Bitter taste of defeat! So much coolant in the oil pan.

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GMachineDartGT said:
Nobody mentioned a coolant tester. Pressurize the cooling system while its cold and listen carefully.
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For me a Coolant tester is for external leaks...... But it can be used for other purposes. But the exwife would tell you I like to fly my Plane with the Wings upside down lol....

JW
 
RAMM said:
If coolant is pouring out of the pan almost as fast as its going in then this should be beyond easy to find. I'd pull the pump and cover and see what should be obvious. J.Rob
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This is true..... this should be an easy to find problem for Gomer Pyle!
 
Trevor B said:
Please tell me if you think this is a terrible idea:
What if I temporarily plugged the timing cover bolt holes and the water holes on the front of the block (could use bolts and rags)? I could plug the intake manifold's secondary (small) hose as well. Then I could squirt water into the return hose with no thermostat and see if it leaks out through the oil pan drain. It seems to me that if nothing comes out, then the engine/heads/intake manifold are not the problem and I could rest assured that I botched the timing cover/water pump part.
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No not a terrible idea; let's hope you won't have to go that far. Just start pulling the pump and cover....
 
Trevor,
When an car/truck would come into shop with engine full of shaving cream, we would pull the valve covers and intake, then wash with Kerosene with oil pan plug installed or just drop the whole pan. When you get it done and blown off with compressed air, give all the rockers and cam lobes a shot of assembly lube, fill with low buck oil then run it for 10-15 min and do another oil change with good oil. That should do it. Also, if you dont want to drop pan, leave drain plug in and bounce fender a bunch with about 2 gallons in it. Drain withing a few minutes so it cant get behind bearings on crank/rods.

Trying to get it all ouut with oil changes will take forever and cost you a case of oil. Kerosene is cheap.
 
You are not gonna like this...If you put a bolt that was too long in the front cover it will go through the open coolant passage and punch a hole/crack on the inside of the passage letting water go right into the crank case. It is actually a thin wall of metal separating the coolant from the crank case. If you run too long of a bolt and torque it down it will punch a hole or crack that inside wall. If you can find the spot you can JB weld it closed. It is not a stressed location in the block.
 
sledger46 said:
You are not gonna like this...If you put a bolt that was too long in the front cover it will go through the open coolant passage and punch a hole/crack on the inside of the passage letting water go right into the crank case. It is actually a thin wall of metal separating the coolant from the crank case. If you run too long of a bolt and torque it down it will punch a hole or crack that inside wall. If you can find the spot you can JB weld it closed. It is not a stressed location in the block.
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stuck a long bolt in the short hole on the driver side while degree in camshaft...second bolt up and punch a hole in the cylinder wall...it was near the bottom of the cylinder wall...after several attempts to seal it with moroso block sealer and whatever else...had to sleeve the cylinder...
 
Just throwing it out there, head gaskets backwards, on wrong side? Not sure how this would play out, never seen it done.
 
Update:
My experiment was a success, although only that it ruled something out...
The leak was not (only) in the timing cover.
I plugged the timing bolt holes with pipe-dope sealed intake manifold bolts, plugged the water holes with 1" rubber plugs, and plugged the overflow tube on the intake with a rag. Then filled up the intake with water all the way to the top... it was dripping out the oil pan plug hole.

It was not the same huge stream as it was when the car was warm and I did the same thing through the radiator last time, but definitely leaking somewhere else.

I will pull the intake manifold now and look for evidence of gasket leaks.

(by the way - if anyone cares, the engine's water jacket, intake, and heads hold over 2 gallons of water)
 
sireland67 said:
My first guess was a timing cover gasket until I read new heads.

Have the heads been milled?
This throws off the angle on the intake, good chance of a leak.
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As I read through the thread I was wondering if any one had had this experience. Some guys will angle mill heads to gain compression when you bolt up the intake the bottom of the gaskets will not seal (unless the manifold is milled to match) They will often not leak until after or during a heat cycle. after the leak is established it continues to leak even cold.
I hope you problem is at the timing cover. Also note that is very easy to put the water pump gasket on wrong, but that leak is to the outside not to the pan.
 
Well, that seems to be good news if you can find clear evidence of a water leak inside the valley under the intake....i.e. no huge hole in the block, or so it seems.
 
Can't see any clear evidence of anything, although the water ports in front may have been wetter. There is no hole in the block that I can see but I also cannot see whether I managed to damage Cylinder #1 with a too-long and overtorqued bolt, as was suggested at some point above. Is there a way to check for this?

It seems I only have a set of stamped metal intake gaskets I got by mistake a while back. Do I remember correctly that I should not use these on an aluminum intake manifold?
 
Trevor B said:
Update:
My experiment was a success, although only that it ruled something out...
The leak was not (only) in the timing cover.
I plugged the timing bolt holes with pipe-dope sealed intake manifold bolts, plugged the water holes with 1" rubber plugs, and plugged the overflow tube on the intake with a rag. Then filled up the intake with water all the way to the top... it was dripping out the oil pan plug hole.

