Weeping Head Gasket

After getting the beast back on the road, I now have a weeping head gasket on the driver's side. Here's what I've got:

1. Pulled the radiator cap and have not seen any bubbles while running.
2. Pulled all the spark plugs; I'm running a little rich, but not overly. I'm running 147 mains, but need to drop down between 145's and 140's.
3. Plugs 1 and 2 are a little oil fouled and there was some oil on the end of the threads of plug 1. I'm thinking the valve guides are a little worn.
4. I did reuse the stock head bolts that were on the Aussie 2V when I swapped it in; the PO said the motor only had about 75K miles on it, so I figured they were still good.
5. I'm also chasing the most minute vacuum leak, at the remote air filter (I think), but it hasn't made any significant impact on drivability.

Any thoughts guys? The only thing I haven't done is drained the oil, as the plugs and pistons didn't show any sign of coolant contamination. Should I have just gotten new ARP Head Studs? Should I just do that now? Until I come to that decision, I'm going to drop some leak stop in the coolant; any advice in the meantime would be greatly appreciated.

Make sure the deck is freshly machined as well as the head.
Use a Victor head gasket.
Get a set of ARP: head bolt studs. Make sure the rf bolt does not hit the water pump impeller.
After checking, apply sealer to the that rf head stud cause it is exposed to coolant.
This cuts some of the weeping on the LS of the block.
The only way to fix it is have the head & block machined to accept 'O' ring seals at the passages between the block & head.
I never have done this & the Victor gasket does cut the weeping by 50%.
On a fresh engine i always install a small amount of bars leak sealant just to limit this & other seepage.
GM sells gold tablets for a sealer that is the best.

The weeping is a common problem with this engine. It is caused by differential expansion of the the block vis a vis the head at that particular spot.

As Bill said, one of the only real cures is to have the mating surfaces planed absolutely true, then cut a furrow all the way around the the outlet on both sides, then seal it with an o-ring. That is a lot of work for something that is mostly a cosmetic nuisance. If it leaks a lot, you need a thicker gasket, among other partial cures. Again, as Bill said.

Maybe check the torque on your head bolts.

wsa111":1tu57lcw said:

Make sure the deck is freshly machined as well as the head.
Use a Victor head gasket.
Get a set of ARP: head bolt studs. Make sure the rf bolt does not hit the water pump impeller.
After checking, apply sealer to the that rf head stud cause it is exposed to coolant.
This cuts some of the weeping on the LS of the block.
The only way to fix it is have the head & block machined to accept 'O' ring seals at the passages between the block & head.
I never have done this & the Victor gasket does cut the weeping by 50%.
On a fresh engine i always install a small amount of bars leak sealant just to limit this & other seepage.
GM sells gold tablets for a sealer that is the best.

Click to expand...

On another note (but similar) how are folks dealing with the oil seepage - at the other end & other side of the head. One of the fasteners has an oil passage thru there… The ARP studs I have are not customized to this factor in Ford design. Do ppl grind down one side, seek another stud….

Thnx ~

JackFish":1wn2is4t said:

Maybe check the torque on your head bolts.

Click to expand...

Re-torque all the head bolts...it helped for me.