HEADS INSTALL A DISASTER? UPDATE INSIDE!

[pgriffith]

I GOT SOME GOOD NEWS AND SOME BAD NEWS:

Good News: I fixed all the vaccume leaks. They were just simple little leaks. Nothing big. Main leak was on the egr valve. I reused the stock gasket like an idiot. Replaced the gasket and it sealed. I then found where the brake booster hose goes. On the back of the intake manifold, hooked it up and no more vaccume leaks.

Bad News! :mad: So I was underneath my car trying to fix the exhaust manifold. I got a new bolt to seal the Y pipe to the manifold. And when I got under there I noticed something. There is a puddle of coolant. I was thinking (OH ****!!!) :mad: [img]redface.gif[/img] :eek: :rolleyes: [img]graemlins/omg.gif[/img]

So after further investigating It looks like the leak is coming off the back of the head. Is there anything near the back of the head that could be leaking coolant other than the head itself?

How could this happen? What went wrong. I was so carefull. I cleaned the gasket surfaces to a mirror finish. I torqued the bolts to spec. WTF went wrong? This is just driving me crazy. I am so pissed off I dont know what to do. And the thing is the car will run fine. It idles fine reves up fine although I have not drove it. So how sevear could the leak be? If it drives fine it couldnt be that bad.

Next question: I was thinking maybe its as simple as pulling a valve cover and retighting some head bolts? But would the head seal if its already leaked coolant?

PROBLEMS ENCOUNTER"D During Heads INstall:
(these are just off the top of my head, there are probly more)

1. Pulling lower intake off? 2 hidden bolts
2. Pulled injectors off when not needed. It could have been as simple as removing the rail with them in.
3. Cross threaded exhaust manifold to Y pipe bolt.
4. After putting everything on the Injectors wont seal

(Vaccume Leaks)

5. Leaky EGR VALVE gasket.
6.Forgot to put on brake booster hose to upper intake manifold.
7. Dead battery, Left the key in the accessory on position(whoops)

( It wasnt meant to Be :( )

8. Discovered Leaky head gasket.

So the driver side seals fine. Its the passenger side near the back of the head that is giving me ****.

I was thinking just giving my mechanic $600 to install the heads and fix what I have broken. And at the same time have him install my cam. Its just I got no ends yo! So it may be a while. Oh well. I guess **** happens. Thats life.

I am just really frustrated right now. You dont even know how long I have spent in the garage working on my car. I pulled a 12 hour work day 2 nights ago. Started at 8pm and ended at 830 am the next day. I didnt even sleep because I wasnt done. So instead of sleeping like smart people I stayed awake, took a break, had breakfast than back out to the garage. Its been a non stop project ever since I started. And you think thats bad you should see my hands. All cut up and crap. My fingers are almost stained black. My hole body aches every day. And I know this install has taken way longer than it would a proffesional but hey, Im a rookie. I DONT KNOW WHAT I WAS THINKING TO HAVE ATTMPTED THIS.

Well I will stop babling. Please give me all your input. I need advice, and some uplifting words from fellow board members. Sorry bout the long post im just venting.

[Magnus]

Is it possible that puddle is there from when you removed the heads?

If you have an actual leak you could be leaking from these spots:
Thermostat:
Upper to Lower
Lower to Heads
Heads to Block

Are you burning white smoke at all? Does the emissions smell sweet?

You realy can't tighten down the heads more.. If they are to spec, they are to spec..

Do you notice any other audbile noises that sound strange?

Is there any coolant on the plug itself when you pull it out?

My heads/cam install took maybe a week. :( I know what your going through.. it sucked SO bad. I did mine in the dang winter though, my garage was FREEZING.

- Keith

[93v6firebird]

did you take your heads in to get reworked and milled if necessary? one of the heads could be warped and need to be worked on... which would mean you gotta start over =( but the head is not likely to be the leak if youre not burning coolant or finding coolant in the oil, I believe that coolant leaks in the heads usually go into the engine and not out, but I could be wrong

[pgriffith]

Heads are in good shape, they are most likly not warped or needed to be reworked. I just bought them from Supersixmotorsports.

