440 P/S Head - Oil Leak

[Oldtimer]

Last fall, I developed an oil leak immediately after a radical backfire. Smoke was pouring outa the left side of hood and at the time, I suspected it was a blown P/S valve cover seal. I have since swapped out the Holley 770 Avenger carb (never liked it) and replaced the P/S valve cover seal. Thinking I had 'er beat, I fired her up this afternoon, only to discover more smoke pouring outa the engine bay. wtf..... So, I scoped the P/S head and header region with a strong flash light, while smoke was still pouring off the header, discovering that oil was pissing out in several directions from beneath the lower #3 bolt on the P/S head. There may also be another offender a few bolts forward of this. I am thinking, I have now got to remove the P/S engine mount, jack up the motor - remove P/S header to create enough clearance to remove the lower head bolts, one at a time, reapplying corrupted thread sealants and torqueing each bolt along the bottom of head, one at a time, hopefully to avoid having to completely pull the head. Does this sound like a good plan? Also, what's the best sealant to use?

 

[66Satellite47]

Seems like serious trouble. Not sure how you get oil coming out of that location. Broken head bolt? Still doesn't seem like oil would pump out there. I'd guess that you're headed for a major disassembly.

 

[BeeKool]

Last fall, I developed an oil leak immediately after a radical backfire. Smoke was pouring outa the left side of hood and at the time, I suspected it was a blown P/S valve cover seal. I have since swapped out the Holley 770 Avenger carb (never liked it) and replaced the P/S valve cover seal. Thinking I had 'er beat, I fired her up this afternoon, only to discover more smoke pouring outa the engine bay. wtf..... So, I scoped the P/S head and header region with a strong flash light, while smoke was still pouring off the header, discovering that oil was pissing out in several directions from beneath the lower #3 bolt on the P/S head. There may also be another offender a few bolts forward of this. I am thinking, I have now got to remove the P/S engine mount, jack up the motor - remove P/S header to create enough clearance to remove the lower head bolts, one at a time, reapplying corrupted thread sealants and torqueing each bolt along the bottom of head, one at a time, hopefully to avoid having to completely pull the head. Does this sound like a good plan? Also, what's the best sealant to use?

View attachment 424987

Your plan can't hurt. It's best to try a few remedies before you go and do something major. What you described isn't exactly easy cheesy, but it's better than pulling a head or the motor. I'd say the odds are 50/50. And those ain't bad.
Keep us posted, you may save somebody a few hours work in the future.

 

[Oldtimer]

If none of the lower head bolts cross through an oil chamber in the block, requiring a special sealant, then I am guessing the only way, oil could be pissing out from immediately beneath any one of these bolts, would be if the head gasket was blown surrounding the bolt - meaning the head has got to come off... Yes/No?

 

[Yatzee]

Last fall, I developed an oil leak immediately after a radical backfire. Smoke was pouring outa the left side of hood and at the time, I suspected it was a blown P/S valve cover seal. I have since swapped out the Holley 770 Avenger carb (never liked it) and replaced the P/S valve cover seal. Thinking I had 'er beat, I fired her up this afternoon, only to discover more smoke pouring outa the engine bay. wtf..... So, I scoped the P/S head and header region with a strong flash light, while smoke was still pouring off the header, discovering that oil was pissing out in several directions from beneath the lower #3 bolt on the P/S head. There may also be another offender a few bolts forward of this. I am thinking, I have now got to remove the P/S engine mount, jack up the motor - remove P/S header to create enough clearance to remove the lower head bolts, one at a time, reapplying corrupted thread sealants and torqueing each bolt along the bottom of head, one at a time, hopefully to avoid having to completely pull the head. Does this sound like a good plan? Also, what's the best sealant to use?

View attachment 424987

Me thinks you'd be better off removing the whole head. Torquing is done in a systematic way and damage to the head could occur ( warpage, cracking, distorting) by just doing one side. Now if you just remove one bolt at a time and reset that's plausable. But wouldn't you prefer knowing what the head gasket is like under the extreme backfire. Can't even imagine how oil could come out the lower row of bolts unless you cracked the block right down to an oil galley or blew the oil right under the gasket.

 

[mmissile]

I believe it's a head-gasket. If it's oil-smoking out of the exhaust...you're detonating the **** outta that cylinder. The two hemi head gaskets I had to replace, went different directions. One pressurized the crank-case, and the other the cooling jacket.

