Please tell me I don't have to pull the heads off

Ha! Hey Alan! Hope you are doing well. Thanks for the kind words and great to hear from you. We'll see what happens with this car.

 

Doing great Mike and I hope the same for you .. wish you where here still on L.I.

... to the Original Poster - there are very few people I can think of that I would trust my cars with. 15? plus years ago when Mike was on Long Island I trusted him with BigRed and he was meticulous then.. and that was before he had a fancy-shmancy shop !! If he was still here on L.I. he would be working on my cars

 

Not sure why anyone would opt for the rope rear main seal over the neoprene fitted Cadillac seal or the BOP seal. The failed rope seals that I have seen are the result of years of usage and tens of thousands of miles. The neoprene seal will have a wire core to it. Did whomever took the engine apart see that anywhere in the base? What about what was left in the upper half - from the pictures, something was still left up there.

As far as coolant in the cylinders, with the spark plugs out just turn the engine over by hand using a socket and ratchet on the front balancer bolt. I can't imagine anyway for coolant to get into the headers from the exhaust crossover or anything to do with the intake or wrong intake gasket or whatever, unless something was very compromised (ie broke in a big way).

 

Yes they are MSD wires, and I saw those tools in the box, and had no idea what to do with them. I love the way that motor looks, do you by chance remember the length of the wires that you cut? Im in your area all the time I will give you a buzz tomorrow when I escape work.

 

I thought the BOP seal was the way to go too, which is why I bought it. TA put a rope in it to begin with, and since my paper work said neoprene (to my knowledge) because I don't have my build sheet in front of me my mechanic would not use it, without me having to eat the cost if it leaked. So I signed off on him putting the rope back in it. Now I have this BOP seal sitting on my shelf doing nothing.

Chad has offered to come over and look at this thing with me on Saturday so I will wait until he comes before I start messing around with it again. Hopefully nothing is broke in a big way because I don't know that I could take that anymore.

 

Was it coolant or straight water dripping out the header? Maybe we are all over thinking this. What are the chances there was some condensation in the headers? A cold car and the hot air in the morning would do it, and given the surface area of the headers enough could accumulate to drip.

 

The OP did mention that the leak stopped. He hasn't fixed anything yet, so if it was a leak it should still be leaking..

 

Joe,

While I doubt it was condensation, I don't doubt that there may be a lot of overthinking. If he pulled the plugs, antifreeze should have run out at least 2 of the holes if there was a large enough leak to fill the cylinders and spill over into the exhaust. He also shouldn't have been able to rotate the engine because it would have liquid locked. Looking forward to an update this weekend.

 

I agree the condensation is a total longshot, buts its the only thing I can think of that would explain the symptoms.

Also, I re-read some of the OP's posts. He had the long block assembled by the engine shop. They should be his first call.

 

50/50 mix, and defintely not condensation. In Arizona there is no such thing as a cold car. Somedays in the garage its hotter than the temp outside. I really hope I am over thinking this, and it is something that is an easy fix. Hopefully I will be able to report to you guys on saturday that its fixed and It wasn't anything major

 

If it were me i would have just fired it up and ran it to see what happened. you might be tripping over nothing. and fwiw ive never been able to hydrolock a gas motor, we had a sbc that someone ported a little to much and jb welded it, car made a pass blowing smoke out like crazy. pulled the carb in the pits and the intake had water pooling up in the ports. still drove it on the trailer. diesels, thats a different story.

 

With the nightmare this thing has been there was no way I was going to take that chance. Besides I couldn't even if I wanted to because i'm not advanced/courageous enough to fool around with the distributor yet, and the wires are not made up yet. I am really hoping that this isn't that serious and that tomorrow this thing is going to be a really simple fix for somebody that knows what they are looking at because clearly I dont. What this has been for me is a very good learning experience.

 

Brother, I wouldn't fire that thing up either! I would definitely start with pressure checking the cooling system. Sounds like the intake is far from sealed up.
If you don't get anyone to help, you might want to consider having Mike Modena, at least, look it over and give his opinion. He's a real good guy and knows what he is doing. Just don't tell him I said that.... LOL
Dave

 

Wayy to many times..if you're doing it yourself its a good chunk o work to pull one of these motors out and reinstall by yourself..been there done that..

If you have a nice paint job then that just adds to the stress levels worrying about chipped paint and dented fenders etc..

Don't give up on the 455 Buick just yet..mine melted the front cam bearing and spun the number 7 rod bearing..

That was about 14 years ago and since then its logged about 80,000 miles and it runs as strong as ever with 18 PSI at idle and 48 PSI at a steady 2500 cruise RPM..get the bearing clearances/machine work right and they will last a long time..

 

You REALLY need to find some with some 455 Buick experience to give you a hand..

 

Update. Took a look at the engine and crawled all over. No obvious signs of coolant. Saw a drop of oil on the passenger collector flange but nothing looked alarming.


So here is what we did:

1. Verified the head bolts were torqued to spec.
2. Pressurized the radiator after putting a half gallon of water in to top it off.
3. Verified that there was no obvious leakage into the cylinders by removing the spark plugs and feel for pressure. All good. Nothing felt.
4. Verified that there was no pressure in the oil valley by plugging the breather holes, no pressure felt and no air leak heard.
5. Verified that there was no pressure in the exhaust by listening and blocking the tailpipes.

So after all this we proceeded to replace all the spark plug and install the distributor.


Les kicked the engine over while I felt#1 come under pressure and blast...out comes coolant.


What... the …


Ok so, we yanked the motor and here are our observations.

1. #1 Exhaust port coolant found on valve stem
2. #3 Exhaust port odd object next to valve stem
3. #8 Exhaust port coolant found on valve stem

Seems like the heads are the cause...

#1 Wet stem


#8 Wet stem


#3 what is that sticking out next to the stem?

EDIT:

Here is a video ... I realize I suck at speaking while on camera but here ya go.

http://youtu.be/u4bR7ywyC8w

 

cant tell from the pics, but if someone ported the head. they probably hit water. the dark spot is the exhaust crossover, and the shiny spot looks like a crack, or a paperclip? they're very blurry

 

Here is a video ... I realize I suck at speaking while on camera but here ya go.

http://youtu.be/u4bR7ywyC8w

 

The heads arent ported, since its leaking water on the end ports. the coolant ports are suspect to me. are the coolant ports siliconed with the steel gasket? that thing looks like a nail to me not sure how something like that could have gotten in there.