Saturday 31 May 2008

Leak Repair 1.

It says Leak Repair 1 because I'm writing this retrospectively and know what's coming next!

Well I put the engine stand back up and set about finding out where the water leak came from, first off it was evident that the final run really mixed things up.

Obvious candidate was the intake to head seals so off came the top end. All looked OK with no obvious path for water to have made it to my oil. Looking on www.Ford uscle.com I found others talking of oil leaks caused by poor head gaskets, and in particular the Mr Gasket's that I had used. The oil leak in question matched the slight leak which had developed on both heads during the dyno runs. So I travelled further down and removed the first head. What I found was not pretty, the entire deck surface was wet and there was obvious signs of combustion gasses leaking over the cylinder seals.

It looks like the water had found its way under the gaskets and into the oil drain back holes, a slow leak at first which just got worse.

So I purchased some nice new Fel Pro gaskets which just looked better, clear sealing material on both sides in all the right places.

With those in place I set about cleaning the heads and intake of old silicone, what a job! Any way eventually it was all clean and I could re-assemble.

As well as the water leak my sump was leaking oil as well so that came off and what do you know, Mr Gasket had let me down again. This time the Ultraseal one piece gaskets just didn't do the job.

So again new Fel Pro gaskets were used (thanks Tim) with plenty of sealant.

So it was all fixed and ready to be tested again.

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