Head gasket appears to be leaking (1 Viewer)

[RustyAndDusty]

Unfortunately just as I think Im finishing up baselining this new-to-me 1985 fj60 I seem to have discovered a leaky head gasket. It started by me wondering why I was seeing random little puffs of whiteish smoke from my tail pipe even after the engine is warmed up. I knew it could be plenty of things but kept it in mind. Then after a 2 hour drive I popped the hood when I got home with the engine running and noticed my upper and lower radiator hoses had collapsed (anyone have any idea why both would collapse like that? they are new as is the radiator). The temp gauge has always been on the higher side since replacing the temp sender and flushing the coolant system when I first got the truck but Ive never seen it hit the red. I put a laser thermometer to the thermostat housing and was getting just under 190*. I shut off the engine and when it cooled down I took off the rad cap and noticed the coolant was low. I started filling it with distilled water and got almost a gallon in there before it was full. Yikes. I couldn't see any coolant leaks so I checked the dipstick and the oil looked clean and I felt a moment of relief. Then I checked my oil filler cap and found snot inside. Shined a light down into the hole and it looks like the inside of the valve cover is also covered with snot. Bummer! I had the valve cover off a few weeks ago when I adjusted the valves and it was clean and snot free but the previous owner was only running water in the radiator (I'm in SoCal). I had flushed the coolant system and put coolant in after doing the valve adjustment so its possible this leak had been there before but the water was just burning off and not leaving any signs of contamination in the oil I assume?

I had just done a dry and cold compression test a few weeks ago, numbers seemed "adequate" for a beater with 200k miles:

• Cylinder #1: 120psi
• Cylinder #2: 120psi
• Cylinder #3: 119psi
• Cylinder #4: 110psi
• Cylinder #5: 115psi
• Cylinder #6: 120psi

I wonder if the lower compression on #4 and #5 is because of the head gasket issue I seem to have?

I recently went through and retorqued all the pans and covers around the engine to help alleviate some of the leaks and basically every bolt seemed to be almost hand tight, everything needed to be tightened. This might be overly optimistic but should I even consider that simply re-torquing the head bolts could fix the leak? Unfortunately I forgot to check them when I had the valve cover off recently.

Is there anything else I should consider is going on here besides the head gasket leaking? Any other way for coolant to be getting into my oil? I assume not but figured I should ask to make sure. Water pump was replaced about 12,000 miles ago.

Anyways now I'm doing a bit of a deep dive into what needs to go down to replace the head gasket. Looks like I need to use an OEM gasket although I think Ive seen some people recommend the fel-pro one as well? Is that still recommended or is the fel-pro gasket forbidden these days too? I know its not the worst time for a full rebuild but that's not really the approach Im taking with this truck. I'm trying to keep things cheap and "good-enough" so just a head gasket replacement and whatever the guys at the machine shop tell me needs to be replaced on the head when I take it in. Hoping its not cracked. Regardless of what they say is it important to replace all the valve seals while the heads off? Should I have them lap the valves if theyre still in good shape?

Sounds like I need to get a 13Mx1.75 tap and clean up the head bolt holes before reassembling. How important is it to get new head bolts? Can I skirt by just cleaning mine up? Or do I need to bring them to the machine shop and have them inspect them?

The exhaust manifold has a new gasket from the previous owner already but I assume I shouldn't mess around with reusing it when reassembling right? Do I need to bring that to the shop to have it machined as well or should I just leave it be?

And when its finally all back together is simply changing the oil and flushing the coolant with a few cycles of distilled water enough to deal with any cross contamination between the two systems?

 

[BGarcia88FJ62]

Things look pretty clean in the valve cover. When I had one it was pretty much like the typical milkshake covering everything.
The other symptom if you happen to have HG leak at the water jacket is higher temps, coolant loss and a sweet smell in your exhaust.

 

[cruiserdan]

Do a combustion test on the cooling system.

Blown Head Gasket Diagnostic - Tricks Of The Trade

When it’s warm outside, we rely on our car’s cooling system to keep temperatures inside the engine under control, but there are times when the cooling system st

www.motortrend.com

 

[RustyAndDusty]

Do a combustion test on the cooling system.

Blown Head Gasket Diagnostic - Tricks Of The Trade

When it’s warm outside, we rely on our car’s cooling system to keep temperatures inside the engine under control, but there are times when the cooling system st

www.motortrend.com

Will do. I did the test when I first got the truck and it passed. Im wondering if the leak is new for some reason or if its possible its leaking coolant into the oil but not combustion gasses into the coolant? is that even possible? If it passes the combustion test again would that mean its not the head gasket?

 

[BGarcia88FJ62]

I'd drain all the coolant and oil. Pull the valve cover and drop the oil pan and have a good look at everything from top to bottom. Get everything cleaned up.
flush as much of the old coolant as possible, start with fresh coolant & oil and run it. Check often and see what's what. There's no telling what a previous owner had going on or any type of additives they may have used. It doesn't appear to me from those 2 photos it's a blown head gasket.

 

[2mbb]

Take the valve cover off so you can look at the whole thing. It's much easier to do than the oil pan. You may just have an oil cap that isn't sealing and letting in moisture from the outside. Also you should be able to borrow or rent a cooling system pressure tester. This will help you find if your cooling system is leaking and if it is leaking out onto the ground. I would think a head gasket leaking between the combustion chamber and a cooling galley would over pressurizes the cooling system. A leak between a cooling galley and an oil galley would not necessarily show up in a compression test.

However, I don't think your compression numbers indicate a blown head gasket...

 

[RustyAndDusty]

I appreciate the optimism you guys are bringing to the table haha. not looking forward to opening up the engine at the moment. I was excited to start using this thing daily now that it’s registered and running seemingly great.

