I've been talking with Mordy Dunst of the Gasket Works and he has
commented that MGB blocks tend to be stronger on one side than the
other and that they are prone to deforming and such. I have a few
questions.
1) Are aluminum heads less or more prone to blowing headgaskets than
cast iron? The theory being that if they are softer they may deform
a bit more and better match any deformations of the block. Likewise
they may deform more easily and let gas escape more readily.
2) What about drilling the block and head to use larger studs. I
believe that the current studs are 3/8", would going to 7/16" help?
3) The machining marks are still quite visible in the head. Is there a
way to smooth it out without removing the motor and taking it to a
machine shop?
4a) There were two things that gave me pause when I retorqued the
head. First of all, sometimes I could not get the nut tight enough
for the torque wrench to click "in the middle" of a swing and I
would stop, ratchet the wrench back and it would click
immediately. Is this a case of static versus dynamic friction and
I may have accidentally torqued that stud to a lower value?
4b) When I retorqued the head, I did not back off all of the tappet
adjusters. The theory being that with 10 other studs torqued all
of the way down, the added stress from the valvesprings would be
negligable.
5) Another place where I may have gone wrong was in torquing the head
to 55 ft-lbs roather than 50. I had had a head gasket seep on a
previous motor, until I retorqued it a bit higher.
6) Has anyone else had chronic problems with blowing head gaskets?
What was the root cause?
--
I've found something worse than oldies station that play the music I used to
listen to. Oldies stations that play the "new" music I used to complain about.
lrc@red4est.com http://www.red4est.com/lrc
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|