Got my ebgine in and plumbed. running fine not hot good oil pressure. Then about 30 miles of driving it around town. stop and go some freeway about 15mins of freeway. Than my oil pan gasket spit out and started spitting oil on my headers. oil prerssure fine so on my way home, about 10 miles I stopped at wallyworld picked up some oil/ went out started no oil pressure. put oil in I just bought, and bought more. Oil pressure fine so I started to drive home. got hot and almost pegged to temp gauge. so I pulled over let her cool filled with water and drove home. Oil pressure and water temp fine. Got home drained my oil pan and got about 2.5 Gals of oil and water mix. I figure I either have a cracked block or a blown head gasket. one thing I overlooked was when I went to town I filled my overflow catch can almost full. When I would romp on it it would blow the water and antifreeze out my catch can. So I emptied it and it filled about a quarter up and didn't blow anymore out. I hope some one is on tonight that can shed some light on what the p[roblem is. Tomorrow I'm pulling the pan and the heads. One thing I'm thinking is I read hear the other day not to torque the manifold bolts on a alloy manifold to more than 10ftlbs because more would pull the heads off the block and cause a headgasket o blow. I torqued mine to 20ftlbs. I hope thats the bonehead mistake that caused all this. Anyway tell me what you think.

 

It certainly sounds like a blown head gasket. Water in the oil, and compression in the cooling system.

Did you install the head gaskets properly?
Did you torque the heads?
Were the heads warped?
What is the CR?

 

Lost/forgot head locator dowel(s)? It's not the intake. GL

 

"One thing I'm thinking is I read here the other day not to torque the manifold bolts on an alloy manifold to more than 10ftlbs because more would pull the heads off the block and cause a headgasket to blow"

i read that too and the BSoMeter went off big time! i think it came from a "tech expert" diverting any responsibility from his employer? why/how would/could an alloy manifold pull the heads off sealing and not a stock iron manifold? i didn't like the way my alloy intake felt when i was torquing it to a reduced setting, so i kept going a little higher until i was satified that the bolts were holding the darn thing down. prolly almost to the stock iron manifold spec, i don't remember for sure what i stopped at but 10ftlbs is LOOSE. point is my heads did not get pulled and loose their seal, proven by a recent compression test and the fact that it did not mix a glycol milkshake in the pan.

anyway, sorry to hear that you are having trouble. what brand, PN head gasket did you use? prolly too late now but don't turn the engine over with the plugs in! you might be able to quickly find the cylinder that's blown by turning the engine by hand with the plugs out. coolant might come out of a plug hole?

 

Yeah pulled heads yesterday. Both gaskets blown. Checked torque on tear down ( I always second guese myself), and all bolts where 105, as stated in my chiltons as the 3rd step. The gaskets were the consistancy of wet paper towels. I will never use ROL gaskets again. Yeah I thought about the manifold thing and 20ftlbs shouldn't effect the head bolts torque or pull the heads off the gasket. If thats the case than just the engine firing on the compression cycle would blow the gaskets. Got her together yesterday and put about 70 mile on her today. Runs alot better!!! My temp with the bad head gaskets was about 2/3rds of the way up the temp gauge. Now about midway. More power too, and thats awesome. She gets it on now!! Of course I lightened her up to 4250lbs and thats with me, full fuel and my tool box. Just need to flush my block to get the last of the anti-freeze out. I guese it won't boil off like the water will. I can only imagine what that crap is doing to my bearings and cylinder walls. I will do a comp tset and leak down after a bit and see how she is doing.
Oh. my comp is about 9.8 mech and about 8.17 dynamic. Head gaskets on right. Fresh head work by Power heads, locater dowels new and in place. Just crappy gaskets! Thanx for the sympathy, this was realy making me nervous, was thinking cracked block or heads. Never had a head gasket go before, or both within 30 miles!! Thanx guys.

 

that's all good news then, and i'll stick with fel-pro! 8347-PT's have been good to me so far, even re-used them once when my C sacraficed a rod bearing after only a couple days running. i had "un-necessarily" used a little spray copper on them, it cleaned up with a little gas on a rag and they were fine to go again. they say the old trick to use silver paint is no longer needed but the trick can still be used in situations where you'll be disassembling frequently so that the gasket doesn't stick and tear itself apart. i have a feeling you'd like to leave it together for a while though?

 

Yeah torquing head bolt in truck is a pain!!! I will never use ROL gaskets again. Sad thing though is I heard ROL bought out Felpro and Victor. They mite own them but they don't make there gaskets!!! I bought some Victor Reinz from my local Napa. Thanx.