Good compression but burning water? 60 Lincoln 430 - update: All ripped apart

Update: pics on page 2. It's all apart.

Fellas,

Here's a weird one... My '60 Lincoln coupe is obviously sick. It's got steam blowby, in that it has blowby but its not combustion or oil, its water. It did overheat twice on me when poorly recorded radiators blew open, so I'm assuming it likely blew a head gasket. It's also going through shitloads of water/coolant and isn't leaking any.

Houston, we have a problem.

However a quick compression check shows healthy compression...

Plugs look OK, a couple seem lighter in color but otherwise OK.

Car runs rough, especially when cold and acts like its missing, but a quick check shows fire going to all cylinders.

Before I rip this thing apart... Am I missing something obvious and stupid?

 

You don't happen to know if the car has its stock head gaskets? Reason I ask is that they are the thin steel type. What you may have is a partition on the gasket that has slowly rusted outward from a water passage hole, and allowing a tiny bit of coolant into a cylinder. The leak is minute enough and generally just when cold, so your compression readings are barely affected. When this gets worse, it will allow compression into the cooling system as well, and blow coolant from the radiator cap.

Another possibility, but less likely, is that an intake gasket is seeping between the water crossover and the intake port. I have seen both these problems on MEL engines over the years.
Sometimes you can get extra miles out of them by pouring a vial of Alumaseal or similar product into the radiator, but best is to teardown and find the source of the problem.

---John

 

John,

Thanks! I am almost positive that the head gaskets are the originals, the engine has, as best as I can tell, never been apart and the car only has 45k or so on it.

I'm going to rip the heads and intake off of it and see what I find. I had a feeling there was a more sinister problem but this makes sense to me. When I bought the car I did flush an awful lot of rusty water out of the cooling system.

Also, the factory manual doesn't make mention of hardware.. is it safe to reuse the head bolts or should I go with my gut and get new ones? They don't seem to be torque to yield.

Thanks again!

Bill

 

Head bolts are one of the strongest parts on the car, they will last the life of the motor.

Torque to yield came in when they started putting aluminum heads on. By using cheap, skinny bolts they would expand with the aluminum when the motor got hot. This started in the mid 80s. Earlier engines with iron heads have good bolts.

 

they're well known for weak head gaskets. my '62 drank a gallon of coolant for every tank of gas.... it was enough water to rust the exhaust system out every two years, according to the Midas warranty work papers I found in the glovebox.

 

Remove one spark plug at a time and start it until you find the hole or holes that are putting out a mist of water. That will narrow it down to a single bank and confirm its at least a head gasket.

Bob

 

However a quick compression check shows healthy compression...

Plugs look OK, a couple seem lighter in color but otherwise OK.

Car runs rough, especially when cold and acts like its missing, but a quick check shows fire going to all cylinders.

Before I rip this thing apart... Am I missing something obvious and stupid?



You could leak coolant from the water jacket directly into a cylinder , this is your typical blown head gasket and will show both low compression and combustion gasses in coolant as well as coolant loss. Most likely will be running hotter too.

You could also leak coolant into the intake tract . This will give you plenty of steam, loss of coolant and most likely some missing but no loss of compression.

That's the general idea anyway- not 100% sure if that applies to a 60 Lincoln but I'd bet quite a bit that it does

 

First,

Thanks for all the replies. I'm waiting to get some garage space before I start tearing into it. I've given it some thought and swapping out the intake seals and head gaskets isn't that big of a job so I'm going to get on it. I've ordered the parts and have em.

Rusty, thanks for the head bolt info. I've either done work like this on OT stuff, older stuff I've generally ripped all the way apart and used new hardware.

Compared to working on a BMW with variable valve timing and DOHC this should be a snap. I'm going to try Bob's idea tomorrow and see what I come up with. I'll report back

Thanks again!

Bill

 

Finally found a place to work on her...

Tear down begins..



So far it doesn't appear that the intake was leaking coolant, I've been having a lot of fun with the manifold to down pipe bolts, two are very easy to get to, two require a baby octopus.

I tore an FE apart once, this thing seems to be much heavier.... The intake weighs a ton.

Should have heads off this week, at this point in time I'm praying I find a bad gasket and not a bad head.

And then there's all the "well, while we're in there" stuff.

 

And there was some crud on the valley pan...

