Tcat55371

It's also alot easier to loosen that one that doesnt have to come out before you put the motor back in.

Yeah, cleaned them up good last night. Just waiting on the heads now. Have to take a picture of the smallblock Chev motor sitting in front of the XT. Figured if I took 8" out of the center support in the middle, the oil pan would drop right thru there and then just cap off the ends. That way my lower contorl arms are still mounted and then once the motor was mounted in place I could weld in supports to tie the front back together. Only thing I havent figured out yet is how to get the steering back in since the oil pan would be in the way. I could notch the pan depending on where it sat but not sure yet since I dont have a 350 tranny laying around to mock up with. OH and Gary, that was without 1 beer.... Maybe I better have a couple and then get the tape measure out for this. Other option might be to use a life kit to drop the motor crossmember down 4".... Hmmmm, sounds like a whole new thread maybe. :-\

Yup thats the spot, where the sleeve meets the top of the cylinder. Yeah Gary this is the motor that blew them before and there wasnt a 6pk involved this time. Only do that for the cutting. lol There is a really fine 1/4 crack or rough edge where the sleeves top is. Guess when I get the heads back I will put it all back together and try again. Have no idea why the bolt came loose either. Going to try a different torque wrench this time too. My snap-on was recal'd 2 yrs ago but it's older then a lot of the guys on the forum. Will let ya know how it turns out. Wish me luck this time. lol

Yeah, I am using the felpro pt gaskets again

Ok, tried the picture a couple more times. Only way I could get you an idea was to mark it with a crayon. If you look on the leftside of the yellow you will see a rough gap. It's not much but you can feel it with your fingernail.

Well I tried taking a picture but you cant see it. It looks like the top of the sleeve isnt prefect against the lip. The guy at the machine shop gave me a thick bar to check the top of the block with and I can not get a .002 feeler under it anywhere. I have done this motor acouple times now and the last mess before this was created by me using one of those brillo wheels on a drill to get the gasket material off. I messed the heads up and he milled them again for me. It went 1500 miles and blew the gasket. When you start the car and pull the rad cap cold you can see the pressure pretty easy plus it is smoking. After the car gets warmed up it's harder to see and the smoke stops for the most part. It sucks the overflow bottle dry in 15 minutes thou. Guess I will just put it back together one more time before I give up on it. I did find a loose head bolt when I went to take it apart. I checked to see where they were at and at 40lbs I went half a turn with the torque wrench. This loose bolt is the short one in the middle of the head right above the exhaust outlet. Ther rest of the bolts were at 55lbs where I had them. I also bought new bolts from Subaru and the washers to reassm this time. Well wish me luck. I sure need it.

Ok, since I have the motor apart again for the third time I am looking it over top to bottom. Cant see any cracks in the heads. No ridge in the cylinders at all and no cracks that I can see BUT.... On the very top of the cylinder I can see a little crack where the sleeve comes up to the top of the block. Now my way of thinking is this isnt a problem because the sleeve is pressed on from crank side out and the little crack I see does not go thru into the water jacket. It looks like there is atleast a ¼ inch all the way around the sleeve and no cracks. I have never had the sleeves out of a block but I know they are just pressed in and I dont think this is it but thought I would ask. It anything was getting into there and behind the sleeve it would end up in the oil and not in the water jacket. Sparkplugs were all clean and the top of the pistons all looked the same. Sorry if I'm boring you guys but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. I did have a loose headbolt, the one right in the middle of the head above the ehhaust outlet and that one was wet. Other head exhaust outlet was dry. So it's on the passenger side whatever it was. Block is flat and I'm having the heads pressure tested again. The car ran 1500 miles before it blew the head gasket. I also bought new head bolts this time and I have cleaned the bolt holes out with brake clean. I am using Felpro pt head gaskets also.

