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THIRD BLOWN HEAD GASKET! please HELP!!!!!

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Yes Jack, The parts are perty and clean, It's me that's a greasy mess!! When I used to ride my shovelhead chopper with my old club, the guys used to accuse me of smearing grease on myself just to be cool. I do very neat work, I am a virgo, I just haven't mastered the art of keeping myself neat in the process. LOL! I'm workin on it-
BTW 194 miles and all is well!!!! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumbsup.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Annual? I wish the intervals were that long! Six or seven weekends is usually two or three sets of bearings, seals, and gaskets.
Of course it's merely a precautionary measure.
Ask Tim Hollister how fast we can change a head gasket in the paddock!
Jeff

[/ QUOTE ]

Changing a head gasket in the paddock? Me? Jeff, I've been trying to forget that! Too darn many times -- that's for sure.

Got it down to an almost leisurely 20 to 30 minutes. We normally have a couple of hours between our times on track so we'd let the engine cool a little while we got ready, then launch into the task. And we learned very quickly to slide a piece of cardboard, or something, under the engine to catch the manifold nuts and washers that inevitably get dropped! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/hammer.gif

I had one engine that I had a terrible time with my first year in competition -- many blown head gaskets. We tried a bunch of different things and nothing seemed to help. I finally took both the head and the block to a local auto parts store/machine shop to have them check for level mating surfaces. I paid my money and the guy tells me a couple of day later everything is just fine. (first time I'd used their machine shop services, and the last) Somehow I just did not believe him. I didn't have any experience checking myself but it did not take long for me to take some aerosol bluing fluid and a straight edge along with a set of feeler gages to identify several potential problem areas on both the head and block. Being as it was too close to race day for another attempt at a machine shop, I took a new and sharp file and went to work filing on the head and block by hand! And rechecking my work with the bluing fluid.

And ya know what? I don't think I ever blew another head gasket on that particular engine! Sure looked funny though with the smooth areas I'd filed and the hatched areas from the last time both pieces were on a milling machine!

And then there were the two mysterious circles that appeared on the tops of the pistons. Something about high performance high lift cams with 1.5:1 roller rockers and degreeing a cam. No! Don't tell me the valves are hitting the pistons!!

There is a huge difference between being a competent mechanic with stock engines and some kind of an artist or magician with high performance engines!!

Enough reminiscing! Got to start planning for next year! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/driving.gif

Tim
 
That process is called "scraping" and people get real GOOD money to do that ya know.....


mark
 
And it is a serious pain, ask me how I know. Hehe. Six cyl marine desiel that was 12 feet long with 155 lb pistons and rods.
 
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