Head gasket seeping water...
 

I have noticed that I am getting a couple of drips of water from between my cylinder heads and the block on my 502 mpi. It has about 75hrs since rebuild. It hasn't been over 170 on the water temp, but has seen 260 oil temp a few times. There is no water in the oil, it's clean. Engine runs great and runs hard, so no other signs of damage other than these couple of drips. I see it on the starboard and port side of the block. I do have a water pressure guage in the dash and the most it shows is about 16lbs. I do have a water pressure relief valve as well.

Why would these gaskets be seeping some water after a hard wot run. It does seem that cruising and below speeds it does not seep. Do these heads just need to be retorqued down?

check the torque... maybe the were torqued down in the wrong sequence and the gasket warped...? just a thought

Cloud,
First of all, if you paid somebody else to do the rebuild, dont touch it until you speak to them.

That being said, if you are going to try to retorque the bolts use the following prcedure.

1. Start with the first bolt in the torque sequence.
2. LOOSEN it one full turn.
3. Retorque it in one smooth pull to the proper torque.
4. Do the rest of the bolts in the same manner one at a time in the correct sequence.

The reason for this method is that the bolts will get "stuck" after running a while and the torque to get them moving will not be enough to break them free, even though the really are not torqued correctly. Not sure if that makes sense, but that is the reason that you loosen them first, then retighten.

Hope this helps,

Bill Koustenis
Advanced Automotive Machine
Waldorf Md

Yes, I paid someone else to do the rebuild, but that was over 2 years ago. My ties with the engine builder are cut.

I'm just trying to get some information on what I should do about it. I believe it's been doing this for for a year or better now as i've seen moisture at the block/head and didn't think anything of it and just wiped it up.

Cloud,
You might want to make sure that it is definitely coming from the head gasket. Water has a way of traveling that makes it difficult to find a leak's origin sometimes. Best way is to have somebody watching it while it is running.

I'm fairly confident that the seepage is coming from the gasket.

I think i'd like to pull the exhaust and valve covers and recheck the intake manifold and cylinder head bolts after the winter lay-up before next season. I'll have to research the sequence and torque specs.

I'd like to retorque these bolts over the winter before next season. Is it ok to do with a cold motor? Also, I understand that some of these bolts had sealer put on them since they go through a water jacket. If i loosen and then retorque, am I going to start getting a leak at the head bolts? Where can I find the head bolt torquing sequence? Thanks folks.

i think 502 s are all blind holes

That's true about blind head bolts.

If pulling exhaust to re-torque headbolts I'd go a little further and remove present headbolts and install ARP headbolts.

This way you know the headbolts are new and high quality plus you can verify they are installed correctly since you are doing it.

I pulled apart a 502 (coincidentally) and the head bolt threads where covered in black silicone. WTF ? Obviously someone was in there before that shouldn't have been.