Fresh mill. Bad happenings? What to check for?

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JoePole1

JoePole1

A dude in a B body
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Finally got my 5.9 in and fired up. 60lbs oil pressure, Runs good, sounds good but she got hot during shake down run. I had a coolant leak from one of the cam cover bolts (figures the one behind the water pump inlet) so figured I pissed out too much water during the test drive. I pull the pump and sealed the bolt, fire it up again and watch for the new (bad?) tstat to open but doesn't seem to. Upper hose is cool but starts puking water out of filler (cap off). All the time monitoring water temp with factory guage. Climbs high but I shut her down. Try a few more times with same results. Also try with cap on and some pisses out of the overflow and the rad hoses pressurize. I go around back and there is a lot of condensation dripping out of both exhaust but mostly on driver's side. There is no water in the oil and no oil in the water. Car runs and idles fine. Thinking head gasket possibly. The engine is .030 over and factory replacement pistons. EQ heads, .028 head gasket, knock off air gap intake.
Killing me because I took my time and paid attention to detail during assembly.
I can still run the car to troubleshoot. What is the best way to go about this before I tear into it or swap my old engine back in?

Thanks.
 
Thought about that but not sure how to burp. Thinking about pulling the tstat, fill engine from there and try running without the stat.
 
Did not get all of the air burped out of the block and heads.

Small blocks are hard to get the air bled out of when filling with coolant.

Radiator and block and heads should take a full 4 gallons of coolant to fill the system. If you only get 3 gallons in, there is still a lot of air trapped behind the closed thermostat.

There are a few of us that take and drill an 1/8" inch hole in the thermostat to allow the air to bleed up out of the block and heads and intake when filling with coolant. 4 gallons.

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Been filling with distilled water. Was able to get about 3 1/3 gallons filling from radiator. Will try thermostat fill then hole trick.
BTW it's a 190 or 195 degree if that matters. I have a known good 180 degree from my LA.
 
Need to run the engine at a fast idle once you get the system full of coolant, this helps to fill the heater core with coolant too.
 
JoePole1 said:
Been filling with distilled water. Was able to get about 3 1/3 gallons filling from radiator. Will try thermostat fill then hole trick.
BTW it's a 190 or 195 degree if that matters. I have a known good 180 degree from my LA.
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Need to get 50/50 Anti-Freeze and your Distilled water mix to keep the water jacket and cooling system parts from instantly Rusting with only distilled water in there.

The anti-freeze is what keeps it from rusting everything. Not to mention it won't freeze if it dips below 32°F.

360s normally run a little hotter that the 318s. I personally would run the 180° stat.
 
George Jets said:
Small blocks are hard to get the air bled out of when filling with coolant.

There are a few of us that take and drill an 1/8" inch hole in the thermostat to allow the air to bleed up out of the block and heads and intake when filling with coolant.
Click to expand...

Small blocks ARE NOT difficult to burp
Drilling the T stat is not a bad idea

HOW TO BURP, easy

Pull the heater hose off, preferably at the heater, the one which hooks to the intake manifold--this is BELOW the T stat and provides an air path. Hold that hose "up" with haywire, etc, I tie it to the hood latch Fill the thing up, and normally you will start to get a dribble out of the heater. If not, slowly lower the hose in a safe area and watch it, until you get coolant dribble. Re connect the hose, squeeze the top hose and re-top. Watch the coolant level, and feel the heads for temp as it warms up, TURN THE HEATER ON AND LOOK FOR HEAT OUTPUT. These two things help insure that it is not over-heating. After running and cooling, recheck, refill.

I have done this for DECADES and never had a problem.
 
I will go out on a limb here: You stated a 5.9. Is it a Magnum or an LA?
The water pumps rotate in opposite directions. Be sure you have the pump for "that" motor.
 
triumphman said:
I will go out on a limb here: You stated a 5.9. Is it a Magnum or an LA?
The water pumps rotate in opposite directions. Be sure you have the pump for "that" motor.
Click to expand...

Good thinking. If it has the serpentine setup it will be reverse, if you're running v-belts the LA water pump will work.
 
Thanks. It's a 5.9 with LA front and pump. Today I pulled the tstat, filled the radiator and level came up to top of intake. Tomorrow I will install my known good tstat with a hole drilled and fill with heater hose off. Should cover all bases.
 
Good happenings today. I replaced the new thermostat with my good 180 degree with hole drilled. Burped the system per 67Dart273 and fired it up with heater on. Thermostat opened up as it was supposed to and temp stayed nicely in the operating range. Ran for about 10 minutes, cooled down and topped off. Antifreeze is in. Ran it again for a few minutes.
Raining today so no drive yet. Still running great.
Now....with that said, I am still concerned that I am getting some condensation out of the exhaust. Started off pretty wet but was probably residual from the first start up. I does lessen as the motor warms up and second start was not heavy initially. No smell of or feel antifreeze. Hoping that a nice drive on a warm day will put this to rest.
Thanks for all of your help.

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That moisture will burn out of your exhaust system and mufflers when you take it out for a drive.

Glad you got your overheating issue taken care of.

No fun getting them hot on a fresh build and can't figure out why they are heating up. Get the trapped air out of them and all is good again.
 
JoePole1 said:
Good happenings today. I replaced the new thermostat with my good 180 degree with hole drilled. Burped the system per 67Dart273 and fired it up with heater on. Thermostat opened up as it was supposed to and temp stayed nicely in the operating range. Ran for about 10 minutes, cooled down and topped off. Antifreeze is in. Ran it again for a few minutes.
Raining today so no drive yet. Still running great.
Now....with that said, I am still concerned that I am getting some condensation out of the exhaust. Started off pretty wet but was probably residual from the first start up. I does lessen as the motor warms up and second start was not heavy initially. No smell of or feel antifreeze. Hoping that a nice drive on a warm day will put this to rest.
Thanks for all of your help.

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For every gallon of gasoline through the carb, about a gallon of water comes out the exhaust. This especially noticeable on cool or cold days during cold start warmup. With the choke on, much more fuel is going through so more water out. When the choke comes off it leans out and the water produced is much less. While the exhaust is cool, the water condenses in the muffler and tail pipe. Every muffler should have a 18" hole to let this dribble out. After being well warmed up the water stays steam and out the tail pipe.
 
Thanks. Friday I am planning on taking it out for a shake down then hammer run. Should dry it out. The reason I was freaking out is because....
1 - Fresh engine.
2 - This is only my second build and did not have this issue the first go around.
3 - This thing has been trying me the whole build with lots of unexpected set backs so I guess I am expecting the worst.
 
If you dont have one already a coolant recovery system, that should be a next step.
Keeps the rad full and keeps coolant off the ground.
 
If you don’t have access to a known quality pressure tester or a loan-a-tool that doesn’t actually leak itself: If you’re concerned about the engine possibly consuming coolant use a machinists ruler and measure how far down the coolant is (always fully cool) keep the ruler against the lower and upper edges of the fill/cap fitting so you’re always measuring from the same angle. You need to temporarily use a catch can in place of the recovery system so that prior to measuring, after running for a period, you return whatever coolant from the catch can back to the radiator and then measure again. Monitor it after some good run time. Then you will know if it’s being actually consumed by the engine (assuming no external leaks) That’s how I’ve done it in the past.

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Condensation in exhaust is a sign of a healthy engine.
 
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