 

[Oldtimer]

Well, it looks like I've got do this the hard way. Spent a few hours in the shop today pulling off surrounding parts. As I expected, Doug's 2" Custom Headers, are hung up on the 3 studs, with not enough clearance to move the flange (up or down) allowing access to the lower head bolts. If I would have been smart, I would have stayed with the stock HP cast iron manifolds and saved myself a shitload of work, but no, I had to have the headers...lol. Since I was obviously bent on having headers, I should have known better back in 2014, and had the machine shop remove the damn studs, so a person needing to shift this large header out of the way, for whatever reasons, would now be far less of a hassle. I believe a wise man once said, "Too Soon Get Old - Too Late Get shmart!". So... let the fun begin...

 

[Oldtimer]

Made a little progress today. These photos were taken while experimenting with a cross lift strategy. Since then, I relocated the forward bolt to the front of the PS head, and I will concentrate on lifting only the PS side of block upward - after removing the motor mount, together with a few remaining 'bottom side' and potentially binding concerns tomorrow morning. A lot of work to remove 1 troublesome header and head. It's a good thing, my labor is free, and I'm doing this for the fun of the hobby...

or at least that's my story & I'm sticking to it

 

[AMX364]

Sorry, think you are going at this wrong. I think in the end you will need to remove the engine and put on a stand to get access. Going at it that way gives every option open, while it will be a bit more trouble to setup. IMHO

 

[Oldtimer]

The way, this job is going so far, you are right, I may have to pull the motor. I really don't want to go there (just yet) but I will if I have to

 

[AMX364]

Off topic, could you get a better picture of the PS pump and belt setup.

 

[Oldtimer]

The way, this job is going so far, you are right, I may have to pull the motor. I really don't want to go there (just yet) but I will if I have to

Will look in archive and see if I have any pics showing the PS pump and March pulley/belt setup and post, otherwise, will have to wait until I get the current project bolted back together. Right now it's a mess

 

[Oldtimer]

Well, today was a fun time. Just kidding. I don't have the benefit of a hoist, nor a lot of wiggle room in the shop, so it was a real joy, crawling around underneath the X, disconnecting remaining tranny linkage, header collector gaskets and the PS motor mount, to allow for my initial plan, that being to simply lift the engine on the one side to create enough clearance to remove the damn PS header. Turns out - the plan worked np. Once the header was dropped out of the way, I had easy access to the bottom row of header bolts. Removal of the head was straight forward. Close examination of the block surrounding bolt #8 (shown earlier) including the surrounding head gasket, showed no obvious signs of damage. I am left to conclude the oil (under pressure) was travelling up the head bolt threads. The sealant I had used on the head bolt threads had obviously degenerated to little more than a slimy gumbo and was good for squat. I swabbed out the bolt holes, and there is an obvious presence of OIL in the bottom of the bolt holes, so I am also left to conclude, the lower row of head bolts - enter into oil galleys, and thus require a quality sealant. Any suggestions?

Or, am I wrong - and the presence of oil within the lower row of head bolt holes - is in fact a bad thing? Hopefully Not !!!

Btw... I also noticed when removing the distributor, the earlier ground shaking backfire, had also blown out a portion of the distributor-to-block gasket. It's just as well, I pulled this side of motor apart, or I wouldn't have noticed this until later on. Over the years, I've had backfires from time to time when dealing with problematic hot start issues, having put a little gas down the carb to get er fired up, but I've never had all these problems arise from doing so. Always a first time, I suppose and most certainly not the type of subsequent issues, I want to deal with again. I'm hoping the new Holley 750 Ultra Double Pumper and Heat Shield, will go a long way, to resolving the hot start issues, once this is all buttoned up again.

So, unless I discover more issues... I gotta score: a new head gasket; quality thread sealant; an exhaust gasket; and 1 intake manifold gasket kit - before I can bolt 'er all back up again and then see what happens...

After going to all the extra trouble of tearing down the motor, it's nice to know, that no underlying serious damage, appears, to have been done. To me, it now looks like a simple failure of poor thread sealant. If true, removing/cleaning & re-sealing the lower head bolts (one at a time) would likely have corrected the leak. It's better to have been safe than sorry, I suppose - by doing all this extra work. Thankfully, I didn't have to pull the motor.

