Hello all, So my project (going on 9 months) has once again reached an impasse. Just when I thought she'd fire up for the first time.....NOTHING. So I'll give y'all a run down: Bought an engine off a guy a few hours away, off craigslist. The guy said he pulled it out of a running 85 f-150 came out and looked at the engine, checked pushrods for wiggle and did general inspection 9 months of labor and working to save up later.... I'm currently sitting by the car and there appears to be A LOT of coolant in cylinder #8, which so happens to be next to a coolant galley (I believe) that also has a decent amount of coolant in it Is it cracked between the two and that's why they're flooded? The level is higher in #8 than in the coolant galley, but I'm assuming that's because the cylinder is not at BDC
No, I don't have the kit. The engine flooded only after I tried to start it once, then it wouldn't turn over so I popped off the intake and immediately saw the coolant sitting there in #8
First off.. I'm at a loss as to how you could possibly see a cylinder full of coolant, much less know it's level, after only removing an intake manifold? Did you mean to say that the cylinder heads intake port was full of water? If so, that would point towards an intake gasket leak.. not head gasket or cracked deck. Secondly.. I suppose anything's possible if it got really hot at one time (although the head would have surely lifted).. but a crack in that location would be extremely rare, IMO. A better and more realistic guess would be improper or failed intake manifold gasket causing a leak down that particular intake port past the valve into the cylinder. In that situation the motor would hydraulic.. come to a dead stop or even kick back against the starter.. and becomes very possible that rods could even get bent due to the incompressible nature of liquids. You should check and compare close proximity piston to deck heights and also be sure the pushrods didn't get bent as well. Was the motor bone stock and you just changed the intake manifold? There are early and later style gaskets and using the incorrect gaskets can cause these types of internal leaks.
That's exactly what I meant to say, sorry I mislead y'all The engine is currently hydra-locked and won't turn over. I do remember taking 2 bolts loose from the intake to put a bracket on but didn't do the whole thing...... probably the source of my problems The motor was bone stock, but now has GT40 heads, a "slightly" more aggressive cam (.498/.498 lift), an aluminum intake and some other goodies but nothing special
Pull the spark plug.. disconnect the coil wire.. go to WOT.. and turn the motor over to purge the coolant. Are you thinking this leak occurred during the time you pulled those 2 bolts? Although I would assume there would also be signs of leaking into the upper lifter valley.. did you confirm that the intake gasket is proper for the heads water ports? Once you purge the water out it would be good to measure depth of a few pistons at tdc through the spark plug holes to compare to #8. Also keep in mind that the oil will now need to be changed after everything gets sorted out here too.
There were marginal signs of leaking into the lift valley (one of the freeze plugs had some antifreeze in it, there was a small puddle near the bolt holes) I do have a strong feeling that is when it happened, I hadn't tried to start the car before I pulled the bolts The intake gasket is the rectangular port and they matched up when I fitted their tabs to the cylinder head You don't know how much help you've been to this project, thank you so much for the insight
A cracked cylinder would not leak very quickly,& prob. not until the eng. got warm.I would agree with the others on here,however,if the cyl. was cracked you could sleeve it & be fine,I`ve put in hundreds of them & had no problems even on race mtrs.
Update on this motor: I did the steps listed above and sure enough, #8 cleared out and the motor turns over After a large headache with the distributor (wouldn't seat all the way so had to stab it then put the oil pump shaft & pump so that my initial timing would line up), she's all put together and will fire up in the morning! (hopefully)
