engine toast? or just refurb head?

[jrobie79]

so I put in a radiator flush cause I noticed one of my hoses had some brown coloration...I was changing the radiator, it had a leak.

Drove my car about 30 miles with the flush, parked for about 1/2 hour and then drove it back home another 30 miles.

On the way home I noticed the temp gauge creeping, so I refilled with water (it took about half gallon) didn't see any noticeable leaks, so I popped the oil cap off, and mmm mmm good milkshake special.

I drove it home, about 15 miles after refilling, pulled the valve cover and saw this:



is it possible my bearings are ok? I'm not gonna bother taking the head off if the whole engine is junk.

[flyboyx]

i think the timing cover has a water passages on m42's that often leak. i would take that off before i take off the head.

this could be your opportunity to do an engine swap.

[jrobie79]

its my daily...if this happened a month from now, I'd s52 it over the winter. I have the top timing cover off, I guess I should do a leak down to see if its actually the head gasket huh.

[FredK]

I don't know if any M42s don't have the profile gasket done, but maybe your's hasn't been done yet? The profile gasket is the one that flyboy is talking about. It can be changed without changing the headgasket.

[jrobie79]

Yea but the head still has to come off no?

[jaredmac11]

Yea but the head still has to come off no?

Well, start with the profile gasket and timing gasket because as soon as you remove the head, you need new head bolts and a head gasket. So work with the profile gasket/timing gaskets first. You're in for some work though.

I wonder how this happened though, what sparked it. Is that stuff corrosive? It must have eaten through a gasket...

edit: No need for a leak down. What does the bottom pan look like? Have you drained the oil to see if it's milky as well?
edit2: Since you're opening up the timing case, now would be a good time to check out timing components to see how they look. In the mid-100k miles, you can expect rails to start cracking.

[jrobie79]

I'm curious what happened as well, my old m42 I used the oxalic acid (wood bleach) treatment to get rid of rust. And from what JLevie wrote it can be harmful to aluminum - although I've read if its clean aluminum it doesn't react with it, just the corrosion. But I drove that for about 2 hours to make sure it cleaned everything, and the car ran fine for another 2 years...

[jrobie79]

Got the head off, no obvious head gasket nor profile gasket failure... Gonna pressure wash the head and clean up the block and see if I can see anything. Then I'll go have it pressure tested.

[CFeld]

I just rebuilt an m42, there is a chance for some reason that the profile gasket isn't properly seated or one of the other chain case related gaskets failed, since there are many. If you are worried get a new gasket set and make sure to seal everything up well with gasket maker or high temp rtv.