HEADGASKET: CCOT vs. TOY

[wengejor]

I wanted to share my experience with the CCOT after market head gasket. I recently did a valve job and rings and bearings in my rig and for some reason I decided to use the CCOT gasket kit. Anyway, after a few months now it started leaking coolant into the oil. Notice the milkshake in the valve cover. The compression was still good but it was leaking somewhere between the passages (or maybe the oil cooler...).




The CCOT gasket has a different hole pattern and this is supposed to enhance the cooling. I did run cooler than before the rebuild.

Upper gasket is Toyota, lower is CCOT.

 

[wengejor]

Again Toyota is upper, CCOT lower. The CCOT gasket seems to be made of a paper like material with rubber seals around the holes. The TOY gasket has copper crush washers around the holes and is of much better quality.

 

[Tvaldriz]

Pretty much agreed-on moral to the story is to use OEM Toyota
headgaskets, at least that is the consensus on the board.

Thanks for the visual comparison!

 

[bigbrown]

i had the same experience with the MAF aftermarket HG. It also lacks the metal flanges around many of the journals.

best 75 bucks extra....OEM.

 

[wengejor]

well I have it all back together tonight. Just need to adjust the valves and put the fluids back in. I was contemplating bypassing the oil cooler just in case. Any opinions about that?

 

[wengejor]

Here she is. Purring like a kitten. Man I hope that does the trick.

View attachment 215025

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Great pics. Congrats on getting it buttoned up. I had no idea you got so much snow in Ohio. It's 70 degrees here and all the trees are blooming. I had forgotten about winter. That pic is a good reminder.

I really dislike CCoT and this is just one more reason.

Oem as usual, is the way to go, although for the HG in particular, didn't JimC say the Felpro was as good as OEM?

 

[powderpig]

Was the head flat? the pictures of the head gasket show blowby between 2-3 and 4-5(carbon between the cylinders). I have always like OEM over most aftermarket stuff, unless it is real specialized. Hope you corrected the problem, later robbie

 

[wengejor]

all I can say is that I had it at the machine shop and they indicated that it was not warped. They did machine it before the CCOT gasket and check for cracks. I did re-torque the head multiple times over the past few months.

Just took it for a spin and everything seems good...we'll see in a few more days. I'll have the compression checked.

 

[wengejor]

After further inspection of the CCOT gasket and looking at my high-res pics of the head, it doesn't look like these dark spots are from carbon build up due to blow-by. Using a razor blade I didn't get any carbon off of the CCOT gasket in these areas.

It looks like the cheap finish on the metal rings started to burn or melt off where you see the darker sections on the head. I think that it probably would have done this all around the gasket given more time.

It looks like a lot of snow but we have stone walls on the side of the driveway. We got like 10 inches last night. I have also read some other threads stating that the Felpro gasket also works fine. I got the OEM one from cruiserdan so you know the price was good!!!

 

[FJ40Jim]

Oem as usual, is the way to go, although for the HG in particular, didn't JimC say the Felpro was as good as OEM?

No, I have bought Felpro HG's several times over the past 15 yrs, and never gotten an OEM quality gasket.

The only reliable source for the OEM Headgasket is toyota.

OTOH, the Felpro manifold gasket is better than or equivalent to the OEM manifold gasket. Maybe that's what you heard?

One other note:
Notice on the cheap HG's there are lots of water holes. This is a bad thing. It allows water to move up out of the block, into the head and out to the thermostat. Because that water doesn't travel all the way to the back of the engine, then come up, it doesn't cool the back cylinders and #6 exhaust port. The water is cool, keeping the t-stat shut longer and not getting as hot in general. This gives the mistaken impression that engine cooling is improved. It is in fact the opposite, cooling is reduced. The coolant is removing less heat from the engine, leaving heat around the back cylinders.

Just because the coolant is not overheated, does not mean the engine is not overheating. It just means that there is less heat rejection to the coolant.

 

[MiniPigg]

I agree, why take a chance. I only use the toyota head gasket. Other things you can skimp on or not worry about them to much. the head gasket is something I only want to change one time. One of our fellow cruiser heads up in washington state went thru several head gaskets including felpro and every single one of them failed. He finally said ok I give up and with the toyota head gasket he never had another failure as long as he owned the 40. Ive only done two head gaskets and both where toyota. One went another 160K and was still going when I gave the engine away. thats one part I will only use toyota for.

 

[dwillmo]

Water was probably leaking into the oil at those large coolant holes in the front two cylinders--and I agree the front cylinders would run a lot cooler than the back cylinders.

 

[wengejor]

well, I drove it around yesterday, took it to work and back today. So far so good after almost 60 miles...no coolant in the oil. I re-adjusted the valves and re-torqued the head and manifolds when I got home tonight.

Next project: Knuckle rebuild

 

[Tvaldriz]

Go with the Marlincrawler heavy-duty axel seals. You won't be
sorry.

 

[wengejor]

Go with the Marlincrawler heavy-duty axel seals. You won't be
sorry.

I'll check it out

 

[nuclearlemon]

i used felpro head gaskets on the nuclearlemon twice. both blew in about six months. i finally got rid of the rig for lack of money, so i'll never know if that was the issue with mine, but at the same time that i did my first one, a friend's dad did hers with felpro also. it also blew about the same time as mine did. eh put oem in and it never had a problem after that. subzali now has that cruiser. he's done a lot of work to it, don't know if he's done a head gasket or not.

 

[Matt60]

Toyota always wins this contest unless you just like to replace head gaskets. :shotts: