Tired and frustrated with the glycol in oil leak..

[undy]

Let me apologize in advance for my poor picture quality. I'm tired, sweaty and not holding the Blackberry too steady either...





After splitting 2 sockets, to include an impact socket, getting all the existing head bolts out I ran into this last bolt. the head got rounded just enough where I couldn't get it out. I fired up the Mig welder and viola!, it came out after I welded the socket to the head ... in place no less.





As you can see that head gasket where the stripped hole was leaked terribly. You can see the witness marks on the gasket too. The other head gasket looked perfecto!! It's plain to see where all my leakage was coming from. The Head gasket's compression ring still looked like it was sealing but probably wasn't.





The 2x4 jig worked perfectly. It did a great job keeping things perpendicular. I test fit the head back on afterwords and ran the stud home. It was a tight fit but it went to the bottom of the hole. I anti-seized the threads, like I will do on all the studs on their bottom end. Operation success!! A little "McGuiver" action does it every time





Next came tapping the hole for the helicoil. It was one of the few things today that ended up being a piece of cake.





Here I was using the helicoil insertion tool. It went down with no problem. I used a drift punch to knock the tang off the bottom.





Last, but not least... I went around and chased the threads on all the remaining holes. There was no drag at all on the tap when It went by the point where the head bolt stopped. That tells me there was no/minimal thread deformation from the short bolts. The new studs now have smooth seamless holes to thread into. BTW... there were no other stripped holes, or even holes close to stripping.

Whew... The is ENOUGH for today. I've still have to go back to the garage and clean things up, blow out the least head's bolt holes and vacuum all the chips out, then put the short block up for the evening.

The heads will go to the machine shop tomorrow for checking and a skim cut (only if required). Next weekend starts the reassembly

Barry R, none of the cylinder liners have settled. The all are exactly even with the deck ... so ... no problems there. Thanks for all the help and tech advice. You are a stand-up guy and a credit to the FE world!! My hat's off to ya sir.

The saga continues... more to follow.

Dave

[Rick Parker]

Those pictures are in Technicolor!

Good job Dave, making use of tools at hand and doing it successfully.

[Rick Parker]

ARP makes such nice stuff!

[Excaliber]

Studs can be a hassle (head, valve cover, oil pan, etc.). I have to remove a couple of mine to get the head off the engine when it's in the car. Taking the pan off with the studs is a pain. My motor came with studs all around, otherwise, I might well have considered bolts. I understand the value of studs but... they do have a down side.

[FUNFER2]

Hum,... never had much problems with studs. Guess I've been lucky.
The only semi-problematics, were some studs for the oil pan not matching the holes in the pan, and that was a simple file fix.

[Excaliber]

Had head studs on my Healey 3000. That motor hadn't been apart for I guess 30 years. It wouldn't budge. Glued down real good, hand to hand to combat with those studs and getting the head to break loose and pull straight up over them. I've not had the best luck with studs over the years, but... you gotta love 'em.

[Jerry Clayton]

Negative aspects????cause a oil pan don't have the bolt holes in right place??? or a cyl head has been on 30 years????Studs are so you can throw away the nuts every now and then instead of the block!!!!

[Excaliber]

The heads on my Cobra are fairly new, I still have to remove a couple of studs to remove the head. Clearly it's easier to take off parts without studs than it is with them, it's a simple observation of reality.

Which would you rather scrape old gasket material from? The bottom of a block (intake, top of the block, etc.) with studs or without studs? Or, would you remove the studs first so you can get the area nice and clean? Either way, leave them in or remove them to clean, it's certainly not a "positive aspect" of studs!

[Jerry Clayton]

If you use the studs you probably wouldn't be changing gaskets

[undy]

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

If you use the studs you probably wouldn't be changing gaskets

True, very true...

[Excaliber]

..if my current motor is anything like that Healey motor, I should be "good to go" for the next 20 years or so before it needs over haulin'.

