*big sigh*

It blew.. blew real bad.

Driving down the road, all the sudden I hear this small pop, then bam, car lost all power, oil pressure dropped off pretty good right there too. Limped home [I was 2 blocks away] at 15mph with my foot to the floor. Car was smoking real bad too. Got her home, SOMEHOW made it up my 45* incline driveway, and parked her. Popped the hood, coolant'* all gone, looked at the oil, it'* all water pretty much. Drained the coolant and oil right away. Going to pull the heads this weekend probably. See what I find.

JMFC: Nope, no machine work done. It'* just straight water.


-justin

After all the work u put in to that machine :(

Live and learn.
On a positive note, you will become quite good at pulling that engine apart and will realize the value of having to spend $$ to do things right the first time.



Good luck. Have the heads checked for cracks and make sure you replace the head bolts and have the heads resurfaced or checked for flatness.

Personally, I blame the cheapo loaner torque wrench more than the lack of head machining.

At any rate, that sucks. I'm actually sad for you right now, and i'm not a very compasionate person, generally speaking... Hopefully the 2-block drive with water for lube didn't kill the bottom end too.

Yeah, that'* my biggest worry. I let the oil sit overnight, and I will inspect the percent of water today sometime. It didn't look as bad as it did on the dipstick. Coolant.. well the coolant was pure ****. it wasn't pretty.

JMFC is right, I too believe this was caused from the lack of torque the last time I did it. I am also going to get the heads resurfaced, or something along those lines. I'm not sure what resurfacing entails.. but if it entails removing material, that'* what I will end out doing. Least amount possible, that'* for sure.

2000SilverBullet: Yep yep. I definitely learned you have to put the money into it to make it right. Even though I only have 40 miles on those damn $30 head bolts, I am seriously contemplating getting ARP Studs, versus the bolts. I want to get the best damn bolts I can afford, Grade 24 baby! .

As for how good I am at pulling the engine apart, I can pull the entire exhaust [from headers to muffler] in 1-2 hours. It'* so easy.. I mean it'* literally child'* play at this point. But the first time I did it, I was probably a good 5 hours into it before I could get it all out. Plus if I had the money and parts all here, I could probably fix this whole thing this weekend.


-justin

What kind of head bolts did you use on it? Felpro or something like that or GM ones?

Either way, you have to make sure you clean the block and the heads very very well. They both have to be spotless where they mate to the headgasket. I always run the old head bolts down into the block further then they would usually be to clean out the threads before I put the heads on with the new bolts to try to avoid anything that might cause the torque reading to be wrong. (this cleans out the threads) Also, I'm not sure what the torque reading is for your head bolts, but really just tighten the damn things really tight and you shouldn't have a problem. I'm not a big guy at all, but to get mine to the proper torque I had to have a 2' pipe on the end of my 2' long torque wrench to get enough torque to tighten them all the way (I could've done it without the pipe, it was just very difficult). So if they weren't that tight thats probably the problem. Its always little things like bolt torque that will screw up a project like that.

I would check the heads and make sure the mating surfaces are smooth, and then check them with a straight edge or something like that and see if they are warped at all (they are iron heads, they shouldn't be). Resurfacing them is a good idea but if they aren't warped and the mating surfaces are clean then its unnecessary IMO.

Anyways, better luck this time around, hopefully you get her running great again and there isn't any bottom end damage or anything from the water in the oil.

Shawn

I checked the oil.. and there was maybe a a pint of water in with all the oil. So like it should be alright. But on the dipstick, it looked like it was all water, and a drop of oil, which was fucked up. However, the oil was black as night, so that tells me there was something fucked up. But I ran seafoam through the oil, so maybe that'* what caused it to be so gross.

I used Felpro head bolts.. but i'm not using them again. ARP all the way, I just gotta figure out the exact bolt specs [pitch and all that wonderful ****] to call up ARP to hook me up.

The heads were spotless, so was the block. I got all the old gasket material off, and made it shine like a beauty. I don't know what happened. If my heads aren't fucked up, then it was most likely due to the the torquing problems I had originally.

And to think, if the car kicked *** with a screwed up head seal.. think of what it'll do with a good one? .

What would you recommend as a good straight edge? Is that a replacement for not having a machine shop inspect it [if all turns out good on the straight-edge inspection, of course]. And I have a feeler gauge that goes down to like .0001 or something super thin, so I don't have to just eyeball it or anything.


-justin

Over torquing can be just as bad as under torquing. If you exceed the yield strength of the bolt, it will stretch enough to yield. This will cause the bolt to eventually crack and break over time.

Always torque to spec.

ARP head studs will probably be expensive though. I don't know what it costs for your particular engine, but I use GM bolts because you know they are of at least OEM quality. They have always worked great for me, that might be something you could look into.

For a straightedge, obviously something long enough to go all the way across the head, and just make sure its something you know is perfectly straight. I used my dads really thick craftsman straightedge just to check mine (even though they had been machined and fully rebuilt, I just wanted to make sure) and it was perfectly flat. But yes a good straightedge and a feeler gauge to try to get inbetween them with would be great.

Shawn

Yes, overtorquing is bad, however I was just giving an example that mine to spec was really damn tight and I don't know how I could've gotten them much tighter, so if they didn't feel that tight they probably weren't to spec. I don't know how easily I could've overtorqued mine if I wanted to. Mine were like 155 ft.lbs and then 90 degrees...which is pretty damn tight.

Shawn