Hello everyone I thought I would join the forum to get some help.
Here is my story,
I bought a d2 a few years ago (nonrunning) for a trail truck, when I got it home it had a bad starter fixed that and it started right up. I drove it around town a couple times and it started to overheat ( just a little not in red area) found out coolant was low so I did a pressure test and found coolant was leaking from the timing cover. So I took off the timing cover to replace the gasket and decided why I was their I was going to replace timing gears,chain,oil pump and last I did the oil pump
put it all back together and drove around, but it still was over heating so I decided to replace the head gasket so I sent the heads out to the machine shop bought upper engine gasket set and new head bolts put the new gaskets on and followed the torqued sequence, started it up and still same problem.
so I bought a combustion leak tester that use in the cooling system to test for combustion gas in the cooling system and it came back positive so since then I've totally remove the engine and tore down to the block and try to do a pressure test on the Block but it keeps coming back negative no leak.
what should I do I debated on having the block installed with top hat liners but I'm not sure about that I have heard some people say you can't top hat a block that has cracks and some people say you can. I have been in contact with Q and E in California about having them install liners but I'm just not sure
plz help any info would be greatly appreciated

 

Since the block checked good, did you check the heads?

 

The problem with pressure testing a block, is that it's cold. Many cracks are tiny and don't open up until heated.

Are any of the pistons steam cleaned?

 

New top hat cylinder liners aren't going to fix your unknown coolant leak. To me, it doesn't make any sense to spend money on improvements until *after* the coolant leak has been found.

 

The heads were supposedly check for cracks at the machine shop that I had do valve job and deck the heads

 

When I first removed the heads all the piston were dirty non were steam cleaned.
I did slowly heat the block up with a propane burner

 

That's why I haven't pull the trigger on the top hat option I'm the kind of person that likes to see the proof before I make a decision
I'm half tempted to reassemble the engine and start from square one again, and see if by chance when I did the headgaskets maybe I received a defective gasket/parts

Off topic question, at the bottom of your post it has your vehicle description and from what see it says you have a nissian radiator in your d2 is that true?

 

The sticker on my D2's radiator says "Nissens," yup.

Looks like these: http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/se...ssens+Radiator

 

Put 100 PSI in it. I put 160 in one of mine just to see what would happen. also, you have to put it in a kiddie pool.

 

Glad to see you, master tech. Been a while.