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That Saturday the 383 finally fired, and Monday it locked up tight
Had the best day of my whole restoration run two weekends ago in Dallas. My '68 Charger's 383 had been sitting for 7 months after I rebuilt the top end, and on Saturday morning it fired up on the third crank, idled smooth at 850 rpm. I was so pumped I took it around the block twice, no overheating, no leaks, even the old Holley stopped flooding out. Then Monday evening I went to pull it back into the shop to start the interior, and the starter just clicked once. Pulled the plugs and found coolant in cylinders 2 and 6, so the head gasket let go on the passenger side, probably from a torque spec I rushed through. All that progress vanished in one bad evening, and now I'm tearing the front end down again to check the deck surface. Has anyone else had a great running engine just die from a gasket after a short drive, or was this just my bad luck with reman heads?
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dakota41518d ago
Man, that hurts just reading it. Had almost the same thing happen with my 440 build a few years back, ran great for two days then started pushing coolant into number 4, and yep it was my fault for not retorquing the heads after the first heat cycle. In my experience reman heads can be fine but they need the deck checked before you bolt them on, and a lot of guys skip that step because they trust the machine shop. Your mileage may vary, but I'd get the deck and the head surface checked with a straightedge while you have it apart, because if the surface is off even a little it will eat another gasket no matter how careful you are with the torque. Take this with a grain of salt since I'm just some guy in a garage, but you are not alone on this one at all.
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