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

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That is a bummer sir. Well, if you keep at it you will win.

I'd be leaving it as is and taking off the pan and looking up to see where the water is coming through. In that way, you will be 100 % sure to spot the trouble area. I still hope it not a cracked block.
 
Trevor B said:
...........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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You have not eliminated the timing cover!!!! If there is ANY water in the block, the timing cover is a factor.

Have you got an air compressor? You can actually "after a fashion" pressure check it yourself.

Using the intake as a pattern, make 4 simple block off plates for the head water ports. You are going to have to drill and tap at least one of them for some sort of fitting to fill and to pressure

Make simple block off plates for the water pump holes in the front of the block.

Use thread sealer, like pipe dope or teflon tape and bolts, and seal off bolt holes in the timing cover.

If it still leaks, time to pull the head(s). Depending on what that brings, you can re-test it using your same block off plates.
 
I had a similar mystery leak but it was external. It was weeping out of bolt hole. I tried about everything. Finally I changed timing covers and it fixed it. The damn timing cover has a very hard to see hairline crack in it from a casting flaw. If it's leaking this much antifreeze it should be very obvious where it's coming from. After reading all 3 pages, I'm thinking all along... Pull the pan and see.
 
67Dart273:
I feel like I should have ruled out the timing cover in my previous test, where I had the timing cover off entirely, and did what you suggested: water holes in block plugged, pipe-dope coated bolts in the timing cover bolt holes, etc. When I poured water into the thermostat hole on the intake and saw the stream coming out through the oil pan (still), that's when I decided to pull the intake manifold and replace the gaskets. :banghead:

I wonder if it is time to pull the engine out of the car... don't know if I can stomach doing all this all over again in the driveway! Pulling the oil pan with the engine in was a bear.
 
can you give us a idea about the amount of coolant you lose in say a hour? A crack in the cast iron head or block would leak very slow! VERY slow! I would make a block off plate or three to block the water jacket, inlets on heads. So no water escapes when block is filled with coolant. then use a funnel to pour water into block with intake off. see if water still comes out drain plug. If not, then more than likely problem in the intake sealing against the heads. Or on further thought, just fill both sides separately.
 
Which cylinder was it you were afraid you might have punctured with the longer bolt? Obviously either 1 or 2 since they are in the front. Get the valves closed on each of them one at a time. Then put air in the spark plug hole. See where it goes. You have the pan off, right? It will be evident as all heck if you have a punctured cylinder when you apply 100 plus PSI to the plug hole. That will quickly confirm or rule out that problem.
 
Trevor B said:
67Dart273:
I feel like I should have ruled out the timing cover in my previous test, where I had the timing cover off entirely, and did what you suggested: water holes in block plugged, pipe-dope coated bolts in the timing cover bolt holes, etc. When I poured water into the thermostat hole on the intake and saw the stream coming out through the oil pan (still), that's when I decided to pull the intake manifold and replace the gaskets. :banghead:

I wonder if it is time to pull the engine out of the car... don't know if I can stomach doing all this all over again in the driveway! Pulling the oil pan with the engine in was a bear.
Click to expand...

Missed that. (Sigh)

"Pull engine?" What makes you thing it's not the heads?

And as Rusty said you should do an air test in the cylinders. Pull off the rocker gear. This leaves the valves closed, and the piston can be at the bottom (When you put the air to them, that's where they will go, unless the piston happens to be at TDC. For this test, bottom is what you want in case of a damaged cylinder wall)

Put air into each one. If you can get water in the block, you can look for bubbles as well
 
Pull the motor. Get some die that glows under a black light,add it to the coolant,use black light to hopefully track the leak. I have some of that die around...
 
Here's how fast the coolant is coming out:
[ame]https://youtu.be/Clz8dl-2SK4[/ame]

I put the water in with the oil pan plug out to get a better read on how fast it was leaking - it started coming out by the time I had poured in a gallon.

Unfortunately, the oil pan is back on and it sucked to get off/on with the engine in the car.

I can pressurize the front cylinders. It would seem that this experiment would be more effective with the oil pan off so I could look inside the engine, no? That's sort of why I was thinking it is time to pull the engine out of the car.

