Fresh nailhead rebuild, water in my oil

The bottom passenger side? Could be the problem. It goes through.

I use it on all the ones that go through the cover. Not a lot, just a little.

 

just a dick

 

I removed that bolt last night and sure enough there's no sealer on it.

I'm going to seal all the bolts and put fresh oil in it, drive it a few miles around town, and then drain the oil and check it again.

Anybody know a trick for getting that oil pan off without lifting the motor? I dropped the center link by removing the pitman arm from the steering box, but it doesn't look like I've got enough room to slide the pan back without bumping into the torque converter. And there are two pan bolts above the frame crossmember that I can get a 1/4" drive socket on, but there's no room to crank on it. I don't see how I get them off without lifting the motor off the mounts a few inches.

 

Don't know any "tricks" to removing the oil pan, but I do know that just adding sealer to the threads isn't gonna solve your problem. You are going to have to remove the front cover and clean the holes from any oily watery crap or the sealer isn't going to do what you want.

I would say this amount of "pain in the ass" redo is no where near as bad as a cracked head or major problem. That's just my opinion.

 

General question for the Buick guys, Knowing that the bolt goes into a water jacket is good news, but if the t-c gasket is placed and sealed properly how does water then get into the oil?

And, if I may, let me offer a very general warning about using silicone on bolts....if you use too much and you have a blind hole it is very possible to break something when you run the bolt home. Silicone does not compress.


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I was wondering the same thing. It has to penetrate the block somewhere along the shaft for the water to get into the oil. Either that, or the timing chain cover is cracked and it gets in that way.

Like JAWS said, if this is the problem, it's a much smaller pain in the ass then a head or block...I'm gonna remove the water pump and timing chain cover, clean everything spotless, put new gaskets on and silicone the bolts that pass into water jackets...and closely inspect the timing chain cover while I've got it off. Again, if this doesn't solve the problem, then I'll go looking for something more sinister...if it's a cracked block or head, I'm not gonna crack it some more trying the timing chain cover and bolts first.

Anyway, off to the garage, I got work to do. Thanks for all the advice everyone, I'll check back later.

 

The bolt goes through the water pump, timing cover, and into the block. I ment to look today to see if that bolt goes all the way through or not. Forgot when I got busy, but I'll look in the morning.

sorry but coming from someone I know it's funny, you're just being a bitch. I put an emoticon on the damn post get the fuck over it already.

everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some people abuse the privilage.

You're abusing the privilege. Besides that fact you can't spell in your own sig.

 

Scott,...obviously those anger management classes you are taking from Dr. Phil aren't "workin' for ya".

hehehe!

 

So, I gave up on the pressure test since I had to fix a leaking rear main and wanted to check out my bearings anyway, I just took the dive and pulled it apart. The heads are at the machine shop (a different machine shop) being pressure tested and magnafluxed, the block will go in sometime this week, if they both check out OK, I'm going to reassemble it, being really careful with sealer on bolts and gaskets, and cross my fingers.

Speaking of rear mains, I've got the neoprene seal in now, and it's leaking. I'll know if the machine shop correctly installed it when I disassemble the block sometime in the next few days, but how many of you have experience with the original rope seals? Better than the neoprene? I tend to think my neoprene is leaking because it wasn't installed right, but I've heard some old guys recommend the rope as better at preventing leaks than the neoprene, comments?

 

I'm a big fan of the neoprene seals, I use them front and rear...

 

Yeah, I've heard generally good stuff about them, but I have a sneaky feeling the machine shop didn't offset the gaps and I've heard that if you don't, they leak.

My front is neoprene also, and it's tighter than dick's hat band.

 

zman...you wearin a band on your hat these days?????

 

You sure got a lot of nice friends, zman...I'm impressed with all the respect they give you.

I'm glad I tore it down completely, my rod bearings are all bad, the mains aren't so good either. The heads have been magnafluxed and no cracks were found. The machine shop is pressure testing them today. I dropped the block, crank, pistons and rods off this morning. Some of my pistons had some shiny eyebrow marks on the valve reliefs, so apparently some valves were hitting them...explains the two bent pushrods I've got. I'll know by the end of the week if either the heads or block is bad, if they're good, it has to be an assembly issue and that's on me.

I'll just have to be extra careful sealing bolts and gaskets and cross my fingers.

 

You apparently have than just assembly issues if parts are touching. Sounds like too much cam lift, cam not properly positioned, or too much dome on piston.
The only other option to 'touching' is a valve hanging up at max lift and the piston tapping it closed....check guide clearances and conditon of stem. If a valve is sticking you will likely see scuff marks.

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Wow, 350 miles and rod bearings and mains... sounds like you got some serious issues going on.. and valves hitting the pistons.. time to start over. Were the heads redone as well?

 

Were the heads redone when, zman? I originally took the heads and block to a highly recommended machine shop. Had a valve job done and the shop installed the new stainless valves, guides, springs and keepers, and seals. After the first 150-200 miles I had a valve train problem, a noticeable miss and what sounded like a bad lifter, upon disassembly and inspection, I discovered my seals were all damaged. The first shop didn't account for the high lift cam and the spring keepers were beating on the top of the guide bosses/seals. Had the shop I'm using now cut down the guides/bosses and solved that problem. As an aside, I noticed a water problem then, but it wasn't too bad and I assumed I just had a condensation problem from the motor sitting so long.

It is a high lift cam, .459 intake 4.86 exhaust, but isn't supposed to be too high to cause piston to valve clearance problems. It's installed at 4 degrees advance, per the manufacturers recommendations. I'm assuming the shop would have discovered evidence of sticky valves at the time they cut down the guides and mentioned it to me...but that's an assumption, I should ask him about it while he's got the valves out of the heads again. But wouldn't I have a miss/backfire with a sticky valve? At any rate, the plan for the piston to valve clearance problem was to just cut more relief in the pistons. Other than being 0.030 oversize, the pistons are stock replacements from Egge.

