Blown head gasket, and more serious problems

[KustomSkylark]

A friend of mine just recently go into a '63 Ranchero. It ran hot so he replaced the water pump, themrostat, bottom hose, and flushed the radiator out. It still ran hot. Then after driving about a half block the car died, and the head gasket was leaking. We towed it back to his house pulled the head and found debris inside cylinder #4. The cylinder walls are also cracked. What could have caused this? The engine was suposedly just rebuild 25,000 miles ago. He was also told it was a 170 but it has five freeze plugs which means it's a 200 right? See the pictures below, what do you think those peices of metal are from?

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[gtm1086]

Is it possible something fell down the throat of the carb. and ended up in the cylinder? What ever it is it looks like the block is shot

 

[Anonymous]

seven main is a 200...right?

 

[KustomSkylark]

anyone else have any thoughts?

 

[addo]

Post mortems are interesting, but he needs a new block. It could be pieces of valve seat. Pulling the old motor down after replacement will tell you most times.

 

[JackFish]

My thought was if it's a 170 then it wouldn't have hardened valve seats, right?

 

[addo]

The aftermarket press-fit type that fall out under excess abuse or after bad installation!

 

[lightnin-boy]

What does the head look like on that cylinder? Any missing bits there? Post a pic.

Kirk

 

[KustomSkylark]

luckly I happen to have a bare 200 block that needs a hot tanking he can have. I'll get him to post a pic of the head, we looked at it and didn't see any chunks of anything missing from it. Is it likely that there is any damage to the crank or connecting rod because of this? The plan is to use all his existing internals besides new pistons in my spare block.

 

[Lazy JW]

That looks like FOD to me (Foreign Object Damage). Something from the outside got on the inside and thrashed around a while. I suspect that the FOD may not have been related to the overheating/cracked block.

The overheating in and of itself shouldn't have done any damage to the rods or the crank. A careful inspection will be in order.

When you have it torn down, do take the time to verify that the timing marks are correct on the damper. Improper ignition timing can cause overheating.
Joe

 

[Anonymous]

Howdy folks!

I'm the proud owner of the blown block in question here. I don't have a pic handy of the head from the block, but from quick inspection, nothing seems damaged or out of the ordinary on its bottom side, although the patterns on the valve bottoms don't match, suggesting that some of them were replaced during the engine's past rebuild.

I suppose all of this is a mute point, as I'll be rebuilding and subbing in Brian's spare 200 over the next few weeks, but I'm still curious about the origin of that piece of metal. Looks like a circular piece of metal that was squashed and split in half by battering from the piston.

I purchased the vehicle in February, and haven't put more than 500 miles on it since, mostly as I've been struggling with the block running hot. Is it possible that this piece of metal has been banging around in there since before I purchased the vehicle, creating compression problems and overheating? None of the repairs that I have personally conducted would've dropped anything down through the carburetor, but it's possible that a helping hand might've during a carburetor swap early on. Which still begs the question, what the hell is the piece from?

Thanks for the timing suggestion, Lazy JW. I actually adjusted the timing by ear, but it corresponded to 12 BTDC when using a timing light, so I think the timing marks are probably pretty accurate. Worth double checking on the new block...

While I'm at it, any performance suggestions on the rebuild job I have before me now? I'm looking to maximize bang for buck as my wallet didn't anticipate the rebuild in the first place...

Thanks!

Nate

 

[mustang6]

Are the stray metal pieces ferrous? That is, can they be picked up with a magnet? If something was dropped down the intake, it does stand to reason that it would end up in Cylinder #4.

 

[mugsy]

The wear on the cylinder wall looks like the "rebuild" happended more then jsut 25K miles ago. The walls look real worn and shiney, maybe the rebuild was 125,000 miles ago!

Mugsy

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, on closer inspection, looks like it was a nut of some sort (ferrous w/ threading on the inside), which means that it more than likely dropped through the carb (although it ended up in cylinder 5 rather than 4). That sucks! I'm gonna try not to figure out who's to blame for it...

Anyway, I'm still open for suggestions on upgrades for the 200 rebuild if anyone has any...

Thanks for all of your headscratchin...