I also noticed that spark plugs were loose. Not sure why. I may have forgotten to retighten them, following the initial install, which certainly didn't help
me any in maintaining proper compression, given the carbon build up. That, and she was running a little rich, I suspect. Hummm - Also time for a good
tune up. lol

 

[dvw]

BB head bolts do not go into oil or water
They require no sealant. The only pressurized oil passage though the head is at the top of the deck near cylinder #6. The only way oil could leak from the area you described is dripping down from the valve cover or a crack. A crack leaking oil and not water is highly unlikely. You may have been seeing thead sealant ozzing out ? Applying low pressure air source to a sealed off crankcase will quickly and easily pinpoint the leak. Clean the head bolts and block holes with a thread chaser. A small amount of oil on the threads and under the head of each bolt, no sealer. Torque to spec.
Doug

 

[69b3rt]

You need to make sure there is no coolant or debris at bottom of head bolt holes. If there is debris at bottom of holes, the head bolts will tighten up but wont clamp down the head. Head bolts do not need sealant on their threads. Exhaust bolts need sealant because they go into coolant passage.

 

[Oldtimer]

Interesting comments. Since last Fall, when this first happened, I couldn't identify the origin of liquid(s) obviously hitting the PS header, creating a smoke show pouring out from beneath the hood. Once the header had cooled down, clean oil, was observed upon the bottom of the header, not water. At the time, I suspected a valve cover leak, as has been suggested here. I have since replaced the valve cover seal. The car then remained in the garage through the Winter, awaiting a new carb install before being driven. After install of the new carb, I flashed 'er up and again, given all of the smoke - I hadn't properly identified or corrected the original fluid leak. This time while the motor was still running and with the use of a flash light, I was able to clearly see two (2) separate pencil line streams of fluid shooting out in 2 different directions from beneath the indicated lower head bolt, and not from the surrounding exhaust bolts, from under which, one would more likely see such a leak. I am beginning to think that, based upon your above comments, (for which I am thankful), there may be yet another explanation of what was really going on. Perhaps it was rad fluid I had seen hitting the hot header, in combination with OIL from a different source, which I had not seen, escaping from beneath the distributor, that could easily have travelled down and around the block below the valve cover and onto the header, aiding in the creation of all the smoke and corruption. This would explain the presence of oil, dripping from the header, after things had cooled down. I wished I had taken a video, showing the leak, amidst all the smoke, as I am now questioning my own observations & perhaps premature conclusions. In the meantime, I have swabbed out, a lot of crud from the head bolt holes within in block, which is likely sludge from using prior bolt sealant. I will chase out the holes and clean with solvent, as per your advise, prior to install of the new ARP head bolts and recommended lubricant. I will also test and repair exhaust bolt holes (where needed) - in an effort to address all remaining potential issues, prior to the reinstallation of the head and Doug's 2" full exhaust header... More later

 

[dvw]

While your at it pull the drivers side head now and clean up all the threads. If not you'll probaby be replacing a leaking head gasket from poor clamp load with that goop on the threads. Remember;
If you don't take time to do it right the 1st time you can always make time for the 2nd repair.
Doug

 

[Oldtimer]

Off topic, could you get a better picture of the PS pump and belt setup.

As per your request, here are a couple of archive pics, I found illustrating the PS pump and March Pulley/Bracket installation on my '68 X.

Sorry, these pics are not the best of quality, but they are all that I could find in archive - showing the PS pump setup.

 

[65wgn440]

Interesting problem. The only explanation that makes sense to me is that you had a head gasket leaking coolant at that bolt location. The coolant could have even tracked over to the head bolt, and up and out under the bolt head, like you believe you saw, I suppose if the gasket was still sealing at the outer portion of the head. Maybe should put a straightedge on the head before you bolt it back together.

 

[Oldtimer]

Well, I tried my best to re-seal several leaking header flange bolts, but finally tossed in the towel.

I towed the 68 GTX to a master Mopar mechanic who determined all the header flange bolt holes on my original heads were toast. I elected to swap out several parts to improve upon performance & reliability, of my recent build and setup. The following photographs illustrate some of the newest additions, and/or changes, making this old 440, a wilder, yet much happier engine/transmission setup. I also tossed out my earlier shrouded electrical push fan concept, in favor of, a mechanical flex fan, requiring adjustments of the radiator location, relocation of the overflow container and removal of all unnecessary electronics, for an estimated 40 percent increase in cooling the beast. Bullet proof LOKAR cables, now replace both original kick-down linkage and throttle cable. Unreliable fancy chrome coolant lines, that have failed me on no less than 3 occasions, have also been tossed in the garbage, in favor of installing traditional rubber coolant lines. Last, but not least, studded valve covers are also on my to-do list, to button up this job. To date, road tests have demonstrated - a huge improvement in: performance, cooling & system reliability.

NOTE:
Alum heads were professionally inspected and all valve guide clearances ‘corrected’, prior to installation using recommended ARP head bolts c/w washers, together with the recommended head gaskets.

PS:
No more coolant leaks!

Posted for your info/update