427 s/o engine melt down??????

[Mike Simard]

Afret has a point about not seeing gasket contact on the head around #2. Are you sure that head is flat? You can place a straightedge on the head and look for any light poking through gaps, if you're careful you can detect an area with a .005 gap, possibly .003 but you need a sharp, true straightedge,, I'm not sure a carpenter square will be good enough. Why not take the heads to an automotive machine shop and ask them to check the flatness? BTW, I've come to the conclusion that Felpro intake gaskets are not good, they always seem to ooze around and expose coolant openings. I'm not sure what to recommend for an FE, I use Mr Gasket sure-seals for Windsors which have a more durable material which is great but the geometry isn't very good. I don't know about FEs but it's hard to find a good intake gasket for Windsors.

[afret]

According to Barry R who used to work for Federal Mogul, the Printoseals were not designed for long term use. They are for racers who pull their intakes off pretty frequently. They are nice and soft and easy to cut to fit ported intake ports. A lot of guys on the FE Forum like the Victor Nitorseal gaskets you can get from NAPA:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/74182...rmance+Gaskets
The Nitroseals have a metal core so they are hard to trim. Their composite gasket looks similar to the Printoseal but the material seems firmer.
A lot of guys also use the Mr Gasket intake gaskets. I'm using a set of those. They seal well and are easy to trim to fit.

[HSSS427]

Talked to Keith Craft this morning and I've shipped the heads back to him to get them fully checked out. I noticed a couple of things that were disturbing leading to this:
1. When the head was still on, there was water in the intake port, so I stuck a paper towel in there to soak up the water. When I removed it, water started filling up again. I thought it was coming through the valve from the cylinder, but on second thought it could have been running down into the port from a crack in the head wall.
2. There might be some slight warping of the head deck, but if so it's less than .008 based on the carpenter square and feeler guage I have.
3. I don't think the block is the issue

Keith said he'd had some prior experience with customers developing leaks in these Shelby aluminum heads in the past. But he said the good thing is that aluminum can be repaired. So back to the doctor's office they go. Will let you know what I find out from Keith.
Thanks!

[HSSS427]

I have a pin hole in the intake runner on #2. When he pressure tested it he said it was definately big enough to fill the cylinder with water. He's off to a Cobra event in Tulsa this weekend I think. Said he'd repair it starting tomorrow and get it back to me ASAP. That's all I know for now....

[HSSS427]

Shelly Craft called this afternoon and said she'd just handed the heads to the UPS man, so should be back this week!

[Rick Parker]

HSSS427

you have mail

[Excaliber]

Perhaps the pin hole was there all along and when it 'burst through' THIS was the root of all the problems to start with?

Or are we dealing with a, 'which came first the chicken or the egg quandry'?

[HSSS427]

Rick - thanks for the email. I'll look into checking the rod.

Excal - Hard to say, just hope that this is the fix to the issue! I sense the wall on the intake was pretty thin at that point so it could have happened in the porting. However, I ran for 250 miles or so with no problems - including right up to when I shut down the engine.

If the pin hole was there and then burst - what would the likely result be? Would that cause the temps to spike? Assume I'd see a big white cloud of smoke out the exhaust when it happened from the water going into the cylinder.

[undy]

***edit***

[HSSS427]

He has not charged me for the repair. I did pay to ship to him and did the tear down and will do reassembly myself. It's hard to say what the root cause is so I don't think I'm going to be too greedy on this one.

[Excaliber]

I think thats a good call HSSS427, the 'chicken and egg thing' could go on forever. Cut a deal and move on...

Good luck!

[HSSS427]

OK, here's the run down on the re-assembly:

