Hi Listers:
Some of you may remember my query a few weeks ago about my oil leaking into
my coolant. One of our list members, Mark Goodman, contacted me to
volunteer to bring a special instrument all the way from New York to
Nebraska just to help me identify the location of the leak. Actually he
used to live in Omaha, and has family and friends here, so he already had a
trip planned. But, he did bring his ultra sonic sensor with him and we were
able to determine with relative certainty that my leak is in the head gasket
(whew, could have been a lot worse)
For those who are interested, here was the procedure. I first drained the
coolant. I closed the valve to the heater, and using 2 3-4" blocks of wood
and a C-clamp I clamped closed the hose exiting the water pump which goes to
the bottom of the radiator. By clamping it between the water pump and the
small hose going to the other side of the heater I could keep the heater
core out of the system. I then disconnected the top radiator hose. I made
a plug for the top hose using a 1" PVC pipe plug. I drilled a hole in the
end of it to accommodate a tire filler stem valve. I clamped this assembly
into the end of the top hose. I could then put air pressure into the engine
cooling system. We had to put about 45-50 lbs. pressure to hear the leak.
Mark took his instrument which looks something like a timing light with a
metal rod coming out of the front. It also has headphones to hear the noise
it picks up. By touching the end of the rod to various places on the engine
he isolated where the sound of the turbulence from the leak was coming from
(It was totally inaudible,except with the instrument) He picked it up
between the 4th and 5th cylinder on the manifold side of the head near the
bottom of the head. This type of noise is apparently very localized and did
not travel through the engine to other areas. I have not removed the head
yet, but Mark was fairly confident that it is the head gasket leaking rather
than a crack or leak in the block.
By the way, Mark is a heck of a nice guy and has a beautiful BJ8 which he
shared several pictures of on his computer. He's quite a Healey enthusiast.
We had a great time talking Healeys, and his brother-in-law, and another
old friend that came along were also great. Another example of how this list
can help us with our cars and make new friends.
Thanks again, Mark
John O'Brien
'61 Bugeye
'65 BJ8
[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type image/gif which had a name of
IMSTP.gif]
[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type Image/jpeg which had a name of
BackGrnd.jpg]
|