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Valentine?s Day head gasket

W

Wesdunns70t5m

New member
Joined
Oct 4, 2016
Location
Jacksonville, NC
1990 760 with a b230ft. Got to work and noticed smoke from under the hood. The car hadn?t overheated or anything like that prior to me parking. I popped the hood and saw coolant spraying out of the seam between the head and block on the exhaust side, close to the front of the car. I?ve never heard of a head gasket leaking coolant outside of the engine, always in the oil or combustion chamber. Is it possible that I just need a new head gasket, or is something definitely cracked or warped? I?m not sure when I?ll get to tear into it sadly, but it?ll have to be soon. Thanks in advanced
 
The two head gaskets that I've done to b230 engines (non-turbos) was due to coolant leaking out the exhaust side of the engine. In both cases, it was just weeping though, not spraying. And in both cases, it was nothing more than a break in the head gasket.
 
The HG seals in combustion chambers, oil passages (one of them pressurized), and lots of coolant passages. It's common for it to fail from combustion pressures (the highest stress it sees) - forcing a hole between a cylinder and something close to it. But really, it can fail between any of those areas to another, or to the outside.

And given the description, I'd be making sure that coolant isn't coming from the water pump area?
 
My 940 has been seeping coolant out the intake side for at least the past 10 years. :lol:
 
well it?s great to hear of at least two instances that reflect mine. I was thinking at first that it was the water pump, but a cell phone video debunked that immediately. About two minutes before pulling into my parking spot I did some spirited driving, so the pressure would?ve been high considering that. After rewatching the video, it looks like it is just the gasket, as it?s a fine stream coming directly from the head/block seam, so it doesn?t look like there was any cracks anywhere (fingers crossed). At least now since I?ll be pulling the head and manifolds it?ll make it much easier to swap my 19t on while everything is out. Luckily I have a cool boss and he said I could leave my car at the shop until the parts come in and I?ll be able to work on it there, instead of getting it towed to my house!
 
Not a chance, it’s about 2 inches further back from the water pump, plus it’s spraying out at a 90 degree angle from the seam, not like it’s coming from the water pump and deflecting off the head
 
Def sounds like a HG swap is in your future. It's pretty easy as far as HG's go, if you haven't done it before I'd figure on it taking a whole weekend day. Unless you've swapped the t-belt lately, probably a good time to go ahead and do that too (since you've got 90% of the labor required to swap it done already).
 
Already have a NIB timing belt that I’ll be throwing in. Never done a head gasket on one of these redblocks, but if I can swap heads on a whiteblock and change head gaskets on a 91 camaro with the 5.0 tbi, I’m not worried one bit about this task lol

I’m single, so my car is my Valentine’s Day date...I got rejected big time
 
While you're at it, here's a few other things you might want to do:

replace water pump and timing belt tensioner

renew cam, crank and intermediate shaft seals

adjust valves when done
 
The trick to taking the head of the turbo motors and leaving the turbo manifold and all that on and not touching that stuff is there is one exhaust stud you have to remove then you can take the head off and on. It's the upper one behind the turbo, the one that has a smaller stud hole in the exhaust manifold. Take out that stud and the head slips out without messing with the turbo and manifold at all. Thank me later..
 
cam seals and valve shimming will wait. I plan on getting an Ipd turbo cam in the near future, and those will be taken care of then. Water pump and tensioner isn’t a bad idea at all though! Do the cars that never came with an intermediate shaft seal(s)? Considering a 19t will be put on as well, and a future cam upgrade, Conrods might be the following upgrade, so I’ll do the crank seal at that time as well. Exhaust manifold is gonna be pulled as well, because I’m 99.9% sure it’s got the usual 90+ cracks, so I’ll repair them while I have the chance. I might even consider porting the manifold at this time. Which side is more beneficial to porting, head or turbo?
 
In my experience with the few head gaskets on these engines. The head gasket failures I've had were all in the area you described and also the very back of the head on the rear where you can't directly look at anything.

I've used the Reinz head gasket kit the last one I did and it was good quality stuff. Elring is the other brand I like to use. The kits won't have the intermediate shaft seal or the front crank seal. The head kits also don't have any turbo gaskets if you do take the turbo apart.

Simons done this a few times and his method works. But all that would be too heavy for me to lift by myself. Maybe with a helper I could do that method. That is a lot of time saved. Because if you mess with a turbo exhaust manifold. You will be working on replacing a broken stud. On the other hand it's nice to have all those gaskets new after doing a headgasket.
 
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I had that, only on the intake side. Coolant spraying directly onto the distributor. It was the result of not cleaning one of the head bolt holes when I changed the head. Make sure you get those holes cleaned out. I used a .45 gun cleaning rod with patches torn from a red shop towel. No probs for the last 10k miles.
 
When I clean head bolt holes the first thing I do is spray compressed air in there to blow out any debris.

Then I chase the threads, then a final blast of compressed air.
 
I brake clean, compressed air, chase threads, brake clean then compressed air again. I hold a rag over the hole when I'm home blowing them out to catch the brake clean.
 
Awesome suggestions guys. Yesterday I sprayed the exhaust manifold nuts with kroil spray, and they came off like butter this morning! Just used a regular ratchet, not even a breaker bar. I did that this morning at work before it was time to start working, and if the rain stops by the time we clock out I’ll continue dismantling and tearing into it.

My plan is to remove the head with the camshaft still in place. I’ve torn a camshaft out of a JY car several months back, and iirc the cam can still be installed and have access to the head bolts.

On another note I ordered head bolts from fcp and the head gasket kit from Ipd on Valentine’s Day, the head bolts arrived yesterday, and it doesn’t seem like USPS has even received the gasket kit yet. Not too thrilled about that
 
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