Head bolt leaking anti freeze

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Model T Ford Forum: Forum 2013: Head bolt leaking anti freeze
Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Howard Sigler on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 10:45 am:

My T has 2 center bolts leaking anti freeze. Hot or cold, it seeps from around the bolt head. I've tried form a gasket on them but they still leak. Anybody know a fix for this?


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Gregush Portland Oregon on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 10:57 am:

Drain the water, take the bolts that are leaking out, clean them and the treads in the block as best you can with lacquer thinner. Get some Permatex Thread Sealer, it's the white stuff and try that. The reason you may be seeing this now if you added anti freeze recently is because the water it is mixed with is evaporating leaving the anti freeze behind. If you had been using just water before it, may have been leaking but the water evaporated before you saw it.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Robert G. Hester Jr., Riverview, FL on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 11:01 am:

Hi Howard. I had a couple head bolts doing the same thing. I wrapped the threads real good with Teflon ribbon dope. Also on the off chance that the leak was from the head gasket instead of the bolt threads, I wrapped a good bead of the dope around the bolt shank right under the bolt head and then trimmed off all that came out when I tightened the bolt. So far so good Good luck. Bob


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Andre Valkenaers on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 11:23 am:

Howard,

I think your block has a crack between the water hole and the bolt.
It can be easily fixed with a heli-coil in each bolt hole and leak should stop.
See photos.

Good luck

Andre
Belgium


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By George_Cherry Hill NJ on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 11:25 am:

Howard,

Seeping head bolts was a chronic issue with T design that went on well into the teens. Ford eventually put it behind them with a change to the underside of the headbolt having a certain radius flare. I'm not sure whether new bolts, or even replacement bolts from the era have this feature.

In the era, they didn't have 'goop' like we do today...yes it might be a headgasket 'weep' to the bolt hole...yes it could be a block tap that has finally broken through into the water passage (there was almost no wall there to begin with).

I'd go with Mark Gregush reco...clean it up, goop it up, and hope it is not a head gasket leak!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Seth from NC on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 12:10 pm:

Hey, I actually had something very similar but discovered that it was the head itself that was leaking - not the block.

If you feel like you are sealing the bolt hole well, you probably are. Take a look at the machined flat surface on the head where the actual head of the bolt contacts the engine head, specifically on the outer edge. I was using a screwdriver to scrape my clean in the edge and discovered it had rusted and was weeping through.

Here's where my leak was coming from. Until I scraped it I couldn't tell that this was where the anti-freeze was coming from, I thought it just kept coming up from the block.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Hal Davis-SE Georgia on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 12:25 pm:

Plain water would let it rust and the rust would seal up the leak.:-)


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Larry Bohlen, Severn MD on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 12:28 pm:

And Anti-freeze will leak from somewhere plain water will not.....


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Harold Schwendeman - Sumner,WA on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 12:50 pm:

Larry - I have a theory on what you just said. Not trying to be critical, but I believe that the notion that anti-freeze will "leak from somewhere plain water will not...." is because the water will evaporate very quickly as compared to anti-freeze, especially due to engine heat, however anti-freeze will remain much longer before it evaporates, and therefore be much more visible whereby a leak of water evaporates so quickly that the leak SEEMS to be more severe, or, many times, the water will evaporate so quickly that the leak is never even noticed! That is, not noticed until beginning to use anti-freeze instead of water, because the leaking anti-freeze does not evaporate for a much longer time than the water did, and therefore the leak THEN becomes visible. Again, not trying to be a "wise-guy", but I think what you said is a common belief that really belongs on the list of "old wives tales",........harold


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Mark Gregush Portland Oregon on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 12:52 pm:

No the water leak is there but it evaporates before you see it. The water and anti freeze mix just lets you see it because the anti freeze leaves it's dye as a stain.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Dave Dufault on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 01:08 pm:

Water with an additive will go places that water without additives will not go...

"Third, as we mentioned earlier, reducing the surface tension can lower the viscosity of water slightly."

Anti-freeze reduces the surface tension, thus allowing the mixture to leak where "straight" water will not.

Interesting article (if you have time)...

http://www.overclockers.com/pc-water-coolant-chemistry-part-ii/


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Larry Bohlen, Severn MD on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 02:14 pm:

Harold,

I agree that your theory is correct in some cases.
In my own experience, I replaced what was basically straight water in my touring last year with a stronger than 50/50 mix of anti-freeze and suddenly had leaks at almost all the hose connections. All needed to be tightened up to stop. They did not leak before and the only change was the anti-freeze.

????
Thanks for the article Dave I think that explains it.

Larry


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By John Zibell on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 04:50 pm:

I don't think using a heli coil would stop any coolant leak if there is a crack. The way heli coils are made, it is just a coil of metal and not solid. A time sert may be effective in stopping a leak in this case as it is a solid component. In addition to thread sealer compound, Teflon tape on the bolt thread would also help to stop leaks in this area.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Norman T. Kling on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 04:51 pm:

Another possible cause would be bolt too long bottoming out in block before it pulls the head tight. A torque wrench would read 50 ft lbs or whatever you set it, but you would be reading the pressure to turn the bolt, not whether the bolt were pulling down the head. This might be hard to detect unless you put the head on without a gasket and put in all the bolts turn them down as far as you can without a torque wrench and see if the head of the bolt contacts the head. If it is above the head, your bolt is either bottomed out in the block or dirt, rust etc in the threads prevent it from going all the way down. Be sure to clean out the threads and check bolt length. Then put on a new gasket and torque the bolts with the torque wrench.
Norm


