believe that since the sideoiler feed the crankshaft first, not so much oil gets to the heads now and the restrictor might be not necessary but rather inadvisable. The head gasget has a smaller hole for the oil passage and there is a restriction there anyway.
I will take the restrictors out and get more oil to the heads.

[zrayr]

[quote=Eljaro;1033758 "................ but I didn’t do anything except retighten the head nuts, which did not move a bit.
At this point I would like to ask: to retorque the head bolts or nut do you have to loosen them up and tighten again? ..................." [/QUOTE]

yes.


Z. Ray

[Eljaro]

thanks Ray, so I have been doing it wrong all along.
Do you loosen them up and retorque them one by one or you loosen them all up first and retorque them all down as per specified order?

[zrayr]

Originally Posted by Eljaro

thanks Ray, so I have been doing it wrong all along.
Do you loosen them up and retorque them one by one or you loosen them all up first and retorque them all down as per specified order?

there may be more than one "right" way. The way I do it is loosen them one at a time to zero torque, then tighten to the first step. say 50 ft lbs. and then go on to the next one. When all the nuts or bolts are at that level then start your tighten sequence just as if you were putting on the gasket for the first time.

I am thinking about trying the SCE ICS Titan copper self-sealing head gaskets also, let us know how that goes.

Z.

[lovehamr]

El, you might want to talk to Keith about their intake gaskets. I just used a set on my E-bock heads and they fit perfect.

Steve

[Excaliber]

Interesting comment on the ethylene glycol eating away at silicone. I recently switched over to propylene glycol (Evan's waterless coolant). I wonder if the propylene has the same impact as the ethylene.... ?

[Rick Parker]

Several years ago there was a lengthy discussion about various coolants and their effects on the sealing beads of the many head gaskets. Many of the players and participants no longer frequent the website but it might be time to reaquaint how the various coolants effect different head gaskets, it applies to SB as well as the FE's.

[Eljaro]

I am using Evans waterless coolant and in any case, if there were a problem with the silicone beads it would be the ones around the water passages and it would be coolant leaking out, but that is not the case.
I do not believe that oil is getting past those silicone beads around the oil hole to the heads but rather just migrating in between the rather hard copper gasket and head.
That is my theory. Unless the oil comes from somewhere else and travels along the unions to the lowest point and down the block from there.

[Dominik]

Good morning!

There is a very experienced guy in germany (Ralph) who pushed his RAM with 428FE to low 10 second times in street setup frequently. His english is good enough to order parts, but probably not to help sort the problem.

If you have someone speaking german, it may be worth your while to call him. Let me know and I pm his number.

Or go to his website http://www.cobracorner.de/index2.php

[RICK LAKE]

Eljaro These SCE gaskets are similar to what we used 30+ years ago on track cars. The different was high compression and motor tear down after every race. We also used "O" ring blocks and heads. IMO these are still racing head gaskets. They need to be torque until there is no more tightening of the fastener. This also must be done when the motor is cold. We paint marked the nut and studs to check adjustments. Here's the thing, these are still a solid gasket with a compression ring between sheets of gasket. Copper will compress but will not expand as well. This is the reason for copper sealer from Pematex to be sprayed on some gaskets like exhaust because of heat temps. We used red hightac on all head gaskets as I still use 30+ years later. You will not lose compression in the motor for a while but down the road these gaskets will start to fail. We never used them in street motors. The heat cycles are going to take there toll.
You really need to find out where the oil is seeping from. My feeling is that the silicone on the gaskets is not thick enought to stop the oil or coolant from seeping over heat cycles of the motor. If the surface is too smooth you will have a sealing problem too. I doubt that your machinist polished the surfaces of the heads or block.
They sell a kit for about $40.00 that comes with a dye in it for finding leaks under a black light. Works great for external leaks. You add the dye to the oil or coolant depending on what is leaking, road test for 5-20 miles. and use the light to find the leak. IMO and after beating on my 452 motor for 7+ years and running 1020 felpro gaskets I have had no failures. They where torqued 1 time on assembly that that was it. My motor does have larger studs and nut with larger heavy washers to give better clamping power of the gasket. The gaskets are also sprayed with high-tac and allowed to dry. I do 2 light coats. The one small issue is the gaskets bleed the first couple of heat cycles. after that the problem is gone. I have 5 years on the 482 motor with a cheap set of Mr. Gasket head gaskets, they have felpro stamped on them along with 1020 embossed in the surface. Paided $30.00 for the kit. Here's the thing, that motor doesn't know if it is running $200.00 head gaskets or $30.00 gaskets. The issue is about sealing 2 surfaces togeather and having no leaks. The material differents is huge between the 2. Without the added sealer applied to the surface of the gaskets from SCE you are going to have leaks over time. To help a coolant leak I would add Del/cool ( the orange stuff from GM or Ford) It come with alot of silicone in it for sealing aluminum motors for long periods of time. GM also made a suppliment coolant tablets for Caddie motors to help seal small leaks. This is for COOLANT LEAKS ONLY. Oil is a whole different liquid. A sprayon sealer or thin coat of RTV (gray) and let skin is the only way to control an oil leak around the oil return holes ONLY, without running external drains from the heads to the block or a dry sump system. I don't do this because of the compression different between RTV and spray on Hightac. Only a machine can get a 1/32" bead for a perfect seal. My hands and eyes are not that great any more. Rick L.

[Eljaro]

The oil dripping from the engine where the head meets the block is getting too much now.The whole block is oiled now and a real pain to keep clean.
I guess the SCE Titan copper are not sealing around the oil hole or the oil return line.
Salution? Dump the SCE gaskets and go back to Felpro? Like Rick said, these gaskest are probably good for racing where engines are torn apart after every race but not for everyday driving.
I have retorqued the heads to 100 Ft/lbs but oil still drips.
I guess there is no way around taking the heads off again and dropping in some felpros. I had cooland leak issues with the felpros (before machining the heads flat)and now I have oil leaks with the SCE.
Is there anything to try before going through a head gasket swap?