Tired and frustrated with the glycol in oil leak..

[undy]

Originally Posted by olddog

Undy, do not underestimate the dangers of nitrogen. It kills people every year. I think more than any other gas in industry. It is not the nitrogen that kills you. It is the absence of oxygen. I said one lung full and your dead. It takes about a half dozen breaths to replace what is in your lungs. Loss of conciseness occurs at about 3 breaths with little to no warning.

Don't use it in a closet obviously. Open areas with moving air are safe unless the volume is high. We have excess flow valves that shut the line if the flow exceeds a maximum. Regulator can fail and dump a bottle quickly.

I'm not worried about the Nitrogen as it couldn't get past all the Phosgene, hydrogen sulfide, refrigerants and carbon monoxide that already fills my lungs...

I remember to old days I used to do refrigeration "York System flushes" on Navy ships. We'd go into confined spaces and get hit with a loss of oxygen as leaking refrigerants displaced the air in the room (refer equipment decks). We were told to stay down till just before death (seriously) and use the last drop of energy to climb out before loss of consiouness overtook us.. We did it and thought nothing of it at the time. Oh the sins of our youth...

Originally Posted by Excaliber

...being one of the resident internet expert's I thought I better get in on this thread as well.

Don't have a clue, you've covered the bases nicely.

I did like Rick's idea of under water testing for bubbles, I've had good luck with that finding very small leaks in tires. I don't currently have any freon or gas type leak detection tools, so a water bath would have to do for me.

Taste of glycol is a key element in this exercise, very telling.

On removing the heads: Head bolts no problem, HEADER bolts are a PITA however!

I think we all have a little internet expert in us, like it or not.

I just talked to Keith and he suggests going forward with pressure testing the rest of the motor. He said he pressure tests all Pond blocks prior to assembly and machining. That gave me a bit of a warm fuzzy. He really didn't have any revelations other than what's been dicussed here already.

Originally Posted by ERA Chas

Dave,
Just grasping again but this thought occurred:

A. Started after the intake change-right?
B. Goo only in VC's-right?

Guessing that water is entraining into the oil feed at the rocker pedestals in each head. That would contaminate only the valve cover area. Don't know where such water could come from and don't know why the goo doesn't go down the corner head drains and contaminate the valley/crankcase areas. You don't oil through the pushrods right?

Just trying to get someone smarter than me to think away from all the gasket/head/porosity/testing stuff beat to death here. You've covered all that in my view.

If you haven't already-get KC to listen and offer a thought or two. I KNOW he's not responsible for this problem.

Getting a headache.

A= yes
B= yes

Sad to say, not sure on the pushrod oiling, it's a hydraulic roller, Ersons and Smith Bros pushrods..

I feel your pain, I've had a headache too ( might be from tasting all that Glycol and repeatedly huffing Nitrogen)

Originally Posted by Ronbo

One thought did occur to me, have the cap pressure tested.

Cylinder heads been re-torqued lately? (do the free stuff first)

All else fails maybe switch to a waterless coolant, this way you could run a 0psi coolant system.

Reason I mentioned the rear ports is it's an ideal place for steam to collect with no coolant flow to wash it away.

I feel for you on this one, the cause ain't exactly jumpin out at ya.

The cap seems to be working OK although I've not pressure tested it.

I've stayed away from the waterless coolant (Evans etc) as it doesn't have near the heat rejection capability of water/glycol. I don't feel I have enough redundancy in my cooling system to give up any capacity. I did look into it a year or so ago.

I'll look more at those rear ports in the second round this weekend.


The saga continues...

[ERA Chas]

Originally Posted by undy

Sad to say, not sure on the pushrod oiling, it's a hydraulic roller, Ersons and Smith Bros pushrods..

FYI, Ersons oil in the conventional way, not through the p'rods. Any thought about my water- to- rocker- oil feed theory?

[undy]

Originally Posted by ERA Chas

FYI, Ersons oil in the conventional way, not through the p'rods. Any thought about my water- to- rocker- oil feed theory?

I'll pressurize the right and left banks of the engine separately. I'll probably use some R-410A for a reference additive and back it with nitrogen. I'll run my electronic leak detector around. It's sensitive enough to pick up 1/2 an ounce of refrigerant leakage a year. If there's a leak in the rocker oil feed circuit it will pick it up.

Originally Posted by olddog

I like Rick L proposal of putting the intake in a tank of water. Drop the pressure back to 25 psi so your block off plate gaskets do not leak. Then watch for a bubble. Stare at it a good while.

You were keeping a constant pressure from the bottle and I think I read you were using some type of sniffer. Maybe I'm confusing the Freon thing, but I didn't understand your method of looking for the leak. I would think blocking the gas in and watching for the pressure to drop off would be more of a standard test. I guess I'm not certain that your test was absolutely conclusive. Maybe it was and I just lack the understanding.

