Head Gasket

[jfrawley]

One second my '82 Spider was running perfect, the next terrible. Compression check showed an issue with #'s 2 and 3. With the help of the "Master" (aka John Erskine), we pulled the head and found this.



Everything with the block and head checked out just fine, so we put in a new gasket and buttoned it back up. Runs great once again. Thanks John.

Now the questions...

1. Any ideas as to what might have caused this?
2. Anything I could do to prevent it in the future
3. I've read on this forum and others about re-torquing after a certain period of time when replacing the gasket. Suggestions?

Thanks

[So Cal Mark]

detonation, warped head, improper torque due to dirty threads, stretched head bolts. Take your pick/combination. Just bolting the head back on without resolving the cause will most likely have the same results

[majicwrench]

Agree, something caused it-----usually. Certainly hd gsks can fail just from age, but in your case I would suspect pinging or detonation.
What is timing set at?? Everythign stock??

One thing a lot of people miss when installing hd gsk is cleaning the fluids from bolt holes, they are blind holes and will hydro lock and/or piss fluid all over your new gasket as you tighten em down.
Keith

[jfrawley]

The car showed 93,000 miles when I got it over 5 years ago, and now has 111,000 miles on it. I'm not sure if the head has ever been off before, but the gasket did not look stock, so I think it had been changed at least once. We chased all the head bolt holes before reinstalling the head, so I think we're OK there. Three of the head bolts didn't look perfect so we swapped them out for new ones. Everything on the engine is stock, but I was running a lot of advance. I've brought the timing back to just over 10 degrees in case that caused the issue.

[BEEK]

that gasket pictured is not an original fiat head gasket, so yes it has been replaced at least once before

[djape1977]

i've had same problem on very high compression engine. lasted me about 25k miles and than same thing happened with goetze head gasket, properly torqued etc. guess something had to give...

[majicwrench]

Chasing head bolt holes will not remove the liquid (oil/antifreeze) that always seems to get in there. Compressed air works, or shove paper towel etc down hole.
Set timing to whatever factory recommends. You may get away with 2-4 deg further advanced. but you may not....
Keith