[Santos]

hi guys put the overbored engine into my car today after a frantic 3 days of bodywork, changinglines, windshield etc etc., started he engine and now its a litle crazy. It idles somewhere around the 800rpm mark. Only runs with the dizzy wih the timing twisted in towards the firewall. (full advance? full retard? my mind is numb at the moment)

The problem is its spitting out LOTS water out of the radiator cap. Its a new radiator + cap. The cap might be faulty. In any event it shouldn't be spitting out water even with the cap off running for 2minutes max.

i did not deck the head as i had a second head thats decked, i was concerned about too high compression as the block was decked slightly.

Dad recons it might be a blown gasket, or warped head, my mum partner says i might need to just re-torque the heads, in any event the suggestion is the engine is pumping air through to the water system. There is a slight (very slight) vein of milkyness in the dipstick indicating water


What i'm askin is if any other ideas?????

I need to ge it running for the blueslip before 11am tomorrow. Otherwise i need to leave it as i will not be taking it Sydney to Fraser island this weekend and need to organise my other car etc.

[atari4x4]

doesn't sound promising

[Santos]

going to retorque the heads in the morning and see how we go so any other ideas appreciated. oherwise ist going to be a pain going up with my swb and my sisters excel to take equipmen/luggage etc

[Scrawny]

New rings and honed bores I take it? I hope you're not letting it idle! You'll glaze the bores real quick and the rings won't bed in properly.
Try re-torquing as you suggested and see what happens, I dare say it won't be going to Fraser tho

[Santos]

new rings etc , have been revving a bit but n as much i'd like, it only really started spiting water once it was warm.

If re-torquing doesn't sort it i will park it and put the other head n in october. I'm prety resigned to the fact its unlikely to go by this stage, such a shame as the LWB is looking so good with new everything. brakelines, vit vented disk/calipers, fresh oil, zero rust, new hose clamps, vacuum tube etc etc the list goes on.. would of loved to have her maiden voyage be his trip
Cést la vie

[Reubs]

How much metal was taken off the block? I had this friend of a friend of this other friend who had a Sierra with too much metal skimmed off the head and the headbolts would tighten but not crush the gasket down far enough 'cause he head bolts were now too long due to the amount of metal removed!

[christover1]

Air lock in cooling system could cause that.
Hopefully is something simple.

[HarryHoudini]

christover1 wrote:

Air lock in cooling system could cause that.
Hopefully is something simple.

Yep,start with the simple things first,heater full on ,Radiator cap off and run for as long as possible before boiling.Milky oil is a bad sign obviously,head gasket hasn't sealed..

[droverdave]

In regards to water spitting out of the radiator cap. (assuming the cap is off)

I had the same issue with mine, if i started it from cold it would behave itself as it warmed up, but once it did warm up it would violently eject water from the radiator. This was happening on first startup from changing the headgasket.

I have no idea why this was occuring, but i just filled it up to the brim after running it a while to let out a few air bubbles (before it got hot hot, just warm), put the cap on, and its done a few thousand k's no worries.

Also, when i did my headgasket i got a fair bit of oil in the water when i removed the head, the oil in the head flowed down through the head bolt holes, and on to the top of the block and into the water gallery. I can see the oil under the radiator cap as i havent completely drained the water to replace it. but yer its not leakign anywhere, its just residual oil left over from my spoll.

So its quite possible this has happened to you.

edit: jsut re read, and you are saying you have water in the oil. not oil in water. Water in oil is not good....but you wanna make sure it is actually water before you rip the head off again. ie drain the oil out and replace it with some cheap stuff to see if it fills up with water again.

As for the distributer issue, it sounds like either your cam belt timing or ignition timing is out. If it was running fine before, and you did not remove the distributer in the engine overhaul, then you might be out a few teeth on your cam belt. OR if you have removed the distributer its quite easy to be out on the distributer teeth.

[JrZook]

Did you spray the head gasket with anything? What torque did you use to tighten it?