who needs head gaskets?

[fleetmech]

Was digging through my photos and thought you guys would find this amusing. Several years ago, my rig started making an odd puffing noise, that I eventually realized was compression pushing out the relief channel in the head gasket on cyl #2. I started pulling things apart and got the front head off no problem, but ran into trouble with the rear. NO matter what I did, the rear cylinder head seemed stuck firm to the deck. In all, it took the construction of a temporary gantry and two full days to get the rear head lifted off and the picture shows why. The stud passages in the head were completely packed with solidified carbon.

During this process, I had talked to a buddy of mine who knew the previous owner of my truck. In his words: "oh, that funky chuffing sound... yeah that happened to (name) a few times, but he just kept driving and it would go away soon enough"

Long story short: the previous owner simply continued driving through multiple head gasket failures! The soot and carbon would eventually plug the leak, and the engine would be back to 100%. I drove the truck for over a year with no issues, and would have continued if the front hadn't popped.

50% of playing with old cars and trucks is undoing time and nature, and the other 50% is undoing the previous owner...! Upon re-assembly, I decided to heat cycle the engine and do a re-torque. It was amazing how much things loosened up, and I highly recommend it, in spite of the extra time and work it takes.

 

[HDN]

That's wild! Are the studs under that carbon buildup still usable?

 

[Valley Rock]

And that is precisely why I just continue to drive through my problems, whether it be with my trucks or with life

 

[fleetmech]

That's wild! Are the studs under that carbon buildup still usable?

Surprisingly, the studs and everything else cleaned up just fine, although it sure took a long time! I used an NES rethreading tool as a chase for the threads, and gave each stud a careful tap to check the resonance.

 

[cattlerepairman]

100% on the re-torque. The new style head gaskets are said to be "no re-torque" but putting the torque wrench to the head nuts after a few heat cycles certainly does not make it seem that way!. Mine, too, had plenty of loose ones, despite having been torqued to spec initially. I sincerely recommend a re-torque.

 

[fleetmech]

100% on the re-torque. The new style head gaskets are said to be "no re-torque" but putting the torque wrench to the head nuts after a few heat cycles certainly does not make it seem that way!. Mine, too, had plenty of loose ones, despite having been torqued to spec initially. I sincerely recommend a re-torque.

Oh yeah. New style gaskets on a TD and they still moved a lot!