Can anyone confirm/deny whether or not you have to shorten the dowel pins when you mill/deck your setup? I've got another hg leak, and I had the block decket and the head resurfaced with a new gasket, all installed per helm specification.

 

anybody?

 

when you put the dowels in, you can measure the clearance. Just look inside and you can tell by eye if they are too long.

 

unfortunately, I have my head on... and I don't really want to pull it just to measure the pins, unless that's the problem.

 

if your headgasket is leaking. you have a problem and have to pull the head anyway right?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by intekragsr &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">if your headgasket is leaking. you have a problem and have to pull the head anyway right?</TD></TR></TABLE>
It would be a good idea to do a leakdown test before pulling the head. It will help narrow down the problem area.

 

I'm really hoping to leave it on... I just rebuilt it, and I resurfaced the head and decked the block (both were warped). The last thing I want to do is pull my head right now.

I will do a leakdown test before I pull it.

 

Any other idea why it would be leaking?

 

How do you preform a leak down test? Ive never seen a leak down tester for sale anywhere? Is it expensive/hard to do?

 

leakdown tester requires an aircompressor.

 

I pulled the head... and the leak is only on the exhaust side of the engine.... which also happens to be the side that has the 2 dowel pins. The other 3 sides are dry.... I'll let you know how it turns out. In the meantime, anyone else with this problem feel free to chime in.

 

yeah you've gotta resize the pins. they're only used for alignment so just pick a logical point and file down to there.

 

So you've had this problem before? I was starting to worry that I might be crazy

There is no reasion to do a precision measurement of how much to resize these, correct? I can jssut file them down 1mm or so and call it a day, correct?

 

yeah, i personally have never had the problem but know of people who have, if you just file it down then it up you should be just fine, just remember to have all metal shavings off the pins as well as off the deck (don't know why they'd be there though) good luck

 

Before the rebuild, I decked the block and resurfaced the head (~1000 mi ago)... Do you think that either of them are not flat again, considering the problem could be with the dowel pins? (i.e., because it was torqued at a very small angle due to the longer dowel pins: would this warp the head/block?)

 

nah i bet you're good, i'd only worry if you over heated the engine significantly.