 

What ever cylinder was/Is burning coolant - it will look like brand new. The carbon deposits will be gone, the piston will be clean, the plug should be cleaner than the rest.

 

Thanks! So far I haven't gotten the heads off yet, as soon as I do I will report back.

Just hoping I don't find any cracks... Also thinking that if the bores look good throwing some new rings in there might not be too stupid.

 

I really think that if the combustion chamber was compromised that you wilould have bad compression and exhaust gasses in the coolant.

Cracked block can put oil into the coolant or coolant into the oil. You don't seem to have either of those.

 

Nope I don't.

Closest I have had is a little condensation under the oil cap but not much. Meanwhile this car is why I remember how much I absolutely HATE having anyone else work on my cars. A couple of years back I got in a bind, real busy at work, the town yelling at me for working on my cars at my house and spare cash.

So I sent the car to a shop. The more I dig into this car the angrier it gets me, I swear I should have parked it until I had the time to do it myself.

 

Some progress...



Head is ready to come off, I bought a cherry picker and will remove it tomorrow. Still have the drivers side to do...

 

I had a 430cu. Lincoln years ago in a Sand Draggin truck that I had, it was doing the same thing, ended up having a crack in the combustion chamber between the intake and exhaust valve on one cylinder. Had the crack welded up and blended the weld in the chamber, put the top-end back together and ran it hard for a few years more with no problems. Hope yours is just a head gasket.

 

Well it's update time.

I got the passenger side head off and unless I turned into an idiot (highly likely) then I sure as heck don't see anything indicative of coolant being burned.



That's the head surface.



Passenger side cylinders.

Everything looks pretty normal I'd say...

Well, drivers side is next! Hope I get that one off tomorrow. Heat, humidity and mosquitoes are kicking my butt. Seems like Deep Woods Off only slows em down!


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Brian,

Thanks. Heck I could live with that... Right now I'd just like to figure out what the problem IS!

Bill


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is that gasket screwed up on the rear cylinder?

 

Saltflats,

A little. But at that point I had already removed it from the block and wasn't terribly careful.


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I don't see anything obvious in your photo, usually coolant entering a combustion chamber will steam clean the carbon in that cylinder. Hope you do find something obvious, mystery problems are no fun!

---John

 

It will be clean as whistle in the chamber if its burning the coolant.
Since you have spark & compression both: it should be burning it.
Another head to go, maybe that will tell the story.

 

I'm hoping...

The car is at my cousins which is 20 miles south of me. It's finally cooling off a little so I'm heading down there to get cracking on it for a few hours.

Hopefully ill get the other head off today.

 

? ? ? Well

 

New Puppy + 95 degrees = No work over the weekend. I'll be on it tomorrow and Tuesday.

 

Ok,

Finally got back on it today! The drivers side is a lot tighter, especially as this car has factory cruise control (mounting bracket attached to exhaust manifold).

Here's what I found... Again, this car is not leaking it but burning a lot of coolant.. I just don't see any "smoking gun" here....

Cylinders on drivers side...





Head surface... That water type staining bothers me, I'm thinking the nasty looking intake gaskets might have been leaking... But the cylinders are clean.

Head gaskets, btw, were not original. They look like Fel-Pros.





Do you guys think that's the leak?

Thanks again for all the advice, its much appreciated.

Bill

 

Oh,

Here's another pic of the head surfaces...



Bill

 

Here's a few more pics...

Thinking thisis the smoking gun? I've never seen stains like this on a head before, but I havent taken dozens of engines apart either.



That's the piston that goes with the most stained cylinder on the head.

Couple more shots of the head that I uploaded today..

 

No smoking gun, but as much as you're gonna get with what looks like a steel HG. If you're on a budget have a close look at the cylinder walls looking for cracks after cleaning with penetrating oil and fine steel wool. Do the same on the heads and use a straight edge to look for warping. If you don't see anything bolt it back together with some good quality gaskets. If it still leaks use some stop leak. 430ci Cool! Betcha it's got some torque.

 

Thanks Dane,

I've just never seen staining like that before. I'm going to take the heads and intake to a machine shop on Monday and see what they find. If I didn't know better I'd say its got a bunch of small leaks all over the place.

Valve guides seem tight. There's a slight lip on the cylinders, not bad but a slight lip so I'm not going to mess with changing rings I don't think. Long term goal is to build a proper engine for this car, right now I want to get it functional so I can finally start the build on it.

Bill


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