I pulled the head thinking I might have a blown gasket, but the gasket looks okay. I don't see any cracks anywhere in the head or cylinder either, but then again, I'm not sure what to look for.

I have a '66 coupe with a 289 out of a Falcon. I've noticed the few times that I've run the engine that I seemed tohave pressure in the coolant system long after the car has cooled down. After putting the dual exhaust on, I drove the car around the yard forawhile and noticed quite a bit of air coming outof the radiator cap and a bitof steam coming from the passenger side exhaust.

After pulling the head, I could definitely see that cylinder #2 hadcoolant burning in it, but I couldn't seewherethe coolant had been coming from.I noticed that when I removed the head, the bolts came out quite easy considering they should have been torqued above 60 ftlbs. Could it have leaked past the gasket without destroying it? What usually causes coolant leaks? cracked heads of leaky gaskets? I've been told that Ford 302/289s usually don't blow head gaskets. I checked the head for warpage and it looks pretty flat (certainly not more than .006" across the length).

I did a half a**ed attempt at a compression test and noticed low compression on all passenger side cylinders (especially #2 and #3).

I think that covers everything. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

Since you have the head off, take it to a machine shop and ask them to magnaflux it. Cracks in the head CAN be hard to see. You might even want to take off the other head while you're at it and have them completely check out both.

It would have been nice if you had augmented your compression test by putting a squirt or 2 of oil in the low cylinders and retesting, then you could tell if it was the head or the rings. Too late now though.

 

Usually water to compression is a gasket issue, but sometimes this is due to a crack in the head or on occasion a cylinder.


90% + the issue is a gasket, if caught early enough evidence may be scant.

 

Your head is warped, if you checked it properly. The rule of thumb is a max allowable warpage of .001" per cylinder, 4 cylinders per head = maximum allowable warpage of .004" on a V8 head. If you're at .006" then you're 50% over the max allowable. Take it to a shop and have them pressure test/magnaflux it FIRST, to see if it has a crack(you can have cracks invisible to the naked eye). If there's no cracks then get it milled flat. If there are cracks, then try to find replacements, it's not even worth the cost to try to get it repaired these days.