Tee hee - nice try Petey Shoes!

But you forget I work for the airlines and can get all the tickets I want for free!

And flying to ANYWHERE this time of year to work on someone elses truck when I can stay in San Diego and work on my own is probably not going to happen - sorry. Besides mORO lives in Ca. Wouldn't be suprised if he didn't live down the street - some vacation huh?

Add cracked head to my 5 reasons listed above (now 6). (NO not crack head - unless your PO poured coolant in the oil filler spout while high one night - don't laugh, I've seen worse).

J!

 

yeh, another weak moment for the shoe meister! now if he sent over a prevost with driver????

 

I’m going to be courageous (dumb?) and say that is exactly what happened, …there is no leakage. Cyberspace courage, it comes cheap.

“But being wrong keeps me humble”

 

Hey, just wondering, I thought that Italian dude said some law thing about fluids being pressurized being created equally in all directions or somethin’, so wouldn’t the pressure come up from the bottom hose?

“But being wrong keeps me humble”

 

that darn guinea got me again!! (i'm italian, so don't go there!) should have said -out of block. and yeah, i'm wrong! leaving stat in will keep pressure IN block. i have humbled myself, and i thank you!

 

OK, well first of all, I live in maybe the last place you'd wanna come to Julie, I live in Bakersfield(it seems like everyone hates Bakersfield)...So it isn't far.

Now about my truck...well, if you want to get technical, we actually are hoarders and own 3 56's....The one we're working on now is our panel truck. All of them have 223's, and I heard that the I-6 don't have coolant flowing through the intake so the intake issues aren't really issues for me.

No, for the permanent record, unfortunately none of our 56's are running or on the road right now, The panel(and the engine in it) was the last one running about 7-8, maybe more years ago. My dad never observed any "chocolate milk" when it ran, however, unfortunately the oil was pitch black(when I first drained it recently) and so it may have not been changed for 6+ months even at the time of parking, so whatever has gone wrong may HAVE(unlike I first thought)gone wrong while it was running, he just didn't know it. But it ran fine and always has for the 32 yeas my dad has owned it(hes owned this truck the longes out of all of them, but did some engine work in the late 70's), and thats why I assume it happend after sitting.

I specifically remember watching the coolant come out of the radiator, it was clean-as-new. no oil at all.(another reason for me thinking it happend after it was parked).

I can't do a compression check as it doesn't run, and I don't want to try to turn it over. The whole reason for trying to fix it is so I can run it, So it would defeat all of this to try and start it just to see whats wrong; not to mention it is in no condition to be running in my opinion, or else none of this stuff would be happening).

It does have a small crack in the IM, but the whole leaking fuid shouldn't be an issue since it's an I-6. The other truck we have(a pickup) also has an I-6...long story short...it has a cracked block(my dad said he bought it like that) so the top end is salvageable(and so are the bottom end internals maybe) so we're gonna take that IM and swap them out.

I hope the block isn't cracked because then I'm really up a creek without a paddle, but to respond to your comment, it did seem like there was a lot of coolant, but it is all relative.


Ask me anything And I'll try and answer as fast as I can get to a comp.

Thanks all for coming to my rescue for the SECOND time.

 

Hi again,

Well believe it or not that's all very good info. It elliminated most of the potential problems down it cracked block; cracked or warped head; bad head gasket. The head is easy to take off the engine.

If it hasn't run in 7 years, you are going to have to squirt some oil in each cylinder and turn it over a little - even with the balance bolt - to get compression anyway. If it's been sitting that long, I'd be tempted to pull the head anyway, mill it, and put in a new gasket anyway, I'd venture to say it wont run long on the old one with the coolant level low - thegasket is probably all eaten up.

J!

 

so, How easy is it to take it off, I heard the head bolts have to be tightened to like 90 ft/lbs...

I hope it is a bad gasket, that sounds like theasiest/fastest ordeal...

I heard that milling a head requires messing with the valves because it increases the life not that the head is technically shorter, is this an issue? If getting the head milled is all that needs to be done, thats great, but I'f there is a ton of other stuff that needs to be done, then I may not do that unless it is absolutely required.

Thank you so much for the help.

P.S. Should I still go ahead with the coolant pressure test?

 

It's been a LONG time since I have taken a head off an IL6 flathead . If you have the shop manual, the procedure and torque specs are in there. It's not hard, but as with everything, there's all kinds of does and don'ts. You might start another thread to get the guys keyed in on those. I know we got all the bolts out ok but couldn't get the head off. We had to turn the starter and use engine compression to break the seal.

One thing that the little voice in the back of my mind is whispering about is the possibility of a long sitting engine with water or coolant leaking and it has gotten around one or more of those head bolts maybe freezing it in, maybe weakening it with rust.

As far as options here, well, let me put it this way: If you take off the head and have it checked for warpage and surfaced (I used the term "milled" incorrectly - that's a process guys use to take a relatively large amount of the head mating surface off in order to increase compression on high performance mods), install new head gasket - torque the head down, all correctly - then if it still leaks, you're replacing the engine. (Save that head)

It's one or the other. The test is just extra work at this point.

I'd start a new thread about taking it off. It'll be a good education for all of us.

J!

 

Yes, IMHO you should!