I think I just blew a head gasket in my 5.0, based on the foamy crap on my dipstick. I had developed a rod knock in the previous block, which I replaced this past spring with a reconditioned short block. I used the heads from the previous engine. I know that the proper thing to do is take my heads to a machine shop and make sure they're in good shape, etc, but money's tight right now, and I wanna try to low-buck this. This is my daily driver, I don't pound on it, so I'm hoping to get away with using a better (thicker?) head gasket than the previous one. I had used a standard head gasket set from autozone (Fel-pro parts) when i put the engine together in february, and it just let go. Any ideas on what parts/manufacturers I should look at to give me a better chance of this holding together? And yes, I used a torque wrench, and tightened to spec in the proper order last time I did this. Thanks, all.

 

if there is coolant in the oil, it'll be brownish milkshake looking, like mud.........and it can come from various places, cracked head, cracked block, blown head gasket, blown intake gasket and or timing cover

 

It's not low buck if you have to keep swapping head gaskets constantly and will end up costing you another engine. The intakes are bad for turning lose a gasket and the aluminum timing covers develop holes in them and will leak coolant in the block as was stated before. if the intake wasnt torqued properly there is a good chance it blew coolant down the lifter valley.

 

If you have coolant in the oil you might as well start search for a engine or saving up for a new one. Coolant eats up your engine bearings.

 

^No need for all of that. Just because a little coolant gets into the oil doesn't mean he needs to look for a new motor. All he would have to do is tear it down and clean it back up if he was really that worried about it.

As for getting the heads to a machine shop you don't have to do. The nice thing about iron heads is that they can take a beating. Like said before it doens't have to be head gaskets that are leaking. Take your time tearing into your motor and see if you can find the culprit. If not then put in some new gaskets and double check everything you do when you reassemble it.

 

Iron heads warp also. Most good machine shops can ckeck the head in a matter of minutes. The cylinder head surface must be very clean and then you lay a straight edge on the head and check it with a feeler gauge under the straight edge. I use a piece of 2X2 bar stock that I machined flat. When you get the straight edge on the head try sliding a .004 feeler gauge under the straight edge while it's lengthwise down the head and then .002 going side to side between each combustion chamber. If that feeler gauge slides under at any point I would have the head resurfaced.

 

the head bolts, intake bolts that go through coolant passages need a dab of rtv before putting them in.

Check the head bolts, they like to loosens up.Nothing will be wrong with gaskets you used, that shows up immediately.