Blown Head Gasket or Cracked Block

-
Hit the go pedal and it really breaks up... Just checked the plug wires and they look like graphite wires instead of solid core wires...
I hate to follow up on car builds by other people...
 
ok..I replaced the plug wires,cap,rotor and condenser and its running like a top. All I need to do today is flush the cooling system out and fill it with water. I will watch it for a few days to see if the coolant gets oiled down again.
Thank you for all your suggestions..

Rick
 
ya might wanna run strait distilled water until you determine that everything is good.
 
Flushed it this morning with hot water with motor running for 10-15 minutes. Still see some left over oil coming up in the radiator. In the next few days I will do the flush again using liquid dishwasher soap. This was really clean up the coolant passages..
Car sat there and ran great. Still have a small miss now and then but runs great..
 
cool...its worth twenty minutes to check the dizzy gear. The gear is easily replaceable.
 
Retorque the head bolts. Be sure to do a quick run through on the valve lash clearances after doing this.

A little ways back I showed that NOS gaskets from 30 years ago are still being sold. NOS distributor gears from 40 plus years ago as well. So unless you pull the head there is no way to know if a modern no-retorque gasket was used even if the rebuild was done last week and the rebuilder did not specifically check the gasket. Oil from the head bolt passages at the rear of the head can seep down next to the water passages there. If this is it, then you're lucky you noticed it before the gasket gave out at the fire ring.

Good luck.
 
I did the retorque on the head bolts and did the valve adjustment as well.....
Do I need to pull the head bolts one at a time...clean and use sealant on them then retorque them?
Rick
 
this happened to me with my dodge stratus it was driving fine when i left to cruise with buddies then it started acting like junk of course i WAS hottrodding it =) maybe your daughter was racing the local neighbor boys and there japs?
 
How did you figure out that it was a blown hg? I have done a compression test,pressurized the coolant system and it held and I didnt hear any hissing from anywhere.
I am guessing that is what it might be but I want to know for sure before I pull it down...

Rick
 
well it would do too things it would get REALLY cold then jump back up to hot the gauge went all of the place finally it started blowing smoke into the cabin. thats from the heater core i assume. but when i started it smoke came from back where the cat is but from the motor where the block itself is
 
There is no steam from coolant going into the cylinders or oil smoke from oil in the cylinders either. I have had the car running for 15 minutes after I did the coolant flush. I checked the radiator yesterday and there is very little oil on top of the coolant. I knew that there would be some so the amount I found is no big deal.
I pulled one of the plugs today to see if it had the washers on the plugs and it did. From the information that I found over on slant6 website...this year motor should not use the washers. If the washers were used on the plugs in the motor...this would put the electrode in the wrong spot.
Not sure what effect this will have but tomorrow I will remove those washers.

Rick
 
If you`re getting water in one of the cylinders it should be apparent on the spark plug. A cylinder compressing water will clean the walls of the cylinder of most all of the carbon so your plug would be very clean in that particular cylinder.
 
That is the weird thing....all the plugs look the same. That was one of the first things that I checked was if one or more of them got a good washing.
The plugs look a little brown on the ceramic tip but that is it. I checked a number of things when we first got the car and the plugs havent changed colors.
 
OK... I got a set of Autolite Platinum #AP 66 today. Gap'd and installed them... WOW what a difference in how it runs. Took it for a drive and it worked great.

Rick
 
Spent some time under the car this afternoon changing a muffler bracket. Someone didnt really know what they were doing when it was installed. The exhaust head pipe was up against the crossmember.

Car is running and sounding great....

Rick
 
mopar340dave said:
good stuff here:

The standard spark plug for the slant six is a N-14Y. If the end plugs tend to foul during warmup,
the cylinders #1 and #6 may want a hotter plug such as a N-18Y. For high performance
applications, the N-10Y or N-12Y should be adequate.]
Click to expand...

Those numbers are for Champion plugs, which in my opinion are garbage. I have much better results with Autolite's or NGK plugs. If using Autolites, check the box, to see where they were made. Autolite is shifting a lot of their production to China, and I wouldn't use them if made in China.
 
No it wasnt the HG. This mess in the radiator must be from a prior issue that was not cleaned out like it should have been.

Rick
 
Glad to see you are up and running and everything is good Rick:cheers:
I have been told not to use the Champion plugs by many folks for many years even in my son circle track cars. Autolite's is all he and I use.
I want to thank all the great members that jumped in on this thread for you and others to learn from :happy10:
 
the water is pumped out the upper hose....

so stick a hose in the upper hose neck of the radiator and hold the upper hose up so it blows the crud out over the rad/grill into a tub/bucket.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
-

Back
Top