It was not the same huge stream as it was when the car was warm and I did the same thing through the radiator last time, but definitely leaking somewhere else.

I will pull the intake manifold now and look for evidence of gasket leaks.

(by the way - if anyone cares, the engine's water jacket, intake, and heads hold over 2 gallons of water)
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If you are saying that you filled the intake plenum:
Well since an intake valve is always open somewhere, you would have filled at least one cylinder with water, and water gets through the ring gaps pretty easy. To make this test accurate, the rocker shafts would need to be backed-off. Or if you set it up right, maybe just one side.

But if you filled the stat housing, well then, you may have more than one leak-source. This minor one, and the major one that must have had something to do with the now-removed timing cover.I would be scrutinizing that puppy pretty closely.
 
AJ/FormS said:
If you are saying that you filled the intake plenum:
Well since an intake valve is always open somewhere, you would have filled at least one cylinder with water, and water gets through the ring gaps pretty easy. To make this test accurate, the rocker shafts would need to be backed-off. Or if you set it up right, maybe just one side.

But if you filled the stat housing, well then, you may have more than one leak-source. This minor one, and the major one that must have had something to do with the now-removed timing cover.I would be scrutinizing that puppy pretty closely.
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I assume he put the water in the t'stat on the intake, not down the carb or IN the intake..... but now you have me wondering !

OP sounds like it is time to pull the pan and SEE where it is coming from when you fill the intake. Unless there is some obvious water trail under the intake, like up front under the water jacket holes.
 
Trevor B said:
Can't see any clear evidence of anything, although the water ports in front may have been wetter. There is no hole in the block that I can see but I also cannot see whether I managed to damage Cylinder #1 with a too-long and overtorqued bolt, as was suggested at some point above. Is there a way to check for this?

It seems I only have a set of stamped metal intake gaskets I got by mistake a while back. Do I remember correctly that I should not use these on an aluminum intake manifold?
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check compression on front two cylinders, metal gaskets work fine with stock, manifolds and heads. I'd try composite for your next try.
 
Ha! No, I poured water into the thermostat hole.
I ordered composite gaskets - didn't want to do this yet again.
Will check compression when I put everything together, to be sure.

Regarding pulling the pan, I suppose that will be the next step if it still seems to be leaking after I put the intake back on with the new gaskets. It's a pain in the neck with the engine in the car and... stupid me - I put the center link back and gear arm back on after re-installing the pan the other day. Oh well.
 
I have the metal gaskets on my Ford 351M with a Weiand Action plus and it works just fine. In fact, it was the only way I could get it to seal the intake valley from leaking oil.

Of course a major difference on our engines is the fact that the Cleveland style intakes are dry. No water runs through them whatsoever.
 
I was gonna say I never has issues with metal gaskets sealing up with a 1st gen Torker aluminum manifold on my old 351C, even for vacuum leaks.

OP, check the compression on the front 2 cylinders, but it may be the case where 1 or 2 of the timing cover bolts would hit a cylinder BELOW where the compression rings travel. I have not looked to see for sure if that is the case. So that test may not be foolproof. Hopefully it is just sealing issues.
 
I feel like it's in the timing cover area. I have seen eaten up timing cover, where it bolt to the block,(block coolant passages) causing coolant to run straight into the oil pan from the timing cover.

I have done the same as you and forgot a bolt on the timing over/water pump, that installing the bolt didn't stop the leak.

you need to look real close at ALL gaskets there and then put that part back together. leave the thermostat hosing off, and see if you can fill the block up to that point without it coming out the oil pan. if you can then that problem is fixed.

Install the t-state housing and fill it up the rest of the way. If it leaks, you know the problem is above the t-stat housing.

If it won't fill up to the t-stat, whatever level it stop at, is the level of the block to investigate.
 
Bad news everyone... it's not the timing cover and it's probably not the intake manifold gasket.

I re-installed the timing cover very carefully, then the water pump, etc.
After receiving my Fel-Pro composite gaskets in the mail, installed the intake manifold - everything lines up real nice on this engine and the gaskets were positioned correctly. Used RTV around the water holes.

I even let it cure over night, just as a precaution.

So just now I disconnected the overflow hose between the intake and water pump and plugged it. Then poured water/coolant into the thermostat hole and... it came out the oil pan.

It is highly unlikely that I managed to botch the intake manifold twice - I've done it successfully in the past. And the timing cover was taken out of the equation, at least from the water-pump side. The water did not reach the top of the thermostat hole - the leak is somewhere below the floor of the intake manifold as it now looks empty but liquid was still coming out.

The amount of water was the exact same flow - not pouring but not dripping either. It seems unlikely to me that after re-installing the timing cover and intake manifold, the exact same size leak would appear. So I think it must either be somewhere in a head, the head gasket, or the possibility that cylinder 1 got cracked somehow due to overtorquing a bolt that was too long or some such.

And now it's raining. Damn.
 
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