The entire portion of the manifold that could leak water into the oil is fully visible. I use a purpose manufactured high viscosity soap suds solution with excellent designed cling characteristics to coat all the potential leaking surface areas. It's just as good as submersion and a heck of a lot less messy. watching a bleed-down test really is not as good as a visual inspection of said areas. The bleed-down method is great when all the areas aren't visible, like an assembled engine's entire cooling system. Initially I'll probably use the bleed-down method when I pressurize the halves of the engine. If it shows results I'll start looking for specifics.

Originally Posted by Excaliber

I to have worked in HVAC for many years, chillers to window units, even did a morgue for body storage once. A freeze drier application was interesting, that was some very exotic and expensive gas for that unit! I never worked with ammonia, now THAT stuff is dangerous.

Freon, nitrogen, other gases, just part of the hazard. I am reminded of a news story about a fellow that filled his air mattress with Freon, he never woke up...

Hey Ernie, always great to find a fellow "Freon Sniffer". The HVAC hustle has been good to me in life, allowing for some of the finer (and not so finer) things. I've work some ammonia too, as you said it some nasty stuff.

Actually, my oncologist sort of hinted that my CLL (Chronic Lymphotic Leukemia) is frequently caused by handling and inhaling potentially carcinogenic chemicals and gases.. Go figure.

[olddog]

Originally Posted by undy

The entire portion of the manifold that could leak water into the oil is fully visible. I use a purpose manufactured high viscosity soap suds solution with excellent designed cling characteristics to coat all the potential leaking surface areas. It's just as good as submersion and a heck of a lot less messy. watching a bleed-down test really is not as good as a visual inspection of said areas. The bleed-down method is great when all the areas aren't visible, like an assembled engine's entire cooling system. Initially I'll probably use the bleed-down method when I pressurize the halves of the engine. If it shows results I'll start looking for specifics.

I must have got confused somewhere earlier. Yes soap is a great test. Obviously you know all about leak tests in your line of work. You don't need me to tell you that.

OK it sounds like the intake is totally ruled out, and the intake gaskets maybe not totally but very low probability. I agree the next step is pressure test the block and heads together and go from there.

One question on picture #1. The block deck seems to not be solid where the intake and heads mate up. Is that a drain path to the pan or what?

[ERA Chas]

Originally Posted by olddog

I
One question on picture #1. The block deck seems to not be solid where the intake and heads mate up. Is that a drain path to the pan or what?

That's the head gaskets.

[undy]

Originally Posted by olddog

I must have got confused somewhere earlier. Yes soap is a great test. Obviously you know all about leak tests in your line of work. You don't need me to tell you that.

OK it sounds like the intake is totally ruled out, and the intake gaskets maybe not totally but very low probability. I agree the next step is pressure test the block and heads together and go from there.

One question on picture #1. The block deck seems to not be solid where the intake and heads mate up. Is that a drain path to the pan or what?

I just "re-clearanced" the pushrod holes in the intake where I couild see witness marks from a little pushrod contact and resculpted the water ports too to maximize coolat flow a little better. I paid my local shipper to box it up and off it went for a dose of Vacuum Casting Impregnation. I'm famous for my "overkill". The concept has worked for me thus far.










BTW... today, upon a close visual inspection of the two rear machined flat surfaces of the intake, the surfaces that block off the rear 2 coolant ports of the heads, I could of sworn I saw a bit of porosity on one adjacent to a pushrod hole. hmmm..... I didn't pressure test that end. The impregation will take care of it, assuming it is the leak. The block/heads pressure testing will hopefully show me everything else is tighter than Dick's hatband.

You guys all rock!!!

Since I didn't have a POS harmonic balancer, a screwed up clutch or an engine vibration, a lousy coolant leak is the best I could come up with.. My time for those maladies is coming. Man ya got to love these engines. Where's McDoo's words of encouragement when ya need 'em?

Most of my FE woes HAVE been cooling system related though...

[olddog]

Originally Posted by undy

BTW... today, upon a close visual inspection of the two rear machined flat surfaces of the intake, the surfaces that block off the rear 2 coolant ports of the heads, I could of sworn I saw a bit of porosity on one adjacent to a pushrod hole. hmmm..... I didn't pressure test that end. The impregation will take care of it, assuming it is the leak. The block/heads pressure testing will hopefully show me everything else is tighter than Dick's hatband.

Wish you could have proven that was your leak. It may well be. If the rest of the engine holds pressure, I would bet that was it. If not, you still have to keep looking.

[Ronbo]

Originally Posted by undy

I've stayed away from the waterless coolant (Evans etc) as it doesn't have near the heat rejection capability of water/glycol. I don't feel I have enough redundancy in my cooling system to give up any capacity. I did look into it a year or so ago.


The saga continues...

I hope you've found it...

I wouldn't dismiss the waterless coolant so quickly...

