Help me with a cyl-head gasket mystery

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Vaestertorp

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Previously dismantled a 225 slant 6 engine and had it properly machined at a shop that I do trust from previous experience.

After putting it together and mounted in the car (new gasket and new cyl head bolts with correct torque, naturally), I filled the cooling system up and after a while noticed that it is leaking. Leak came from head gasket in two places: one in the front end, and one on the left hand side, mid length of engine.

So I removed the cylinder head. Then I see that there are 2 corresponding water channels in both the cylinder head and in the engine block, that do not communicate due to that there is no hole in the gasket. These places coincide well with the leaking places.

My natural question - badly made gasket (Corteco)? I check webshops for two other available brands (Fel-Pro and Reinz) and according to pictures, it seems they are made exactly the same. See f ex
http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/moreinfo.php?pk=2758430

So, somebody please here:
1. Should there be holes there = are all these gaskets malmade? (See attached jpeg)
2. If not, some theory on why it is leaking?

Thanks
/Mattias from Sweden
 

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Those orange holes are casting holes, and are not to be open for coolant to flow through.

If you have milled the head & top of engine block, most likely the new bolts may now be too long and have bottomed out causing improper torqueing down of head. Use grade eight washers under new head bolts to keep them from bottoming out.
 
I have ran in to the missing holes also in my younger life. When I questioned them I got the same answer that wjajr gave. I put it together and it never leaked or caused any problems all the time I owned it.

By the way.

Welcome to the FABO family!!!​
 
Fair enough. I´ll go for special washers and keep my fingers crossed. Thanks a million!

A followup however - since I already drilled my gasket and now must buy a new one: available here are FelPro or Corteco. Any opinions?
 
Hi Mattias and welcome to FABO. Vaestertorp, sounds as you´re not far from me. I´m from Jarfalla.
 
Here in the USA I buy Felpro but that is my person preference. Never had a head gasket fail until I used an off brand that is no longer in business. They were cheap and I got to do it twice. I have no idea who Corteco is. Reinz used to be Victor Reinz and they used to be good but FelPro has the market around here. It does look like many people use Corteco and from reading the posts they have bought or was bought by ROL. ROL is the company that I bought my bad gaskets from but that would have been many years back.

http://www.forabodiesonly.com/mopar/search.php?searchid=4149489
 
Vaestertorp said:
Fair enough. I´ll go for special washers and keep my fingers crossed. Thanks a million!

A followup however - since I already drilled my gasket and now must buy a new one: available here are FelPro or Corteco. Any opinions?
Click to expand...
I would use a new gasket. You should be able to measure the bolts and the hole depth to see if bottoming out is the problem.
 
How would I survive without Internet forums... hope I can help you in some other issue.

All the best from Stockholm´s south side
 
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