I’ll take off the valve cover when I get a sec to get a better look at what’s going on under there. I’ll torque the head bolts just to check how loose they are since every other bolt on this engine seems to be pretty loose. I’ll also rent a coolant system pressure tester to see what that can tell me.

Oil looks clean but maybe a little high, is it normal for a cold 2F to show too much oil on the dip stick? I guess if almost a gallon of coolant disappeared into the oil the level should be a lot higher than that. The most damning thing here is the inside of my valve cover. I just replaced the gasket and cleaned out the inside of that cover a few weeks ago and there was nothing but oil in there when I opened it up. The fact that it’s covered in slime now that the truck is running coolant is pretty disconcerting.

 

[2mbb]

I you had a gallon of water/coolant all in your engine's oil, it would look something like this, probably worse. The 2F takes about 7 quarts of oil. That is 1 3/4 gallon. If you added another gallon of water/coolant it would show much more than one quart high.

I took the screen shot from this youtube video. Don't wish for water in your oil. It makes a mess.

 

[RustyAndDusty]

I you had a gallon of water/coolant all in your engine's oil, it would look something like this, probably worse. The 2F takes about 7 quarts of oil. That is 1 3/4 gallon. If you added another gallon of water/coolant it would show much more than one quart high.

I took the screen shot from this youtube video. Don't wish for water in your oil. It makes a mess.



View attachment 3265740

I put in 8.2 quarts in when I did the oil change. I believe that’s what the manual states when you’re changing the filter which I assume everyone here does on every oil change. Is 8.2 quarts wrong? If so it would explain the oil level on my dipstick.

 

[BGarcia88FJ62]

As I recall it's 7.8 Quarts.

 

[RustyAndDusty]

Looks like @2mbb is describing the oil capacity in imperial quarts and @BGarcia88FJ62 is describing the capacity in liters. I can see how this can get confusing. I'm in the US so 8.2 quarts was the correct amount for me.

 

[2mbb]

View attachment 3265795

Looks like @2mbb is describing the oil capacity in imperial quarts and @BGarcia88FJ62 is describing the capacity in liters. I can see how this can get confusing. I'm in the US so 8.2 quarts was the correct amount for me.

Sorry. I got too many cars and can't keep them all straight. Even so, if approximately 1/3 to 1/4 your capacity is water/coolant there is no way your dipstick would look like that. That's my point.

 

[RustyAndDusty]

The mess under the valve cover. Drained some coolant and couldn’t detect any oil but i imagine all this snot under the valve cover must be coolant right? I haven’t drained the oil yet but that might be my next step

 

[BGarcia88FJ62]

Seems odd to me that all that goop isn't all over the valve train as well. And the oil on top of the head bolts looks pretty clean.
This has me leaning toward some sort of additive may have been used in the past and it may just be residue of some kind.
I'd still drop the oil pan and inspect the bottom end. Wipe everything down clean it up. I'd run it, keep an eye on your temps and
look inside the valve cover daily to see if this builds up again.

 

[Skreddy]

Have you run it a bit but just short times? If you start it frequently but don’t drive it/get it up to sustained operating temps, any moisture that’s in the air within the engine can’t cook out and can cause this. Really cold and humid air temps can have similar results even if running longer times. Being that it seems mostly on the valve cover (not all over the valves) this may be that simple? Condensation on the cover then oil droplets flung up there from valve action?
Have a properly functioning PCV?

 

[RustyAndDusty]

This has me leaning toward some sort of additive may have been used in the past and it may just be residue of some kind.

Hard for me to imagine it’s remnants of an additive doing this. When I opened the valve cover before it was just old oil in there. I changed the oil and flushed the coolant system with several rounds of distilled water (previous owner was just running distilled water) before I added coolant. The first 2 hour voyage since then I discover the coolant being low and the underside of the valve cover looking like this for the first time. Previous owner replaced a lot of the coolant system (new radiator and hoses, new fan clutch, thermostat) there was a 180* thermostat when I got it and I switched it to a 190* and put new gaskets on the thermostat and the housing.

I agree it’s weird how focused the goop is to the valve cover and not really anywhere else. This is way too much goop to just be condensation getting under the valve cover I’d imagine? I didn’t replace the valve cover bolt seals when I replaced the valve cover gasket. The weather has been pretty wild out here too, snow, rain, hot days cold nights (high desert).

Anyone here think it’s a leaky head gasket? Feels like I’m the only one, I’ve never blown a head gasket before though. I know the oils supposed to be milky but I wonder if I just caught it early?

 

[RustyAndDusty]

Since I’ve gotten it and been working on it I’ve only taken it on very short trips and I’ve started it numerous times just to warm it up and check things. First time I took it out for real trip was for a 2 hour drive in each direction. Trust me I’m crossing my fingers for something as simple as condensation building up from short trips but the fact that my coolant was so low doesn’t leave me very optimistic. Anyone know why my upper and lower radiator hoses might have been getting sucked in/collapsing after my long trip? Blockage somewhere?

Pcv valve rattles, seems good. I had purchased a new one but the one on there seemed much higher quality so I put it back.

 

[BGarcia88FJ62]

In my experience that stuff doesn't resemble and oil/coolant mixture.

 

[RustyAndDusty]

In my experience that stuff doesn't resemble and oil/coolant mixture.

I love to hear that

 

[RustyAndDusty]

I drained some oil from the pan and it looks normal to me. I cleaned off the goop under the valve cover and put it back on. I’m going to run it and do the combustion leak test again. If it tests good again maybe I’ll drive it around today and check the valve cover afterwards.