Hi all I just finished installing a fresh 74' 455 it has 10.25:1 pistons,bored 30 over, GS113 cam, S-Divider intake. Mild porting on the heads drilled oil galleys. Fired it up and brought it to temp and ran for 5 more minutes then shut it down because the intake had a vacuum leak. installed new intake gasket. Checked the oil before I restarted it and too my suprise I had a milkshake :eek2: ou: So I flush out the crankcase and refill with oil. Started the engine up everything seemed fine no sign of coolant in the oil so I go for a short drive and check oil when I get back everything ok. I go in for the night and today check the oil and the level is high???? so I pop the drainplug and theres coolant in there again :af: Also no sign of oil in the radiator. I put a cooling system pressure tester on it and I can hear coolant dribbling into the oil pan. Is there anyway to narrow it down to one component ? Could it be the timing cover not sealling well .If it's a head or head gasket or a cracked waterjacket is there a way of pinpointing it?
Well, there are only three places that coolant can get into the crankcase. Head gaskets, intake manifold gaskets and timing cover gasket. Thats assuming that you don't have a cracked block and or head(s), or a damaged timing chain cover. Did you mill the heads? If the machine shop forgot to cut the intake side you might have a problem sealing up the water passages. Also, are you using the metal intake gasket or the composite one? The metal jobs are prone to leak when used with an aluminum intake. I don't know of any way to pinpoint these leaks, other then tearing it down piece by piece and looking for signs of leakage. Good luck!!
The original gasket was metal and so was the one I put in. Where do you get the composit gasket? The parts store didnot give me a choice. Thanks
Here are two places that I know sell them. http://www.paeenterprises.com/ http://www.taperformance.com/ They come in different thinkness as well. I have had good luck with the .060 thickness. If you call PAE talk to Jim, and he'll set you up with everything you will need to replace the metal gasket with the composit one.
OK I have come to the conclusion that the intake is leaking. I pulled the intake again and it looks as if the gasket embosses around the ports are being crushed more at the top than the bottom. there is also some carbon fouling around the exhaust crossover ports near the lower portion of the gasket on both banks. Water was on top of the valley pan and milkshake on the front & back walls. I pressurized the radiator and could hear the leak clearly with the stethascope at the pushrod hole for #6 exhaust valve and vapor was rising from the hole where the rod comes thru the head. There is a water jacket at both ends of each head but only 3 waterjacket holes on the S-Divider intake. Is that correct ? Here are the casting #'s of the top of the bellhousing on the motor 1238861 and this is the head casting #'s 1241860 Are the block and heads compatable? The numbers between the exhaust ports 5&7on the engine deck are F 432 The guy I bought the motor from said the heads were decked but he cannot remember if the intake side was cut to or how much it was decked. I am also not sure if the intake was milled. How and what do I measure the angles to see if there's a problem with the intake to head angles? Can I have the intake milled if theres a problem with the angles. When the heads are decked exactly what must be done to make it work together. I have never owned or worked on an engine that has been decked I can take pictures of anything that may help figure this out as I have the intake off again. Pulling my hair out in Detroit o No: Jay
I'm doing a search on if they'll work together or not - it's not looking good: http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8142&highlight=74+heads+early+block and http://www.v8buick.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=11386&highlight=74+heads+early+block
here are 2 pics of the intake. The first shows the nonexisistant water jack of my S-Divider. the one on the left. Does this look like its been milled ? the second one shows 2 bolts in the floor of the intake. Is this the way they come from Postons?
Block and heads should be compatable as long as you are not running the old style steel head gaskets. In 72 they used two different blocks and the same heads regardless and there was no problems from the factory with either configuration, so I doubt thats your problem. The lack of a water jacket on the intake is OK, I think my Edelbrock B4B has the same type of configuration. When whomever ported the heads, could they have possibly went into a cooling passage? Thats the only explanation I could think of for where your hearing water entry. Either that or you used steel head gaskets, or have a bad head gasket, or need to retorque the heads. A thick set of composit intake gaskets will probably solve your intake sealing issues if the heads haven't been decked excessively. I don't know of any way for a machine shop to be able to machine the intake manifold or intake side of the head without knowing how much was machined off of the deck.
The heads were not really ported much it is more just a port match job, it does not loos as tho he went back very far or took very much off.
