Thread: Exhaust got the dribbles and losing water - head gasket questions

Originally Posted by haydent

Hi, i know there's a lot around about this here already but i had more a direct question.

the car is 270,000+ km lpg '91 v8 , and id me doing the work myself.

can i get away with just replacing the head gasket, or will i need other work on the block or head ?

at the moment it seems worst when cold, even cuts out, but once warm theres very little leakage.

looking in the header tank you can see small streams of bubbles coming up

If its never been cooked then you can probably get away with new gaskets. Just check the heads for flatness, a quality steel ruler will be useful to detect unevenness. You may see marks from fire rings moving and could benefit from a light skim only. And do replace the valve stem seals and a light valve grind while you are in there.

Would he need to replace the head bolts??

Mike

Originally Posted by mike 90 RR

Would he need to replace the head bolts??

Mike

Not if they are the old style 5/8 inch A/F hex head bolts.

thanks for the reply, its only just started loosing water in the past week, and it never got hot around that period, but it has been hot-ish before on a long trip i forgot to tighten the header tank cap.

how would you define cooking it ??

Originally Posted by haydent

how would you define cooking it ??

Blowing steam and boiling hot water out of the radiator. It sounds like you just have tired gaskets, not an uncommon problem with a high mileage vehicle. Should be relatively straight forward.

well when the cap was loose back in easter heading up to blinman, it would have been near red if not on it, when i realised and stopped. when i opened the bonnet, there was no steam but, when i removed the cap fully from the header it gurgled then spewed all the water out, requiring for me to wait for it to cool down and put almost the full 11L capacity back in it.

?

When the heads are off, just check for flatness. Still think it should be OK.

thanks, will give it a go. not much to loose as if it was going too cost much id be retiring the old thing for parts.

You may see marks from fire rings moving and could benefit from a light skim only. And do replace the valve stem seals and a light valve grind while you are in there

a) is the fire ring comment related to the flatness bit and the steel ruler ?

b) valve stems and light grind, i gather this involves removing the valves from the head ?