Head gasket sealant

[nitro_warrior]

Do any of you have experience of any head gasket sealants?

After fitting 2 new head gaskets and skimming the head of my Fiat Panda it still produces a wet white exhaust. I can't believe it's the head gasket and so can only assume the water jacket is cracked somewhere. Rather than fit a new block or engine and waste more time and money I thought I could give an coolant based sealant a go. My general opinion on radweld type stuff is to stay away like the plague but I guess this is different from a leaking radiator, so is it worth my bother? Any products better than the rest? Steel Seal seems to keep cropping up...

http://www.steelseal.co.uk/

Cheers in advance

[GadgetBoy]

What design is your engine Donald? Bored block, wet liner, damp liner?

Steel Seal works very well in certain applications. Basically if there's no oil contamination it'll work. Follow the instructions to the letter though. No short cuts.

But before you do all that how long have you run the engine for?

[nitro_warrior]

What design is your engine Donald? Bored block, wet liner, damp liner?

Steel Seal works very well in certain applications. Basically if there's no oil contamination it'll work. Follow the instructions to the letter though. No short cuts.

But before you do all that how long have you run the engine for?

I had to look up wet liner. Still not quite sure about the differences, but it's the Fiat FIRE engine, from what I gather on my quick liner research it's just a bored block.

Here's a pic after it was skimmed


The coolant came out fairly clean so I hope it should be ok with regard oil contamination.

I only finished putting it back together tonight and ran it for 5minutes. But it behaved exactly as it did after the 1st headgasket which stayed consistently smokey for ages >30mins. I could even see the Calamity James cloud following me as I drove along.

[GadgetBoy]

I'd need to see a pic of the block Donald. I don't know the FIRE engine.

Run it for a good hour or more. All that coolant is in the exhaust system and you need to evapourate it out completely. Check the coolant level and looking for the coolant system pressurising.

[nitro_warrior]

My eyes read block and my brain said head.

Remarkably I never took a picture of the block and they are impossible to find on the net.

Here's a small picture from the part catalogue.


It's solid, one lump of iron, no (obvious) inserts, looks mostly like this X1/9 block
http://www.midwest-bayless.com/fullView ... 0-ac-a.jpg

And nothing at all like this wet liner one!


What difference does the block design have on the application of the steel seal stuff David?

I'll run it for longer to make sure there's nothing sitting in the exhaust but I really don't think its that.

[GadgetBoy]

Right. It'll be dry liners or just a bored block.

I'll reply in more detail later.

[Zelandeth]

I'd second what Gadget's said here. There can be quite a surprising water buildup in the exhaust if there's been water getting in there. You'll need to get the whole system good and hot and run it for a reasonable period of time to get it to all boil off. Huge clouds of steam - especially if it's cold and dry out - are going to be the order of the day until it's dried out.

This would be especially true if my memory of the exhaust on the Panda is right, in that there's only one (pretty large) silencer right at the back in addition to the cat. This will warm up more slowly than the rest of the system so will take a while to clear.

I was astonished how long it took the comedy steam clouds to clear when I'd got the cat on the Riva wet (when I cleaned it when reassembling the system), never mind water having got into the rest of the system.

[nitro_warrior]

Mine's a carb so no cat, just a silencer. Just about to nip out the the garage now so will run the car for a bit to see if it will dry out.

[nitro_warrior]

Seems I may if been a bit hasty announcing the failure of my handy work. Left it running for a while this evening and took it for a spin and white smoke seems to of cleared, and nothing like what it was before. I'll keep an eye on it and see what it's like in the daylight. Must say I was surprised how bad it was at first.

Thanks for the advice all the same. Now what to do with a 30 quid bottle of Steel Seal that's due to arrive on my doorstep in a day or two?... I'm not counting my chickens yet, might still need it.

[GadgetBoy]

The youf of today ...... know nothing! LOL

Keep the Steel Seal for a couple of weeks then flog it on eBay. Or you could keep it and sell it to your bro when the Landy head goes.

[nitro_warrior]

The youf of today ...... know nothing! LOL

Keep the Steel Seal for a couple of weeks then flog it on eBay. Or you could keep it and sell it to your bro when the Landy head goes.

Don't even joke about the Landy head!

[GadgetBoy]

If I was joking I would have put a afterwards.

[Gunsnlada]

I had a Honda Civic (evil evil things…) burn coolant in the muffler for a week after I rebuilded my bud's engine… Run it until the muffler is hot enough to burn your hand on it…