I'm not trying to avoid scheduled retorquing. What I'm saying is, I did every single possible Good Practice on the engine that's in my car now, and I have water in the oil. Maybe it's simply that my one overheat episode when the lower hose popped off ruined the head. That's a disturbing thought, but possible. If it's a crack triggered by overheat then no fancy bolts or sealers will help that. But otherwise, if there is some flatness-torque-sealer-whatever related gasket issue, the studs (plus decent shop work) ought to *help* *that*. And it's known that critical fasteners should be replaced during serious overhauls -- especially when those fasteners are in the general vicinity of a Known Problem Area, and are 50 years old! That's all I'm saying. On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 08:47, Frank Swygert <farna@xxxxxxx> wrote: > If you don't use some type of sealant on the head gasket (even though new > ones say it's not necessary) you will get a good bit of seepage from the > gasket on these engines, I will use multiple sealants. On my recent 232 head refresh, I put Right Stuff along the thin distributor edge of the blue Felpro headgasket. That area is a chronic mild but annoying oil leak area. It was well outside the combustion chamber area and I wasn't worried about it affecting that torquing or sealing. It's worked perfectly. I'll do the same on this new motor. In fact I may not even get a "rebuild gasket set". They're all ancient NOS and all stiff and old-fashioned. Other than the headgasket, and others that may have critical thickness, the motor will go together with Right Stuff exclusively. A Best teflon rear main seal. I'm gonna replumb PCV. It won't leak when I'm done! If I could afford a custom copper gasket and O-rings I could then eliminate another old POS part. No word back from them, I'll bug them, but I assume it'll be too much money for me. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.amc-list.com/pipermail/amc-list-amc-list.com/attachments/20100128/7bfb33f1/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ AMC-list mailing list AMC-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://list.amc-list.com/listinfo.cgi/amc-list-amc-list.com