The waterless coolant actually allows you to run much higher engine temps with no damage since there's no pressure (your cooling capacity has actually increased, because your engine can run at 300+ deg now). Also detonation is all but eliminated in the cumbustion chamber since the steam pockets can't form in the water jacket (basically acting like an insulator, creating a "hot spot"). No more running on the rich side to keep detonation down. Aluminum heads help with this but don't eliminate it.

Not to mention no water, no eating the aluminum up.

There's a reason this stuff exists, water wasn't up to the job. You have to look beyond 10deg hotter temps to what's really wrecking your motor.

Water (like oxygen) is simply doing what it's supposed to do, erode and corrode stuff into simpler compounds.

[ERA Chas]

Originally Posted by Ronbo

...because your engine can run at 300+ deg now).

Great but your oil, valve springs and hoses can't. Run at regular temps of 240 or more and eventually your bores will marry the rings. Do you run Evans in your KMP? What temps do you get in oil and water in FL?

Fresh, clean coolant or water, changed regularly, is far more cost effective and far less damaging then you state. The stuff exists so its makers can hugely profit from markets where it's not needed.

[Ronbo]

Originally Posted by ERA Chas

Great but your oil, valve springs and hoses can't. Run at regular temps of 240 or more and eventually your bores will marry the rings. Do you run Evans in your KMP? What temps do you get in oil and water in FL?

Fresh, clean coolant or water, changed regularly, is far more cost effective and far less damaging then you state. The stuff exists so its makers can hugely profit from markets where it's not needed.

I run it in my street vehicle, plan to run it in the Kirkham as well.

The problems you mention were in what? Engines running water because your combustion chamber temps were too high from the steam pockets. Your combustion chamber temps will decrease with the waterless (and remain more stable to boot).

As far as damage, thread after thread of anodes, corroded radiators, coolant leaks, ate up aluminum, yada, yada. (leaks, leaks, leaks)

As far as internet searches of problems with Evens? Found lots of boil-over conditions solved and one guy that didn't know if he should top off his leaking coolant system with water.

Sorry, not seeing the problem here. Other than convincing yourself it won't work because the herd runs water. (I saw one reply here from someone actually using it that said it helped, everyone else seems convinced it won't based on their experience not using it)

[ERA Chas]

See comments in bold below:

Originally Posted by Ronbo

I run it in my street vehicle, plan to run it in the Kirkham as well. So you're encouraging a guy to use something in a Cobra that you haven't used in a Cobra? Nice. Your street vehicle and a Cobra are worlds apart from a heat production/retention standpoint.

The problems you mention were in what? Engines running water because your combustion chamber temps were too high from the steam pockets. Your combustion chamber temps will decrease with the waterless (and remain more stable to boot). I never had ANY problems with chambers /steam or ANY coolant-related issues in 15 years with the same block and system in a Cobra. Iron block, aluminum heads, aluminum rad. Using green/distilled water mix changed biennially. Where do you get this stuff?

As far as damage, thread after thread of anodes, corroded radiators, coolant leaks, ate up aluminum, yada, yada. (leaks, leaks, leaks) If you could produce these reams of evidence, they will be found to be caused by negligent cooling maintenance, not using the block drains and or aged equipment.

As far as internet searches of problems with Evens? Found lots of boil-over conditions solved and one guy that didn't know if he should top off his leaking coolant system with water.

Sorry, not seeing the problem here. Other than convincing yourself it won't work because the herd runs water. (I saw one reply here from someone actually using it that said it helped, everyone else seems convinced it won't based on their experience not using it) Missed my point entirely while doing your Evans commercial. I've used the water method exclusively because I learned the proper way to install and care for it which eliminates ANY engine/radiator corrosion issues or the mysterious combustion chamber volcanoes you imagine. No anodes or yada-yadas. Thus, no reason to look for a"BETTER WAY"-especially a more costly better way.

But the major point is that your response does nothing to help Undy solve his question. He doesn't NEED a better coolant. Whether using water, Evans or Kool-Aid---what is causing coolant to find oil and gel in his valve covers???

[Ronbo]

The Evens commercial is over, you can relax now.

If you bothered to read through the entire thread you'd find that I may have been the only one to correctly identify Undy's problem. (so maybe I'm not quite the dumbazz you think I am)

But hey, no one could possibly teach you something when you already know what's really happening.

If you'd bother to actually read about the history of this product you'd see that GM invested heavily into it's development - probably because it was totally unnecessary. No, it's probably best to broad-brush people's problems with water as a result of poor maintenance.

I really don't care if you choose not to run it, is it OK with you if someone else does?

[Z-linkCobra]

Originally Posted by Ronbo

The Evens commercial is over, you can relax now.

If you bothered to read through the entire thread you'd find that I may have been the only one to correctly identify Undy's problem.

Still waiting for you to tell us what the problem was.

Or are you too busy patting yourself on the back?