I have an ED 6 cylinder. Last couple of weeks have noticed dry coolant on the flat section under No 1 spark plug on the head. Thought nothing of it, just figured was spilt last time i flushed radiator. One day i scraped it off. Look the next day and there is a small puddle of wet coolant again. Cleaned it, drove for 10 minutes and looked again. It appears there is a small fracture about 2mm long and coolant is 'seeping' out of there. I think the head may have gone porus and the coolant is soaking through the alloy?? Any one here or see anything like this. I have had the head reco'd about 3 years ago with hardened valves for gas, new valves, guides ect thinking the head would last another 500,000kms but obviously i was wrong?!?

I just changed my head gasket and finished it last night. mine was gone on N.o 1 cylinder which is very common. 5 and 6 are the next common to go. So sounds like the head gasket mate. Mine was leaking inside the engine but.

Last edited by 93EB on Mon Oct 26, 2009 12:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

BTW i got about 200k out of the last headgasket i replaced. The car has now got just under 390Kays. We replaced the gasket with another ACL Monotorque.

+1 on this diagnosis. I've got the same problem and the head gasket/engine rebuild is only few months old. Coolant has been leaking out in few places under the extractors. The head & block were straight.

I tried Irontite as a temporary fix, but that didn't work. So, looks like I need an AU gasket with a non-hardening sealant (like Hylomar).

yeh sounds like the gaskets gone to me leaking coolant is always a bad sign

nope not the gasket, i put an au one in last time. I can literally see a 2mm line near the spark plug where the coolant is coming from.... no way near the head gasket!!!!

sounds like a casting crack in the head??

i wonder if it could be welded??

Just an idea that worked for me a long long time ago (on a flathead 6 Plymouth, of all things)

If you can see this crack and access it pretty easily, what I did was chase the crack out very slightly with a dremel or similar small grinder so you end up with a v shape leading into the crack - I only went in about 1 mm so in total the crack once ground out should only be say 2 mm at the top going in to nothing (so like a 45 degree chamfer on each side )

Now I filled that with epoxy (I used araldite but there's better stuff available these days like chemiweld or similar) and let it set for at least 24 hours - that completely fixed the problem for me and is maybe worth a try short of pulling the head...

Note that the old Plymouth I did this on had a compression ratio like 6.5 : 1 so not alot of pressure behind it, but at the end of the day what have you got to lose?