http://www.rockauto.com

Yeah I know the 3 bolts are shorter in the middle, thats not it. I still think I will replace them, whats another 80.00 at this point. lol The second XT I bought with overheat issues so I really dont know much about it and all I did was pull the heads, had them resurfaced and put it back together. Have not spent anytime checking into anything else on it. My awd that came from Ratty2Austin is the one that I really want back on the road. It's been a great car up until now and I have racked the miles up on it. Before I put the motor in last time I had it on a stand with the intake off. I filled the coolant holes in the heads up to the top where the intake would bolt on. At that point I used my little air compressor and compression tester and pressurized each sparkplug hole one at a time and let it sit for about 10 minutes a hole with 40lbs of air in it. Never saw one bubble come out of the intake antifreeze holes. Now thats not to say it wasnt going anywhere else but you could not hear ait leaking and when I sprayed watery soap around the outside of the heads I got no bubbles. (like checking a tire for a leak) I did not want to go thru all this work again so I took the time to run the test. Neighbor was there double checking all my findings. Ok, now to putting the motor in. Since the heads were resurfaced and the intake sides also I took a 2x4 and put some sand paper on it and ran it across the bottom of the intake on both sides to make sure it was flat. Then I went to Dodge and got some of thier black sillicon and sealed the gaskets on both sides. That suff glues everything down and is a bear to get off next time. I put the motor in and like I said it went about 1500 miles before it started smoking again. I guess the next steps would be pull the motor and do the leak test again before I take it apart and see if I can hear anything. It has to be going into the radiator because you can see it right away now with the cap off when you first start the car. Next step would be to pull the intake and test it again to see it bubble but if it's going into a water jacket it could transfer between heads so I dont know how good of a test it would be. I have another set of FELPRO PT headgaskets. I will also buy new bolts. This will be the last time I do this motor. Next would be to buy a JDM motor again. I also had the turbo rebuilt and just to make sure that wasnt it I changed that with one of the others I have off my old XT parts car. Just need Winter to go away so I can get it out of the barn and try again I guess. Anybody close want to come watch to make sure I dont miss a step? lol Why couldnt this have happened when Austin was still out here. Then atleast I would have had another set of eyes. john

Well the last time I changed them on the awd xt is ran 3wks, about 1500 miles before it started smoking again. Now as soon as you start the car you can see the pressure in the radiator with the cap off. Had the neighbor help me put it back together and we didnt see anything wrong. Could be a crack in the block, dont know but why would it go 3wks first? To me it seems like the headbolts are coming loose. When I take it apart this spring I will double check torque on bolts first. That should tell me if they are plus check the depth of the bolt holes to the length of the bolt. The worse part is both cars have done the samething which really baffles me.

Well I drive 100 miles a day back and forth to work. After doing the head gaskets it runs fine for a few weeks and then starts smoking and using antifreeze. The longer it runs the worse it gets after this. Right now you start the car and it blows out the rad cap right away. I checked the intake with a straight edge also. That was another thing I thought could be wrong. I wire brushed the head bolts before I put them back in but I did not by new ones. I guess the thing to do is order a set of head bolts and try one more time and this time check the depth of the holes to the length of the bolts and also flush out the threads. I have not tried to retorque the bolts after it has ran because you all know what a pain it is in the car to do that. Just running this by you folks to get more idea's that I might have over looked. Thanks for all the help folks.

Well I'm not overheating it and the heads have been checked for cracks and the guy who does my machine work has built engines for old street rods I had and I trust him. I have not checked the bolts for bottoming out, that idea has been in the back of my mind bothering me along with replacing the head bolts. The turbo has been rebuilt but it was down back to stock and I'm not changing the boost any. So I guess this spring I will order new bolts and check the length, also check to make sure the bolt holes are clean. As for gaskets, I was told by many people to only run the Felpro permatorque headgaskets and thats what I'm using. Just all kinda frustrating. I have read that once the EA82 starts having head gasket issues it always has them. I dont understand that if the heads are resurfaced and the block checked. Doesnt make sense. Oh and I have replaced all of the cooling system parts except the heatercore. Car is to nice to parts out and it just is getting to me.... lol

I have a 86 Turbo XT. I have done headgaskets in it 3 times now. It will run fine for a few weeks and then it blows. So here is whats been done: Heads have been resurfaced once and checked the next time for cracks, etc. Block was checked to make sure it was flat. Cant even get a .002 feeler under the straight edge anywhere.... Using Felpro PT gaskets and torqued the heads down correct and added 5lbs over per old service tech report. What hasnt been done: Head blots have not been replaced ever that I know. Dont know if bolts can bottom out and thats what I torque to? Car is parked for the winter but I want to fix it in the Spring. Funny thing is I have 2 XT's that are both doing the same thing. Any idea's I may have missed?

This is what I used on my old XT www.rockauto.com AIRTEX Part # E8312 Includes Turbo $128.79$0.00$128.79

I would check the clutch fan also. I just went thru the samething with my XT.