[Barry_R]

Nice work. Welding the socket had to be a real treat...

The head gasket was still sealing compression or you would have seen black discoloration leaking across the surface. Good news all around even it it don't feel like it after a long day. Go grab a glass of your favorite "assembly lube" and rest up. You're on the home stretch.

Told ya the 2x4 would work well. It might seem a little "cave man" - but some sort of drill guide really is worth the effort.

[undy]

Forgive the fuzzy picture... She was running with a tad of shake and my Crackberry was going nuts trying to focus.

It's together and been running for about 20 minutes! I've got a good "FE"eling about everything.

No leaks, no drips, no errors... Everything seems to be in order. The oil's bright and clear (as it always was). I'm running 8 quarts of "dump oil" in her now (Advance auto 10W30 with a Purolator filter). I'll looking to get about a hour of run time and then I'll dump the Dino and filter. That will give me enough time to flush the engine well and get any residual Glycol contaminants out of the system too. I'll do a flush on the Accusump also. The oil cooler and lines will also be blown out before the fresh oil is put in. It will be replaced with a Mobil 1 oil filter and 10 quarts of 15W50 Mobil 1. The engine's still hot so I've not been able to check the coolant level. It came up to temp in a predictable amount of time. The thermostat opened around 180 deg and shortly after the fan cycled on. I'm not expecting any surprises.

I've a small amount of work left to do. I'll sure be glad when this one's over.

[Jerry Clayton]

are those 10mm metric bolts in the 2 x 4?????????

or 12 mm??

[vector1]

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

are those 10mm metric bolts in the 2 x 4?????????

or 12 mm??

oh shoot! uh oh

[undy]

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

are those 10mm metric bolts in the 2 x 4?????????

or 12 mm??

Grade 3, 1/2 x 13s ... probably Chinese though. Why ??? You think they're Wong for the job? (parts drawer bolts, torqued to 1/16" board compression)...

Originally Posted by Barry_R

Nice work. Welding the socket had to be a real treat...

The head gasket was still sealing compression or you would have seen black discoloration leaking across the surface. Good news all around even it don't feel like it after a long day. Go grab a glass of your favorite "assembly lube" and rest up. You're on the home stretch.

Told ya the 2x4 would work well. It might seem a little "cave man" - but some sort of drill guide really is worth the effort.

Home stretch's hind parts, everyone knows it takes half again as much time to put it together as it did to rip it apart!

Yea, the 2x4 was the shiznit. A minute on the drill press and I had the right tool for the job. It was so easy a cave man DID do it...

The witness marks on the heads show good compression sealing on all cylinders. The head only lifted at the inner edge. The marks on the head gasket most likely are gasket erosion, caused by the constant pressurized minute flow of coolant.

Speaking of witness marks on the heads, what do you think about a 0.005" or less skim cut on the heads. That'll clean up the compression ring indentations around the cylinders and give me a good head gasket sealing surface. That shouldn't significantly change my manifold's ride height.




Let me know if anyone needs a "FE coolant passage pressure test kit"

[Jerry Clayton]

Bolt head marking looks like a metric bolt rating======and a 12mm will screw into a 1/2 13 hole

[undy]

Originally Posted by Jerry Clayton

Bolt head marking looks like a metric bolt rating======and a 12mm will screw into a 1/2 13 hole

They do look like they have metric markings in the fuzzy picture. I'll take a look at them when I get home. Any port in the storm though...

They bit and held that 10 lbft, so the threads (pitch, per inch and diameter) must have been pretty darn close.

[acmjg]

How did you get the helicoil threads and the threads below it in the block to match up?

[undy]

Originally Posted by acmjg

How did you get the helicoil threads and the threads below it in the block to match up?

I measured the new stud's block thread insertion depth and replicated that depth with the helicoil insert. The helicoil is an inch and a half long so it worked out fine. Since it's a blind hole I simply bored for the helicoil to the same depth as the hole was originally bored.