| Re: Oil leak at head gasket? |
Subject: Re: Oil leak at head gasket? by 86PACER on 2011/1/22 7:09:24 Quote:
Shit man, you can forget about looking for a replacement engine over this oil leak. You just don't have a full understanding of what's really going on here. I 100% guarantee that your L98 head gaskets are NOT leaking motor oil between the head and block to the outside because they CANNOT. It just isn't happening. A SBC cannot and will not leak oil past the head gaskets between the head and block for two good reason. First the location of the oil drain back holes in the block and head gasket make that an impossible scenario. And secondly as mentioned these drain back holes are under no oil pressure. Read this: http://www.badasscars.com/index.cfm/p ... id=3/mode=prod/prd119.htm Instead you probably failed to do a good job of sealing the front and back chinawalls of the intake manifold and block. The only sealer I trust for this task is Permatex Right Stuff. You need to lay a continous bead of sealer with no air pockets or breaks. Gasket surfaces should be prepped, dry, and immaculate. Don't even think about using those shitty cork strips instead of sealer that some gasket sets come with. Your sealer beads should look like this front and back:  In order to get a thick bead like this out of the Right Stuff can you need to remove or not use the supplied screw on plastic tip. Instead get it straight out of the can. The sealer must overlap both the top and bottom sides of each corner of the intake gasksets. Then you need make sure to set the intake base straight down on the first shot and not shift it around to align the bolt holes once you set it down while the sealer is still tacky. If you're off start over. What I do is straddle over the engine. I have one foot on each front tire and I bend at the waist as I lower the intake straight down. I am able to see from above the aligment of the intake bolt holes as I lower it so that I get it right on the first shot without having to shift it around once I set it down. Use a known good calibrated torque wrench to torque the bolts to spec in sequence. Use thread sealer on the bolts. If you undertorque them with an out of cal wrench you're going to have leaks. So look at your valve covers, front and back of the intake manifold, the distributor hole, and possibly even that oil pressure switch on the back of the block against the firewall for the source. The oil leak comes from up top and it runs down the front or back of the block (or both) along that diagonal parting line of the head and block. It then continues to seep along the same parting line between the head and the block ending up near the spark plugs to make it look as if it's leaking from between there. I've seen it first hand on my car. It was originating from my intake manifold ends. You can also add dedicated UV leak detector dye to the motor oil and pinpoint the source with a UV light. |