As for whether it is the heads, who knows.

Here's what I know:
1) Everything was fine before I pulled the engine apart to put in the new cam and 302 heads - no leaks.
2) The 302 heads were magnafluxed and checked out okay by a reputable machinist - he gave them back to me and I did some light porting/gasket matching. I brought them back to him for a 3-angle valve job, hot tank, and check for flatness - he took off 0.004" from each. He also installed the valves and springs.
3) I opened up everything and pulled out the old cam, put in the new one.
4) I managed to get the oil pan off as I wanted to clean out all the old crap in there and paint it. New oil pan gasket and re-installed (should have done the timing cover first but didn't figure that out in time)
5) Then put the heads on, using thin Mr. Gasket 1121g 0.028" gaskets. Head bolts were torqued in 3 stages in the order given by the book. The gaskets only go on one way and looked okay to me, although I stupidly forgot to take a picture along the way.
6) Upon re-installing the timing cover, I managed to forget the lower right side bolt that goes into the water jacket... unaware, installed the water pump and radiator, and had the first episode of coolant pouring all over the place. This is the bolt behind the water pump inlet.
6a) Realized my mistake and removed the water pump, put the missing bolt in, re-installed the water pump with a new gasket.
7) Filled her up with oil and coolant and got the engine started, timed and ran at different RPMs in the driveway for about 12-15 minutes.
8 ) Got ready to go for a test drive and then noticed the froth and dipstick level way to high.
9) Pulled oil pan drain plug and discovered massive coolant.
10) Freaked out
11) Performed the afore-mentioned test with the timing cover off and front of engine blocked/plugged up. Still leaked so re-installed timing cover and water pump.
12) Ruled out the timing cover and moved on to re-do the intake manifold gasket
13) Re-installed intake manifold gasket and repeated test, although this time front of engine was not blocked off but had the timing cover and water pump installed. Still leaked.

So it could be a bad head gasket job, a cracked head, could be a crack in the block, or could even be something ridiculously brainless I managed to forget that I cannot remember. Or something else.
 
Like I said earlier-Coolant pouring out that fast should be EASY to find. I saw a Chevy 350 do that before. Turned out his spring seats had been cut for larger springs and cut into the water jacket on the top side of the head. You could see it with the valve cover removed.

I think you have a major problem as in a cracked cylinder. I can't see a cracked cylinder head doing this. As someone said--pressurize cylinders VIA the sparkplug hole one by one. J.Rob
 
Pull the engine if easier. The one issue I have with the compression test is if there is a hole in the cylinder below the level of the compression rings, it will not show up. And I think a number of the timing cover bolts would hit low in the bore. If you pull the engine or pan and test again, at least you know where to focus your attention.

BTW OP, when you pulled the intake, was there any water in the valley? If the intake was leaking it would go down in the valley and be obvious.
 
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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x2
 
RAMM said:
Like I said earlier-Coolant pouring out that fast should be EASY to find. I saw a Chevy 350 do that before. Turned out his spring seats had been cut for larger springs and cut into the water jacket on the top side of the head. You could see it with the valve cover removed.

I think you have a major problem as in a cracked cylinder. I can't see a cracked cylinder head doing this. As someone said--pressurize cylinders VIA the sparkplug hole one by one. J.Rob
Click to expand...

But it's not easy to find when you do things like put the pan back ON before you finish diagnosing the problem.

Things are hard to do when you make them hard to do.
 
Might kook at your porting job, might have gotten too aggressive...
 
RAMM said:
Like I said earlier-Coolant pouring out that fast should be EASY to find. I saw a Chevy 350 do that before. Turned out his spring seats had been cut for larger springs and cut into the water jacket on the top side of the head. You could see it with the valve cover removed.

I think you have a major problem as in a cracked cylinder. I can't see a cracked cylinder head doing this. As someone said--pressurize cylinders VIA the sparkplug hole one by one. J.Rob
Click to expand...

With the rocker shafts loosened so the valves are closed,and with the pistons at the bottom.
But I just gotta repeat; Since the leakage is WAAAAY LESS with the timing cover and pump,off, hmm...........
 
Gentlemen, I have at least found where the water is entering the oil pan.

