Best Head Gasket for my 427 SO

[patrickt]

Just order it off of Amazon (see link below). Steve, are you thinking that an intake leak could have been a contributing factor/cause of your "white tornado" and sundry fuel/carb issues from last year? Or did you somehow sprout a nice new oil leak while the car just sat in the garage?
https://www.amazon.com/Genuine-Ford-.../dp/B000NUD02W

[steve meltzer]

Thanx again, Large Arbor....think i'll go thata way. s

[steve meltzer]

Hi Patrick, you're comments have always been so helpful...I think the "white tornado" is gone, but the oil leak has been there for several years. I believe they are unrelated, and I thought I had it all done with this most recent intake manifold gasket R&R. Wrong!
(thanx for the Amazon link....Jeff Bezos and I should be on a first name basis by now...that an eBay are the way I shop...except for clothes, which I try to buy about once a decade at Costco) s

[blykins]

Now hold on a minute guys....

Call Edelbrock back and ask the guy on the line how many FE's he's built....

For crying out loud.

So if your engine has previously been running with intake gaskets and now you leave them out, think about what that does to: 1. Port alignment 2. Valve cover flanges. 3. China wall gaps. By removing the gaskets, you're dropping the intake down by about .060". That changes a lot of stuff.

You can't just leave gaskets out without taking a close look at everything. And to add to that, there's not one single FE that I've built in the past 12 years that hasn't had an intake gasket on it. The FE is the only engine where the intake ports have the opportunity to be submerged in oil while running. You absolutely need every protection possible against this and trying to goop up the flanges in order to make it seal is only a band-aid.

[steve meltzer]

OK, Mr. Lykins (et al) take me through the steps you do to replace the gasket...

1) Clean the day lights out of all three surfaces

2) do you apply the gasket to the heads as a separate step from the rest? I did, and after setting the gasket on the head with rtv, laid the intake manifold down on it to hold it in place X 24 hrs (i'm not in a big hurry...no time crunch)

3) came back some time later, may have been a few days, and put rtv on the intake side of the already applied gasket, put "The Right Stuff" across the front and back...no gasket there.

4) Had a friend to help me carefully set the intake down nice and square, and carefully torqued to about 32 foot-lbs...slowly in probaby 4 rounds of 'cross the intake pattern.

5) Pat myself on the ass for being so ^^&$%()*$@ smart, buttoned it up and then observe the leak from where I f'd up

thanx steve

[blykins]

You seem to have done everything correctly.

I would make sure the intake is not out as far as angle/flatness/etc.

I would also switch to another sealant, as I have had the Right Stuff become porous and leak exactly the way that you're seeing, except in the front. I used to use the Right Stuff until it did that to me....then never again.

Also, make sure you force the sealant into the crotch of that area. I always aim my caulking gun into that area and squeeze the trigger to make sure silicone goes as far as it can into it. If there's any little hole there whatsoever, oil will find it.

Remember, the head drains are pointed RIGHT AT the china walls. Run the sealant up high enough on the intake gasket so that it builds a dam to keep oil away.

If you want to use what I use, grab a tube of Dow Corning 732 clear silicone off of Amazon. It's FE proof and it's all that I have been using for several years.

[steve meltzer]

thanx. so much. s

[steve meltzer]

Just spoke with Lyle at Southern, the original builder of the engine. He doesn't like the expensive Fel Pro gasket, preferring either the Mr. Gasket 202A or the Edelbrock 7224. He uses only enough gray RTV (he uses Locktite brand) to hold the gasket in place and only on the head side. Never any on the intake side. Bolts torqued to about 30#. Generous RTV on the ends and the juncture of the head/intake/motor. s

[maurice19]

Steve,
Did he build the engine that you have been having the leak from?


Maurice

[steve meltzer]

I don't think Lyle was there when the engine was built 16 years ago, and, I did the intake manifold gasket about 4 years ago for the same issue. Used the expensive Fel-Pro + the Ford silicone then, too. s

[Large Arbor]

I trial fit my intake on without gaskets and it fit tight, even better than it had before the heads milled by .004. Adding the TA31 cured the intake leaks with no gaskets.

Phil

[1795]

Originally Posted by blykins

You seem to have done everything correctly.

I would make sure the intake is not out as far as angle/flatness/etc.

Steve,

On my FE in the ERA I was having problems with oil leakage and blown intake gaskets. Put the intake manifold on a table and it wobbled from side to side; it was out of kilter. Had to order a new one. Make sure that the intake is flat. Even the best manufactures will have a bad casting.

Good luck.

Jim

[steve meltzer]

Thanx for all of the great info. Would putting some grease or vaseline on the intake for a trial fitting help any here? Also, is there a specific torque pattern recommended? Torque value? thanx steve

[steve meltzer]

OK, I found the torque and tightening sequence. thanx. s

[steve meltzer]

Just in from the garage and took off the intake from the cast iron 427 SO, only to discover two seemingly new issues....one is new for sure.

1) Not sure this is new, but as I removed the push rods, i noted that two of them, at least, were bent. I was so flabergasted that I didn't pay attention to whether or not they came from the same cylinder. That sure seems weird to me, esp. since the car never gets driven hard. Other than replacing them, anything i need to watch for, or check first??

2) There was clearly a broken tooth on the distributor drive gear. About 1/2 broken off. Picture attached. What, if anything do i do about the missing chipped tooth. Maybe Patrick's daughter, a dentist would have a rec! I understand that I'll need to replace the gear, but can i just drain the oil and hope for the best or?? It's mate on the cam.

thanx steve

[patrickt]

This is one of the stranger threads we've had. Any chance they were not bent before you removed the intake the first time? In other words, were the bends so obvious that you couldn't have missed them the last time you took the intake off?

[steve meltzer]

You're probably right...I think that at least one was so bent it would have been hard to miss. Maybe it just happened, but why? I didn't even drive the car as the leak was pretty profound, so after a few starts, and no revving up, I shut it down, and started back after the re-do.

And what of the chipped tooth? Maybe pour some more oil in, start it up and then change the oil? No easy or clear cut answers to my way of thinking.

Glad I could provide some Saturday nite entertainment!

steve

[patrickt]

Usually, when you think of FEs, that have been running ok for a while, and then start bending push rods, you think of stuck valves, or something obvious breaking on the valve train, springs binding up, or a really unusual misfire. But you had it all apart, and then put it back together, and ate a tooth on the distributor gear and bent two rods. I don't know. Maybe the distributor gear caused a funky misfire that created too much pressure for the push rods to go up against. Surely if there was obvious binding/rubbing/etc., or the lash was way out of line, you would have seen that. But that wouldn't eat the distributor gear....

[Gaz64]

On any pushrod engine suffering from bent pushrods, the usual culprits are insufficient valve retainer to guide/seal clearance or rocker to stud clearance.
Something in the valvetrain is not correct.

The distributor drive gear is too high in relation to the cam drive gear, either fitted too high on the shaft, as observed by the new hole in the driven gear, or gasket too thick.

The wear pattern and resultant gear tooth failure shows this.

Gary

[steve meltzer]

whipped by now, so let me get a fresh start in the AM. (or, actuallyl, later this AM!) s