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Terry Woods, Katy, Texas on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 05:10 pm:

I had that problem with the rearmost center head bolt on a freshly rebuilt motor that a well known rebuilder/restorer had done for me while I was recuperating from a broken arm. He advised me to drain the antifreeze; dry the bolt hole with compressed air; coat the head bolt with red RTV; reinstall and torque to 50 pounds. I have done so, but haven't put the antifreeze back in and restarted the motor as I was changing the intake manifold (Model A/B type) and installing a Stan Howe rebuilt Stromberg OE-1 carb. Tomorrow is the big day for the restart and I'll get to see if all the work and money that I've put into the car has been worth it: (Simmons head, Stipe .280 cam, advanced timing gear, Suremike crank, aluminum intake with Stromberg OE-1 carb, and Model B exhaust manifold. Keeping my fingers crossed.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ed in California on Thursday, July 11, 2013 - 06:49 pm:

The secret is to use Aviation Permatex on the threads. I learned to use it on flathead fords, which love to weep out of the head bolts.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Howard Sigler on Friday, July 12, 2013 - 03:46 pm:

Seth,you were right. I had to use a magnifying glass and a dental pick to find a pin hole beside both bolts. I'm thinking J B Weld and a little dab of paint. Thanks for the info, this forum is great.
Howard


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Seth from NC on Friday, July 12, 2013 - 04:54 pm:

Awesome! I'm glad you found it. Personally, I like to use the JB Weld Marine formula for anything that might get wet. I hope that fixes it for you. Either type should fix your leak, just try to scrape as much junk out of the hole, and cram plenty of JB in.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Craig Anderson, central Wisconsin on Saturday, July 13, 2013 - 03:06 am:

The only sealant I would use is Loctite wicking sealant or regular Loctite depending on the size of the hole causing the leak. It'll get where NOTHING else will go.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Harold Schwendeman - Sumner,WA on Saturday, July 13, 2013 - 12:42 pm:

Dave Dufault - Very interesting article in the web site you provided. In fact, because that was "Part II", I went back to Part I via Google and read that too. Actually, I'm going to show my ignorance here, but one reason I went back to Part I was to try to find out what the heck "PC" means! It's probably very insignificant, but both articles use "PC" about a thousand times and I just wanted to know what it meant. And I never did find out. Passenger car? I don't know,......even the title uses the abbreviation "PC". Usually, a term that is used over and over in an article will have ACTUAL WORDS when the term is used the first time in the article, and then a letter acronym from then on. But not this two-part article! I guess everyone but me knows what PC means. I guess I just hate letter acronyms as I kinda' consider it a form of lazyness. I figure if it's not important enough to use whole words and whole sentences, it's not worth writing about. O.K.,....this is turning into a "rant", which I didn't intend, but would somebody please tell me WHAT THE HECK "PC" MEANS? Otherwise, I'll just figure it was a mistake and that it means "physical therapy" when actually, it might cause me to need mental therapy! Thanks,.....harold


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Harold Schwendeman - Sumner,WA on Saturday, July 13, 2013 - 12:44 pm:

Actually, physical therapy would be "PT"! That's how screwed up I am!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Royce in Dallas TX on Saturday, July 13, 2013 - 01:14 pm:

PC = Performance Computing. The website is all about large high performance computers. The cooling being discussed is the cooling of computers using liquid / radiator technology.

Hard to convince some of the old hens here about how bad an idea it is to put distilled water into a radiator without any antifreeze.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Harold Schwendeman - Sumner,WA on Saturday, July 13, 2013 - 01:50 pm:

Thanx for the explanation Royce! Sheeesh, I'm probably about as dense as can be when it comes to stuff like that; as I said, I hate all those two, three and four letter acronyms. Heck,...I think is was several years after I first saw "LOL" before I found out that it didn't mean lotsa' luck! Thanks again,.......harold

By the way, I think I'm still gonna' stick to my mixture of 50/50 green Prestone and distilled water! But I don't ever buy that pre-mixed stuff 'cause I think it's dumb to pay for water!


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Harold Schwendeman - Sumner,WA on Saturday, July 13, 2013 - 01:58 pm:

......long as I brought that up, I might as well disclose my secret and very highly technical method of formulating what I consider a proper coolent "mixture". After draining and flushing (with tap water), I dump in one gallon jug of green Prestone, and one jug of distilled water which seems to cover the top of the radiator tubes by and inch or so, and then I mix another 50/50 solution of green Prestone and distilled water to carry in the car when I need to add. As the kids would say,....duhhhh........harold


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Derek Kiefer - Mantorville, MN on Saturday, July 13, 2013 - 02:36 pm:

PC = Personal Computer... like what you probably typed that message on. :-)

That website is for guys building high-performance "gaming" computers, and some of them even build water-cooled units to withstand hours and hours of playing games that require a lot of processing (which generates a lot of heat).

Seems like a big waste of time and effort to me (gaming) but they probably think the same about guys who tinker on 100 year old cars.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By Ken Todd on Sunday, July 14, 2013 - 11:38 am:

"The secret is to use Aviation Permatex on the threads. I learned to use it on flathead fords, which love to weep out of the head bolts"

I never had that problem w/Fords but I learned to use it on GM series 71 diesels that like to leak oil out just about every bolt on them.


Top of pagePrevious messageNext messageBottom of page Link to this message  By ex trooper on Sunday, July 14, 2013 - 12:13 pm:

The cure... ws

[IMG]http://i43.tinypic.com/f2nhqx.jpg[/IMG]


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