RE: [alfa] Head Gasket

["Brian Shorey" <bshorey@xxxxxxxxx>]

> Last week coolant started leaking into the combustion chamber
> on the Spider.   This motor has about 500 miles on it since
> the head was redone.   Neither my mechanic or I remember if
> the head was retorqued after the first warm up and I know I
> haven't retorqued since.
>
> I haven't even looked into the problem yet while emotions
> were getting the best of me.  The working theory is the head
> has loosened and just needs retorquing.  I'll find out
> tomorrow when I dig into it.
>
> So the questions is, if it is just a case of loose head nuts,
> will the gasket survive after a retorque?    It let go on
> Saturday night with plumes of white smoke out the exhaust,
> the unmistakable smell of coolant and bubbles in the
> radiator.  No overheating during any of this.   Started to
> puff on the way home and got progressively worse as I drove
> until it started bellowing, as luck would have it, pulling
> into my parking lot.

You're screwed.  Once the head gasket has failed, IME a simple retorquing
will never fix it.  But of course you lose nothing by trying..

You absolutely need to retorque it after the first warmup, then again after
a few hundred miles.  If you didn't do either of these (especially the first
one), then that would most likely explain why it blew.

bs
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided