CattleKev

After loosing heat in cab and finding that the combustion was pressurizing the cooling system I figured the head gasket was bad.

While removing the head, my mechanic noticed that one head bolt was not very tight. After the head came off we noticed that the head gasket was letting compression from one cylinder to a water passage and the gasket was bad in the area of that loose bolt. We sent the head to a machine shop to be checked and machined.
We then found that there is some light etching in the area of the leak on the top of the block right next to the cylinder. The etching is not very large or deep but it's noticable.
What should I do?
Should we lightly sand the area and pit it back togeather? Should we use a high temperature filler epoxy product such as JB weld or quicksilver to fill in the etching? I would rather not have to remove the block and have it machined.
It looks like this loose head bolt has caused both the etching and the compression leak.

Any comments or suggestions?
My diesel mechanic said that he has seen this before and my etching does not seem bad enough to worry about.
Kevin

jkitterman

If you trust your diesel mechanic and his experience, listen to him. If it makes you feel better, get a second opinion from another experienced diesel mechanic. I don't think anyone can comment without being able to inspect what you describe.

Crimedog

when I did mine I had just a little bit of that, too. You couldn't feel it but you could see it. I just smoothed it over with a scotch bright pad and put it back together... it's held fine.

John Faughn

You should scotch brite the hole surface of the block evenly and lightly [ one thing you don't want to do is cut any metal with anything , same as surfacing the head , has to be straight-flat and a specific texure for the gasget to seal ] if the clean up with the scotch brite does not get rid of then you'll need to look futher into a fix , and this is were you want a good machine shop to look at to give suggestions .
About 15 yrs. ago we had a problum like that and experamented with a new product called titanum puty , but we did not have any way to give a long term results.

RCW

There is an old trick to determining if a block is too eroded to seal. Take a sheet of plate glass that is large enough to cover three cylinders, and oil the top of the engine block with straight 30 wt oil. Press the sheet of glass down firmly, and let it set 20 minutes. If there is an air pocket after it sets where you have the erosion then it is deep enough to warrant attention.