catastrophic failure on rebuilt motor ...

F

Fast4Ward

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 27, 2005
don't know where to start but here it goes...
broke it in ...during break in for the the 30 minutes it did reach 210 with fan on high on a somewhat cool night.
i put maybe 60 miles on it and this thing will just not cool with fan on high and these were very cool days, no real boost so i decided to change out the radiator after changing out the thermostat which did not help.
go to change out the rad and off came the oil cooler line and she creamed all over me...oh baby no o_O ..i just checked her oil the other day.
pulled oil filter ..full of cream and green
drained oil and received about 10 quarts of cream
drained rad...super clean coolant but im missing most of it...i only mixed in gallon but got maybe a gallon in whole.
my first question is the mystery of a bone dry S hose and intake port of the S hose? If no hvac is turned on should it still have coolant in the hose... i never turn on the heat.
what the hell has been sucking down the water into the motor...it can't possibly be the headgaskets already
the intake was taken off today and its sealed very well from what was inspected.
anyone have a similiar experience? forget the creamed jokes:)
 
If you ran the same block and front cover before the rebuild, you can assume the block is not cracked and the front cover is not rotted out. If not, that's one possibility. If the dowl pins on the block were replaced if it was decked, they could be too long not letting the heads seat. If you have head studs, they could be too long and the nuts could be hitting the shoulder of the stud causing insufficient torque on the gaskets. A bad oil cooler in the radiator would probably cause oil to get into the coolant, but your coolant is clean. If you did not get all the air out of the cooling system when you filled it, it could cause it to overheat and hurt a head gasket. If the thermostat opened and you saw circulation in the radiator after it warmed up, rule that out. Having a problem with a new engine is frustrating after all the time you put in on it. Hope you find the problem.
 
i may not have let all the air out of the rad but tried by reving and locking the rad cap as it comes back up but the overflow has a breath hole (alky replacement) so thought that would take care of any air and tried to top it off when the motor sat overnight. what your saying makes sense but who knows.
saw the coolant churning and thermostat opening and letting coolant flow so it seemed fine in that sense.
 
I always fill the cooling system by disconnecting the hoses to the heater core and using a small funnel to pour the coolant in those hoses to fill the block and radiator,with the radiator cap off of course to let the air escape. Never have any trapped air in the system doing it this way.
 
Who did the engine ? What was done to it? What kind of head gaskets? head studs or bolts?
 
ek02 is spot on.

About all you can do is pull the intake and start inspecting. Make some block off plates for the heads then throw some pressure on the system. I just did this on my car over the weekend. My passenger hg is seeping.

Please say you didn't have antifreeze in it. :oops:

That really blows man......
 
If the S hose was dry then the cooling system was not filled/primed correctly (had an air lock in it) so coolant wasn't circulating properly. Probably the heads got too hot and warped causing the hg to fail or even cracked a head?

Oh and not to add insult to injury but when breaking in a new motor NEVER use antifreeze. Only put antifreeze in if you must after about 500 miles once you are sure everything is good.
 
yep..jus thought easier to spot the leaks..add some coolant:oops: ...i don't know...saw the rad churning and pulling in the water downa and yes most likely did not air out the system.
 
Is 210 really too hot for these engines and would 210 warp and crack a head. I thought these engines came with a 190 degree thermostat from the factory and could easily reach 210 with the a/c on during a hot day?? I am not saying I would run my car at 210 but should the motor and gaskets not be made to handle that temperature? I run a 160 thermostat. I am just thinking it would need to be a lot hotter than 210 to warp and crack a head??? Please correct me if I am wrong here, I am curious to know.
 
Driving a GN in this city during the summer months using AC, 210 degrees is a normal temp! :)

The cars with mods will see even higher temps.
 
yea but whats 210 to the block with water in it if the heads are dry? air pockets may have caused localized hot spots particularly around the chamber if it was air locked.

I had a simular experiance with a BBC. Got to hot in the area by the valve seats and they all rejected. looked like a sprinkler when the heads were later pressure tested.
 
The original post is confusing, at first it sounded like the motor failed during break in an that there was no water getting to the intake/heads. But after a re-read it sound like it may have failed after that? Was there water in the oil when you dumped it after break in? Did the car overheat at any point in those 60 miles after break in?

I agree that 210 is not going to damage a motor unless you are beating on it and it's detonating. IMO things get risky at 230 and at 240 there is a real good chance of hurting something.
 
You guys are mixing apples with oranges here. so I guess I'll say it better. 210 degrees on an engine that has no mechanical problems or is NOT air locked WON"T hurt a thing. I think this is what Nick is also saying. I know I was answering (jarredsoon) and I'm sure Nick was too.
 
I had a similar problem on a customers engine. After the rebuild i noticed coolant in the oil. It turned out to be cracks in a set of old GN-1 aluminum heads, they crack where they are torqued down at the head bolt deck area. I sent them out to Tom at Champion, he told me it was a common problem with the first design alum heads. They can be re welded. If you have a set i would look there first.
 
this thread title is confusing: a "catastrophic failure" generally involves picking up pieces of connecting rods off the street..

just gonna assume that you checked the torque on the head bolts/studs after going thru the break-in procedure, and that all the proper sealant was used on them.

run a compression check- this will tell you of you have a head gasket blown into the cylinder. you can also use the hose from hte compression gauge hooked up to an air hose to pressurize each cylinder when both valves are closed and see if you can hear the air leaking anywhere- a little bit into the crankcase is normal, but any into the cooling system is not. do it with the engine full of water and the thermostat out to see if there are any bubbles and which direction they come from.
 
Inversely, you could put the radiator back in and pressure test the cooling system, that should have been step 1. If it was leaking compression into the cooling system that badly it would have been puking coolant out of the cap... That being said, i think we need more info on what was done on your rebuild to actually help you instead of speculating-
 
Did you use head studs? If so check how many threads are showing on the outer 4 studs under the valve covers. Very possible the nut is bottoming out on the shoulder of the stud and not clamping.
 
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