head gasket time

[brokeasajoke]

Been losing coolant, white smoke for a good while after startup and bubbling in coolant tank i decided to pull the heads. Banks kit waiting on winter so fresh gaskets will be good anyway. Down to headbolts now. Rockers and pushrods out and kept neat and seperate. Any tips or tricks? One valve stem worn bad. Several rockers have a nice round wear place on them from valve but only one worn valve. Should i replace valve? Rocker? What about surface prep? Resurface heads or leave alone? No hoist just some friends to remove and install. Thank goodness for a dry garage with all this rain in NC

 

[BDCarrillo]

First thing: If you don't find the break in the head gasket, suspect cavitation.

Check ALL of the valve guides. Replace rockers and valves in pairs, they wear together. Do NOT resurface the heads, there is a tight spec on how deep the precup and valve seats must be. Use a very high quality 12 pt socket on a 1/2" drive. I busted a few cheapie 3/8" drive sockets on a parts motor. Use clothespins or small clamps to hold the bolts you can't pull out all the way, and remember to put them back in place before replacing the head. Victor Reinz gaskets are OEM and highly recommended. Take a peek at the bores too, the coloration of the pistons and wear of each hole tells a story.

Check for cracks between the valves on the head. Cracks on the precups are acceptable as long as they don't cross the fire ring.

Studs are recommended for turbo applications.

 

[brokeasajoke]

Thanks. Got the heads off. Fire rings looked ok but never done this before. How can i check for cavitation with heads off? No water in oil btw or vice versa. This seemed all of a sudden too. Bores look like mirrors what i seen. Got a line on used rockers. Should i get the corrisponding pushrod?

 

[brokeasajoke]

Lots of pics on ford-trucks.com titled hg time. I dispise photobucket. Thsnks so much

 

[BDCarrillo]

Can't test for cavitation with the heads off. Thoroughly inspect the top half of the bore for pinholes. Mirrored bores are worn bores, should have a crosshatch.

Don't bother with a whole used set of rockers, just one new one on the replaced valve. A machine shop oughta be able to tear down the heads and check them out. Good time for new springs too. I wouldn't bother changing out the pushrod, the top ends are hardened. Do check yours out for flatness by rolling them on a glass surface.

Any pistons/valves cleaner than the rest? Hairline cracks between the valves on the head?

 

[brokeasajoke]

Will look tomorrow at them. Dont recall. Head bolts on one side i would swear looked like combustion around them. Seen little craks on precups but i believe thats normal. I was amazed at how clean everything waos. I can read stampings on piston crowns and "88" on precups. Very little sludge in heads. The big odd shaped hole at corner of head gaskets was not completlely surrounded by gasket