Blown Head Gasket????

[wilcom]

Heres the problem;

replaced the stock 302 manifold with a Eldebrock with thier gasket set. Hi temp caulked around the water ports etc like the install sheet says. fired her up and she ran great for about 10 minutes. Test drove her and noticed the water temp climbing from the normal 190 to over 230 degrees and engine started running rough. Shut her down immediately and checked the engine oil and, yup, water in the oil. Had her towed home and removed the manifold. Obviously the water leaked in the engine valley and down to the crank. Couldnt really find out why, the gaskets and caulked look fine other than being ripped up when I took them off.

Any way, I replaced them with a new set of Eldebrock gaskets and cleaned the manifold and intakes on heads. And reinstalled. I torque the manifold to 25 ft lb....ooops, thats what the Bronco eng manual says because I it was not on the instructions with the Eldebrock...which later I found out to be 12-14 ft lb.

Carnked her up again and let her warm up and after 7 minutes I noticed steam vapor coming from the left side exhaust ( I have dual Exhaust) and a small amount of water dirpping from the pipe. Tasted it and yep, it was anti freeze.

Ok, so here is the question;

Do I immediately assume that I blew a head gasket or is it possible I craked the new Eldebrock manifold by torquing it to tight and one of the walls in the tunnel ports in it cracked where water is running through and into a exhaust port on the head. I pulled the first 2 plugs and they were both clean...didnt do the last 2 as the engine was to hot just then. Water in radiator was low by a quart or two also.

I would like to know some of your opinions before I remove the manifold again. I was told by Eldebrock techs that a mechanic could do a pressure test on the engine or something to see. Not a cylinder test but an engine pressure test.....never heard of that one.

Also something I noticed that I never noticed before was that while truning the engine over a few times (eng was cold) that the pressure in the radiator was quite a bit when I released the pressure release on the radiator cap. May or may not have anything to do with it. Also how come both engine blocks have a water port in front and in back and the stock and Eldebrock manifold only have on on each side in front....the back 2 are blocked.

Need some help from my Bronco Friends

 

[7bronco1]

if there is high presure in the cooling system. you have a bad head gasket. when pulling it down inspect every thing very closely for nicks and cracks

 

[Bully Bob]

What were the problems prior to starting this change-out....if any...?

In other words, were there any performance problems.., Rough running B/4 the manifold change-out..?

 

[77bronco77]

You can test the head gaskets by doing th following

start the truck up after its been sitting a while and is FULLY cooled down. let it run for 1 minute. **** it, then get out and feel the upper radiator hose, is there a TON of pressure? if not to bad, slowly pop the cap off the radiator, did it just pop real quick and nothing came out or is there tons of pressure and it popped off hard? kinda a dumb question but did you scrape the old gasket off the block with a razor before you put the new one on?

77B77

 

[Crude dude]

The engine pressure test that Edelbrock was refering to was the cooling system test where they put a hand pump device on the radiator where the radiator cap goes. This puts pressure in your cooling system as if the engine was warmed up. Usually you can find leaks this way. You may want to do this test with your spark plugs out to see if coolant is coming from the cylinders. When you did the silicone around the coolant ports, did you do a very light pass? I could see if there was too much silicone on there and it kept the intake ports from sealing...You will have to remove it anyways, might as well do the sweat equity yourself and check it out. I wouldnt run engine anymore till it is diagnosed. If you are not aware of this, a 302 will not compress water but it will compress rods.