Dropped the pan, got underneath and had my brother pour water into the thermostat hole and watched for it to come out. It did. Right in front - a steady trickle.

There is a 3/8" hole on the front of the #1 cylinder that looks to be even with/connected to the upper bolt hole for the power steering bracket. It is located just below the piston bore although still in the cylinder but below the piston head, about 3" up from the bottom of the engine. Do you know about this hole? It seems to be solo - no matching hole in cylinder #2.

I had thought I'd put all the bolts back where they came from but maybe I messed up and put one there that was too short? But it is a timing cover-only hole...

Is there somewhere in between the timing cover and water jacket I might have missed?

Am I any closer?
 
You are a damn sight closer now; good to at least be finding it out. Hmmm, I am a bit confused..... (but that is easy to do!). Is the hole in the round bore of the cylinder or below the actual bore? I am thinking it is in the round cylinder bore area.

BTW, I just checked an LA 360 block, and the 2nd timing cover hole up from the bottom on the driver's side is 2-3/4" from the pan rail at the bottom. Is this the one? That hole is threaded through the front surface of the block, and then into the lower edge of the water jacket in the front of cylinder one, and if the bolt was too long, it would punch through the lower edge of the cylinder #1 bore. That bolt should be no longer than about 1/2" longer than the thickness of the timing cover and brackets there.
 
Man that's a hard lesson learned. Surprised I've not done that with all the cobble jobs I did with friends in high school. Least you found it.
 
nm9stheham said:
............BTW, I just checked an LA 360 block, and the 2nd timing cover hole up from the bottom on the driver's side is 2-3/4" from the pan rail at the bottom. Is this the one? That hole is threaded through the front surface of the block, and then into the lower edge of the water jacket in the front of cylinder one, and if the bolt was too long, it would punch through the lower edge of the cylinder #1 bore...........
Click to expand...

Sure sounds like "it."
 
gtsdude said:
I agree with the timming cover You can break into a cylinder on some of those holes and you get water going into the cylinder and into the oil pan. It's usually toward the bottom so it not in he combustion area of the cylinder.
Click to expand...

gtsdude gets it 1st
 
nm9stheham said:
Hmmm, I am a bit confused..... Is the hole in the round bore of the cylinder or below the actual bore? I am thinking it is in the round cylinder bore area.
Click to expand...

It's in the round, below where the work gets done.

What, if anything, is the next step? Is something like this patchable?
 
Trevor B said:
Gentlemen, I have at least found where the water is entering the oil pan.

Dropped the pan, got underneath and had my brother pour water into the thermostat hole and watched for it to come out. It did. Right in front - a steady trickle.

There is a 3/8" hole on the front of the #1 cylinder that looks to be even with/connected to the upper bolt hole for the power steering bracket. It is located just below the piston bore although still in the cylinder but below the piston head, about 3" up from the bottom of the engine. Do you know about this hole? It seems to be solo - no matching hole in cylinder #2.

I had thought I'd put all the bolts back where they came from but maybe I messed up and put one there that was too short? But it is a timing cover-only hole...

Is there somewhere in between the timing cover and water jacket I might have missed?

Am I any closer?
Click to expand...

This makes me want to go back and put shorter bolts in the driver's side of the waterpump. I noticed the old PS pump bracket had built in 1/4" thick washers so I added a couple thick ones when the PS bracket was removed and the manual box was added. Got lucky there! Did you notice the bolts stopping before they drew the pump up tight and force them the rest of the way in?
 
Trevor B said:
It's in the round, below where the work gets done.

What, if anything, is the next step? Is something like this patchable?
Click to expand...

I would think sleeving the block would be the necessary repair, but did see one guy mention using JB weld on one before...?
 
Thanks for posting about your debacle. It may help me avoid the same thing. Thanks again.
 
Just an experience I had with a similar problem !Switched from a /6 to a 340. Had everything all blinged out, only to find water in my oil, just as you did. Took it all apart, took the block back to where I had the machine work done. Final decision was that when I bolted the timing case cover on, one of the bolts had some how managed to poke a hole in the #1 cylinder ! Strange, but went ahead and had a sleeve put in the cylinder and didn't have any more troubles !!
 
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