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240 New valve cover gasket fine but wth is this?

T

thismachine13

New member
Joined
Sep 22, 2015
Location
Kansas City
Replacing the valve cover gasket as I had a leak dripping down to the exhaust manifold causing that sickening oil burn smell. So got the OE Volvo gasket and as I’m cleaning the head for the new gasket and see this.....
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This is where my leak is coming from. I put a dab of silicone on the crack where the valve cover sits but after firing it up oil is actually leaking through the crack in the head. Any ideas how it got there? From the last photo you can tell that it has been “worked” before.

Repair.....soI’m thinking I’ll take a file and create a small v area on the inside and throw some JB weld inside of it. High mileage engine and I’m going for inexpensive.

Thoughts?
 
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Anything you do besides replacing the head would be a band-aid fix in my opinion. Start searching for a replacement head and get an upper gasket set so if it gets worse, you have everything needed ready to go to fix it properly.
 
So thinking along those lines I do have a much lower mileage ‘93 engine that is in a 245. I’m just not in a position to yank it at the moment. When I have my recently purchased 850 up on its maintenance I’ll start moving that direction.
 
ZVOLV said:
A machine shop should be able to weld it back up.
Click to expand...
That crack appears to be right at the edge of the weld bead from a previous weldup. Look closely at the third pic and you can see a slightly different colored area to the left of the crack for 1/4-3/8 inch and then a faint line where the left of the bead was.
Since you are repairing a repair, and welders who can weld cast aluminum correctly are not common or cheap, I would guess that it would be cheaper to get another j/y head.
JB weld is cheapest and should be plenty strong:

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Just remembered maybe a ez fix. Find some Glyiptal paint (spelling??) it is used for sealing electric motor armature wire. Also for sealing inside of race engines. Aides in oil draining. I used it to repair a poruse casting on a 528 hemi years ago.
 
I believe inexpensive would be to find a good head in the junkyard, have it pressure tested and decked. Get new head gasket and head bolts. Head gasket can be done in half a day if you plan everything correctly. Can probably done for about $200 all said and done.
 
^^^^This is where I am at the moment, only by the time it starts giving my problems again I'll be ready with an entire '93 engine that I have in a salvage 245 with about half as many miles.

white855T said:
I believe inexpensive would be to find a good head in the junkyard, have it pressure tested and decked. Get new head gasket and head bolts. Head gasket can be done in half a day if you plan everything correctly. Can probably done for about $200 all said and done.
Click to expand...

Agreed but for that same $200 bucks I could have the engine in my '93 salvage car installed.

I just can't figure out how the hell it got there!
 
Took a dremel and cleaned up the areas on the inside and outside of the head

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Mixed up some JB Weld and covered the crack.

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Now I wait 24 hours.
 
Update......JB Weld patch is holding up well but the crack has now revealed itself below my patch. The leak is ever so subtle but still oozing. From when I changed the valve cover gasket and was able to look down in the head it appears it originates from the lower head bolt second from the firewall.

An 87 244 has shown up at our local PNP, even though it’s LH 2.2 are there any other changes from my ‘89 +T engine?
 
To old for this said:
Just remembered maybe a ez fix. Find some Glyiptal paint (spelling??) it is used for sealing electric motor armature wire. Also for sealing inside of race engines. Aides in oil draining. I used it to repair a poruse casting on a 528 hemi years ago.
Click to expand...

Ancient and discarded old wives tails from the old hot-rodder days of the mid 1960s are old..
And discarded.
last time i saw a block done that was was 20 years ago on a Nissan FJ20 sold for cheap because a hand sized hunk of Glyptal had fallen off and was covering the oil pump pick up screen and cause loss of oil pressure and No 1 rod bearing failed..

the potential 0,5% improvement of oil drainback was worth risk of sheets of the paint falling off.

Some engines like Chrysler and Mitsubishi are cast so horribly that it made sense to do something to deal with the amaount of sand and crap cast in....Not decent iron like Volvos, Euro Fords, Nissans..

This guy needs advice...not old wive's tales.

Oh Pea..heat with propane or Mapp gas to warm it up AND drive out the oil in the crack..Clean clean clean, ten JB or similar will work..But must be near germ free first.. Both sides.
 
I'm more curious about that pitted hole that appears to be there?

The proper thing is of course to repair it via actual welding, or replace it. Were it mine and I wasn't boosted, I'd run that hot action until it blows itself up.
 
Saw that hole too. I think it’s been repaired in the past and that hole was meant to stop it from cracking more? Seems odd to put it where the gasket will end up though, so maybe it isn’t what it was for.

It’s going to get a junkyard head soon.
 
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John V is right. Years ago, I had a crack in intake port that was near pushrod hole. We tried every epoxy on the market and nothing held until I took a torch to it and burned out all the oil. Dont use carb cleaner to clean it, it has oil in it. Ended up using some industrial epoxy that a pip fitter had and it stayed.
 
Where I've patched with JB Weld is holding fine. Its that the crack goes further down the head from where I put the JB Weld and its leaking there now. Hell....the crack may be growing or getting wider.
 
Forgot about this thread and decided to update.

Picked up a PnP head from an '87 244 in Little Rock before I moved to KC. Installed it about 2 months ago in the comfort of a garage. Didn't deck it or even check if it was warped.....cleaned it up and installed a new head gasket with new head bolts from Rockauto. I've put about a 1k miles with the new head and no issues.
 
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