Ok gang, this post has been a long time in development......
Apologies for repeated use of the C word.....
Get back from work ( spend a lot of time on the road), around Turkey day,
and mom gives me an Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant like rant about going
to a wake the night before with dad driving his 71 chevelle Malibu
convertible. Long story short after about 30 minutes of listening to what
happened (only thing lacking was the 37 8x10 color glossy photos with
circles and arrows on the front and a paragraph on the back explaining what
each one was about) I tell her that it sounds like either a blown head
gasket or cracked block.
Car details: 71 Chevelle with a BBC 402.
Another symptom but not seriously considered was the A/F in the overflow
tank looked very thin. The stuff that came out of the block tested to about
-10'F
I walk over to the folks house for a marginal turkey dinner and get to limp
the car back to the barn at my house. Since I hadn't been very cold yet I
went on the assumption that the head gaskets) had blown. There had been
much free exchange of fluids, water in the oil and oil in the water. I
pulled it apart, didn't see anything that screamed to me ah there is where
the gasket popped, so I had the heads pressure checked and shaved.
I put it back together and it was still exchanging fluids quite readily so I
then assumed it had to be the block and I started to take it apart again in
preps for short block replacement. During this process I discovered that I
had neglected to properly torque one of the intake bolts second from rear on
the driver's side, also found lots of water evidence on the dist and free
A/F in the valley. At this point I redid the intake gaskets.
Once again fired it up and now the oil is staying clean but it is all going
away very rapidly and the water isn't cleaning up. Note on the clean oil
haven't allowed it to cool off with the radiator cap in place.
Now I am fairly certain that I have a crack in the block somewhere. No clue
where since I am historically an Olds guy as far as cars go and recently
become a Dakota driver.
Now for the questions:
1. Will a weak anti-freeze solution (old fashioned green stuff) get
stronger (freeze point depress) as it boils off?
b. Anyone have any idea where the 402 is prone to crack?
iii. Anybody in the greater Northeast know where I can find either a decent
bare 396 BBC block or a 396 short block?
Sorry about the rant but it's 0130 heading for 0830 here at work at a power
plant in NYC.
Jim
69 442 conv in pieces
03 CC Dak parked out front
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