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Help! Antifreeze coming between head and block

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It might be easier to buy or borrow one of those pressure testers for the water system. I bought one for 70 bucks and its a very handy tool. You can put pressure on the system with the engine cold and find a leak. Its already saved me from pull 2 different heads for the wrong reason because there were leaks other places.
 
Hear is the scoop on copper, maybe not good idea for gasket but............

if copper is worked, bent, beaten with hammer etc it gets hard and brittle the more it is worked.

To make it soft again heat it well with a blow tourch and let cool naturally.

I know, we made a lot of copper ash trays in high school.
 
If you heat copper as Jack said and quench it in water it will be at the fully softened condition, works for those copper washers under the banjo bolt on the external oil pipe, they won't leak.
BillM
 
Sorry it took so long to get back. I could not see where the antifreeze was coming from for sure, so I took off the carbs and exhaust manifold. I filled up the radiator again and watched for a day. It was obvious that radiator fluid was seeping out between the block and head. I did remove the head. I went through my records, and I did have the head rebuilt. I did check both surfaces with a straight edge and they were fine. The head gasket is silver if that makes a difference. I have a few questions: 1) What could I have done wrong? 2)What head gasket should I be using, and where should I buy it? 3)When I removed the head, the cylinders were filled with antifreeze. I dried the cylinders out, but will this be a problem? If any antifreeze got into the engine, and since oil floats, couldn't I just get use the drain at the bottom of the oil pan to remove any antifreeze that may have gone in? I am running out of time and any help is greatly appreciated.
Kevin
 
I'm in the middle of this myself.

While you are waiting for the gaskets to arrive, take a good nut and spin it on all the cylinder head studs. If it binds on any of them I would replace them all as it may be a sign that they have stretched.

The head and block may be level but could you slide in a 3 thou feeler gauge anywhere under the straight edge? My local machine shop surfaced the head for only $35. It is now of course perfectly flat and clean and I can now rule that out as a source of the problem.

After installing the new gasket and if the dipstick shows just oil down there and at about the normal level, I would run the engine til it reaches operating temp, change the oil and filter and do the second re-torquing of the cylinder head nuts.

Moss Motors gasket is a Payen, which by all accounts is good enough, but I just got another one, from a Moss distributor, and it is a County brand, but made in England so I think that should be OK.

Cheers and good luck!
 
Just wondering???

Big bore head gasket on a small bore?

Steve

I remember having a similar problem when I put a 295 on a 1293. I'll see if I have any notes on that fiasco. #$%^^@%
 
I expect you did nothing wrong, use a new Payen gasket after cleaning all serfaces very well. Clean out cylinders and oil. Assemble run till warm change oil run again till warm and re torq. enjoy.
 
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