Just completed my first head gasket job and everything seemed to have gone good. Had heads machined and torqued everything correctly. Fired up right away drove for two days and went back to change the oil to find a good amount of coolant in the oil and some oil getting into the coolant.

Once the oil was drained it sat for a few days with no oil and just being curious I pulled the oil drain plug and about half a quart of straight coolant came out.

Took off the valve covers and found this sludge starting to build up. I didn't have the block pressure tested before because all the cylinders had carbon buildup and none were steam cleaned.

I'm starting to tear it back apart and was wondering if there is anything in particular I should look for or is a cracked block the only explanation? There's also no external leaks

Thanks in advance

 

If you have not started yet, why not rent/borrow a coolant pressure test kit from auto parts store, to help find where the leak is. Might save some wenching,,, er wrenching.. Gasket could have got folded up, cut, etc.

 

you didn't torque the back bolts correctly and they heated up and let coolant into the oil.

Did you follow the directions including using a torque wrench and follow directions correctly? Did you reuse the head bolts.

 

Verify what exactly you did on your torque procedure and did you use new bolts?

 

if you did not use new bolts that is your problem, otherwise make sure you preasure test it before you take it apart. 15 psi for 30 minutes should be enough for coolent to start showing up in the pan again. you might want to beg or borrow a bore scope also if you can and look into each bore under preasure.

 

And if you did use new bolts (they stretch) I would suppose to do this again you will need more new bolts. Or do the pro's think you might re-torque them if you don't pull everything apart?

 

Not being a pro, if you havent pulled it apart I would think you could continue using the same bolts. If you PM Disco Mike I believe he once gave a foot pound torque figure in a post a long time ago, but I could be mistaken.

 

Thanks for the replies,

Just sitting in the garage I have the sump bolt out and about a quart of coolant drained out of it just overnight so something is definitely not right.

I used new headbolts and I torqued everything to spec including taking off the fuel rail to tighten the rear of the valley gasket. I'm gonna take it back down to the valley gasket and make sure that it didn't get crimped and make sure I torque everything properly them do a pressure test.