- New nitroseal head gaskets installed, with no sealer of any kind - just cleaned the deck and head with laquer thinner.
- Torqued the heads down in 3 steps: 70, 85, 100 ft lbs
- Coated NitroSeal intake gaskets with spray adhesive, put Permatex gray around the water jackets and stuck them down
- Put Permatex gray on the rails - no cork gaskets
- Set the aluminum intake down and bolted down to 34 ft lbs
- Put the pushrods back in order wtih a dab of grease to hold them into the hydraulic lifter cups
- Installed rocker arm assemblies and torqued to 42 ft lbs
- Pre-loaded / set lash on the lifters at 1/2 turn past tight
- Stripped the top surge tank bolt, so drilled it out and re-threaded to 3/8"
- Installed thermostat with weep hole drilled in the top
- Installed the carb w 1/2" phenolic 4 hole spacer
- Filled the block with distilled water and Water Wetter via the water temp sensor hole and then filled the surge tank and radiator lines from the surge tank
- Filled with Shell Rotello 15w-40 plus 1 quart Lucas Oil Conditioner, which I poured over the rocker arms and down into the cam valley to try and coat everything
- Used a drill and shaft to prime the oil system
- Replaced the valve covers
- Installed the distributor so that the rotor was pointing directly at #1 spark plug wire connector when the harmonic balancer timing line was at 20 deg advanced
- Verified TDC and that I didn't have the distributor 180 off
- Fuel lines connected, carb float bowls show fuel in the site windows
- Installed new Champion plugs gapped at .050

Looked everything over and turned the key. Starter kind of sounded funny, like a higher pitched sound, but crank appeared to be turning over. However, wasn't getting any ignition. Tried some starter fluid in the carb and got a couple of puffs and one backfire.

Starter seems to have a hard time turning the engine over, so hooked up the battery charger. However, I can turn the engine over by hand using a breaker bar and have rotated it around a couple of times when verifying TDC.

Tried it 3 or 4 times and then had to stop to tend to kiddie duties. Figure I'll post this, and sleep on it.

Any ideas or tips to try? Could I have done something to the starter when the engine was locked up and I tried to start it?
Thanks!
Scott

[Rick Parker]

Check it for compression, and double check distributor is properly clocked.

[HSSS427]

Rick - by "clocked" do you mean right wires in right holes?

[SCOBRAC]

right wires right position of the rotor onto the correct terminal, typically #1 at the #1 terminal but at the proper time, in this case top dead center. You are likely 180 degrees out.

[Excaliber]

COULD be a 180 out if number one lined up on the EXHAUST instead of intake stroke. The way it was firing with the Starter Fluid makes me think 'timing'. Lets assume the timing WAS set on the compression stroke and thats good to go.

20 degree's on the balancer with the 'rotor bug' pointing to number 1 makes me think your EXTREMELY advanced. I do the rotor bug thing at 5 or 10 degrees. Being to advanced would also explain the 'hard to crank' symptom. 20 degrees normally aint to much, but just using the rotor bug to line up method leaves a LOT of room for error either advanced or retarded.

[HSSS427]

Rick was on the right track I think......

I pulled all the plugs and did a compression test starting on passenger side. No compression reading on #2, 70 lbs on #1

Checked other side, similar results.

So, I started with the idea that I set the lash on the valves too tight. After all it is hydraulic and the lifters weren't pressuirzed I assume.

So started with passenger side and re-set the lash and it did appear that may have been part of the problem as the push rods came up noticably when I loosed the rocker arm stud to reset it.

So, I'm thinking ta-da - this was easy......... not so fast my friend!!!

I'm bumping the engine over with a remote starter to get the valves in position to set them, when (picture the scene where the alien jumps out of the guy's stomach) water spurts out of #2 plug hole. Not the gusher like before but at least 3-4 tablespoon lets say.

So, I finish setting the valves anyway and run compression on #4 - i get 60 lbs - way too low. Same on #1.

Too pizzed to even try the driver side so will do that tomorrow.

I guess I have a leaky something on the passenger side. Could it be:

- I didn't get the head gasket sealed good?
- The 1966 aluminum police interceptor intake has sprung a leak from the overheat?
- Intake gasket leak?
- A really nasty gremlin taking a pee inside my cylinder!!!!

BTW - the funny whining sound from the starter was the engine turning over with no compression!!!!

This is killing me.......I'm gonna sell it and buy a Corvette if something good doesn't happen soon!!!!!

[HSSS427]

BTW Excalibur - exactly what is your little avatar man doing?

[HSSS427]

BTW - given that I've now changed the oil 3 times doing this, any tips on how to keep from dumping water into the oil pan when you take the intake off? I'm going to have to start buying Shell Rotella by the barrell at this rate!

[Rick Parker]

Burnouts, not enough grunt for 4th gear though.