As far as the bad bearings, I think my oil got pretty thin due to the water and gas mixed in it...apparently I had a bad fuel pump that was leaking gas into the crankcase as well. Although, I talked with a machinist at TA Performance yesterday, and he suggested the bearing might have been too tight if the machine shop didn't stress relieve them after resizing them. Again, I've made the current machinist aware of the problem. The rod bearings were much worse than the mains and the cam bearings are probably ok, but I'm replacing them all anyway.

 

Can somebody explain what this means?

he suggested the bearing might have been too tight if the machine shop didn't stress relieve them after resizing them.

I don't believe I've ever heard of such a procedure, but then I'm not a machinist.

 

OK, so you're back to square one and going through everything one by one. I was just wondering what exactly had been done to the heads along with the cam. Sounds like you are going about it correctly at this point. Sucks, but it'll be well worth it...

 

Me neither, so I just put one machinist in touch with the other machinist and let the experts talk to each other.

Yes, zman. My heads passed the magnafluxing and pressure test with flying colors, so, I'm planning on just reassembling and reinstalling.

If the block has no cracks or porosity issues, I'm going to use it again. It and the heads are freshly machined, so if they're good, I don't want to replace them...but the bearings are all gonna be new.

 

The block is OK.

So, it had to be an assembly problem...and I know who to blame for that...

 

who? I wanna point the finger too..

 

Yours, truly. I don't know, didn't look like we had any leaking gaskets or bolts when we disassembled it...and again, I'm glad I did or I wouldn't have known about the bad rod bearings until the bottom end started knocking.

Although...I didn't assemble the bottom end the first time around and it looks like we might have had a clearance issue there. Another machinist told me you have to take those rod bolts down to 50 lbs, loosen them, take them down to 50 lbs again...at least 4 times before you take them to final torque. He says you're stretching those new ARP bolts...that if you resize the rods and just install them and torque them, they'll be too tight.

 

This has been a good thread-thanks for sticking with it, nail-head. And I heart zman.

 

This is true of any bolt when you tighten it any amount. The clamping force that a bolt provides is due to the stretched bolt wanting to return to the relaxed position. If you stretch a bolt and it fails to return then you have succeeded in passing the 'elastic' point and are moving rapidly toward the failure point...
If your torque wrench reads 50 lbs then you have 50 lbs....

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IMHO and for future reference, besides the common sense visual look over, a combination of a coolant pressue tester AND cylinder leak tester will ALWAYS lead you to the culprit. Or you can use a otc dye that becomes visable with a black light also to scope out the exterior of the engine to see where it's leaking from. Or if you have $$$ and already pulled the plugs, a boroscope can come in handy to see it coolant glazed the cylinder walls/etc...

 

ARP recommended the "stretch method" on rod bolts, take them down to 50 lbs, loosen, take them down to 50 lbs, loosen, do it four times before final torque.


As for the final answer on my water/oil problem, it remains a mystery. The heads and block were magnafluxed and pressure tested, no leaks. The rod bearings were bad, but the mains and cam bearings were fine. The faint eyebrows on the pistons were not evidence of valve contact, the bent pushrods were a result of the first machine shop failing to account for increased lift by cutting down the guides/bosses. I also had the crank balanced, another thing the first machine shop failed to do. We put it back together, were meticulous with thread sealant and gaskets, and she's been running great and much smoother with the balanced crank. Shakedown cruise was to the Roundup last weekend and she performed flawlessly.

Thanks to everyone who chimed in with advice and information. I'm ready to find another nailhead and a pre-war coupe to put it in.

 

Termite (pest control), guys use a boroscope a lot. Might be able to have someone who works in that area loan you one for a few $$.

 

After a few weeks of trouble free performance, the problem resurfaced again.

It's not the heads or the head gaskets, I pressure tested it with the valve covers and the lifter valley cover off, no visible leaks in either place.

So, that leaves the bolt(s) that pass through the timing chain cover and into water jackets, or a cracked timing chain cover.

When I removed those two bolts (about middle of the passenger side) I used a long pipe cleaner to clean out the holes before I re-sealed them and replaced them. I noticed on the lower of the two, the pipe cleaner stopped only a short distance in, i.e., it hit the bottom of the hole, but on the upper hole, that 1 foot long pipe cleaner passed all the way through up to my fingers. Is that bolt hole in the block open all the way to the crankcase? It must be and that seems like a silly design flaw. A hole that passes through the exterior of the block, through a water jacket, and through to the crankcase just don't make sense. Casting the block with that hole blind would prevent a lot of trouble. If I have to pull this thing apart again in the future, I'm thinking I'll install a plumbing plug at the back end of that hole...if it's accessible.

At any rate, I loaded the bolt up with permatex ultra copper and reinstalled it...and I added a bottle of that copper cooling system stop-leak, so far, so good.

 

Get that stop leak crap outta there now and flush out the radiator and cooling system. Stop leak will plug up a radiator in no time. It is not a repair it is an emergency quick fix. Sorry, not pickin' on you, but I couldn't let that go by unsaid.

 

I used this stuff.

http://www.barsproducts.com/1109.htm

No problems after three weeks and I'm driving and checking everything a few times a week. The manufacturer even recommends leaving it in the system as a conditioner for the water pump.

I'd rather not use it, but I'd rather not have coolant in my crankcase. I know I'd rather replace a radiator than an engine. I'm planning on changing the oil before this weekend's car show here in New Braunfels, maybe I'll pressure test the cooling system again while I've got the oil pan drain plug out and if it doesn't leak, drain the cooling system and put fresh coolant in it.