so I pulled the head and....

[SnS C10]

On my 292 straight 6 in my 64 c10 I just bought, i pulled the head because of slightly milky oil. The coolant level was still full. So, the two rear cylinders have water residue in them and lots of wet carbon. Problem is, the block and head gasket look fine. Any ideas??

[jtrichard]

clean it up good /new gasket and hope for the best

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by jtrichard

clean it up good /new gasket and hope for the best

Yeah, that was my first thought. I replaced the gasket on my old 230 in four hours flat and that was with a pounding headache from a concussion (logging incident). So it's not a lot of wrench time to risk.

The only thing is that it might be worthwhile to make sure that the head is okay while it is off.

[66Gilbert]

Need to have the head magnafluxed to check for cracks. Worse case scenario you have a cracked cylinder or two. Most likely will be a cracked head.

[SnS C10]

I noticed the gasket doesn't seem to make even contact along the cylinder deck. Going to bring the head to work, clean and check for squareness tomorrow

[TJ's Chevy]

Sometimes you can't tell if it was a blown head gasket even though it was. If the rear two cylinders were the ones that had wet carbon then you'll want to look closely at the water ports between those cylinders. Have the head checked like your doing and go ahead and surface the head and block while you have it out.

[SnS C10]

Is there a way to check between the 2 rear cylinders ? Or just visually look as best I can? I'm planning on leaving the block in the truck unless i find a major problem

[1976gmc20]

Originally Posted by Shaun23a11en

Is there a way to check between the 2 rear cylinders ? Or just visually look as best I can? I'm planning on leaving the block in the truck unless i find a major problem

Yeah, that's what I would do

Worst case scenario you're out a couple hours putting it together and the price of a head gasket. Those 292s are pretty tough and tolerant engines. They have to be, if I can rebuild one and have it come out right

[TJ's Chevy]

Originally Posted by Shaun23a11en

Is there a way to check between the 2 rear cylinders ? Or just visually look as best I can? I'm planning on leaving the block in the truck unless i find a major problem

I'd just visually look. Get a nice bright light and check for cracks. Most of the time you can make out hair line cracks. How do the cylinder walls look? I ran my 292 as low as 90 pounds of compression and it ran great. haha They are one heck of an engine.

[Chevy Fleetside]

I would think that if it ran smooth when you fired it up and there were no misses or rough idle, you are probably doing pretty good. If a cylinder was cracked it would smoke immediately and would have a rough idle/miss. I know I cracked a cylinder before, and it is not pretty.

[awbrown]

Thats why I have always changed the oil , or at least drained it and replace it with some used oil before starting a motor I dont know anything about , remember ,water sits on the bottom , right where the oil pickup is so the minute it starts it pumps water all through the engine ..

[GRX]

All good advice above. Too late now since the head is off. When encountering such problems I always check head bolt torque with a torque wrench before removal to see if any are below spec. Best of luck

[SnS C10]

Thanks for the good advice guys