And no the puddle was not there from before, I wiped it up. I can look on the back of the engine and I see a wet line of coolant down the back of the head where the head meets the block.

I dont see or smell any smoke or anything funny. Thats the weird part, everything checks out ok. Should I go drive it and see? I havent drove it yet. But would it hurt if i did drive it?

Sorry about the long post, I was pissed off last night.

[Magnus]

If your leaking coolant, no need to drive it.. if your exhaust smelled funny or had lots of white smoke, you'd be burning it.. so chances are your not burning it, its just leaking out...

After you wipe the stream away, how fast before it streams again?

Chances are you have to remove the head and use a new gasket.

I assume its the driver side too since you can see the stream.

[pgriffith]

No its passenger side head. And this time I am taking it to a proffesional so I cant screw up again. Im just gonna bend over and let him screw me with that BIG labor charge.


I just want to know one thing, HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? What could have went wrong?

[Magnus]

Hmm... you went this far, why not just take a few days off and be patient with it? Your wallet will thank you..

Things that could have gone wrong..
Gasket is cracked
Perhaps something else got wedged between the head and the block like a wire.
One of the surfaces is scratched.

Hard to say really.. You should know when you actually pull the head off though.

Sorry to hear the bad news though. :(

[southern94]

i had to learn the hard way about gaskts also 3days of work to track down a leaky gasket those things are particulr sorry to hear your set back if i where you i would do it my self you have already done it once just relax i know how you feel i am still trying to get the energy to take off my pass. side header and put it back on :rolleyes:

[RoyalBlaze]

Yeah, I'm thinking it's a problem with the gasket too. I mean, you would have had to f***** up the block pretty bad when you were cleaning it to cause a leak from a scratch there... not easy to carve scratches in cast iron on accident. What kind of gaskets did you use? And did you use a proper sealant on the gasket surfaces before you put the gaskets on?

Edit: As far as the "how serious is it" question.. you can't be too careful. If you're leaking between the head and the block you have no idea where it might also be leaking inside and a month or two down the road you find out you've been running with emulsified oil. :( Definitely worth looking into now rather than later.

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: RoyalBlaze ]</p>

[pgriffith]

Well only problem is GM only sells head gasket in a kit, but I dont need a kit, I only need that one gasket. Should I try a felpro on that side?

Proper sealant? I used no sealant, Is that bad? Oh crap I hope I wasnt supposed to use gasket sealent.


Maybe I will try it again. But If I do and screw it up again then what?

[nikkev]

Try this before you take the heads back off.Try re-tightening all the bolts back down to specs and see if it helps.We just took the intake manifold off a friends LT1 and when we installed the new one we just re-used the old gaskets.After we got it installed we cranked it and we were leaking coolant also.We were freaked and thought we would have to re-do everything.Another friend came over and checked the torque on the bolts.Turned out that 2 bolts were loose even after we had torqued them.We tightened those bolts back down and no more coolant leaks!Good luck and I hope yours is as easy a fix.
Kevin

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: nikkev ]</p>

[strange_trp]

do not loosen and retighten these bolts. once they are torqued, they must be replaced.

they are known as "torque-to-yeild" bolts. they are designed to stretch when torqued to specification in order to provide increased clamping of the head to the block.

even if the heads are brand new, i'd check for warp using a straightedge and feeler gauge before installation.

[ June 30, 2002: Message edited by: strange_trp ]</p>

[nikkev]

I know you can't re-use bolts on heads,we did the intake manifold.And we didn't loosen them,they somehow lossened up on their own as we were torquing the others,not really sure how that happened?Are you sure exactly where the leak is coming from?Did you take the intake manifold off at all?Maybe it's not coming from the heads?
Kevin

[pgriffith]

Well I need to further trouble shoot it. I probly wont get to it tell tues. But I will keep y'all posted.

[93v6firebird]

nikkev: the reason that they "loosened" is because as you tightened the lower intake, it moved down, and you had to keep tightening the intake until all bolts were torqued to spec... meaning you go around w/ a torque wrench after you did all the bolts and test them again to make sure theyre still torqued to spec