Paulsky

Finished my head gasket job last weekend and when I started it I developed a coolant leak into cylinder number 2 after a couple minutes of running.

Started to take it apart again today and drained out about a liter of water from the bottom of the oil pan. So this is a considerable leak for so much water to contaminate the cylinder so quickly.

After removing my intake, I noted that intake port number 2, leading into the contaminated number 2 cylinder had a lot of coolant/water. So this leads me to the following questions:

What is the standard way to test the intake manifold for a crack lying between the coolant port and the number 2 intake port? As you may already know, they are adjacent without much metal separating them. Would I just plug an end and fill with solvent and watch?

How does one come up with a proper hypothesis as to the cause of the water so I can make an informed decision, rather than throwing new gaskets, new intake manifold, new head, in that order until I fix the problem. I'd rather not pull off the head until I'm sure the problem isn't with the intake.

I did clean my block and check for flatness. It all looked good. I chased all my threads. That intake manifold gasket is a flimsy, cheap looking thing. I wonder if it failed somehow.

Don't know. I guess alot of this is stuff only I can answer by doing the work and inspections. I wonder how many "head gasket" jobs are actually faulty intakes?

toytech76

what type of gaskets did you use? How did you clean the intake surface? Did you have your heads pressure tested and surfaced before putting new gaskets on?

Paulsky

to be honest, I don't know the make of the gasket. it came in a set. I doubt it was high quality or anything.

I had my head decked but I live in a small town and there isn't a machinist around that is able to do much else. I asked a mechanic what they did and they told me they send all their stuff away. So all I could really do for crack checking on the head was visual. I started to check with solvent as I described above but got frustrated and gave up. I wasn't sure what I was doing.

I cleaned the block with a scraper, then a razor, then I wiped it down with paper towel.

toytech76

my guess its either a crap gasket you used, or your cyl head is porous. We run into alot of porous 3.0 heads. You need to have them pressure checked