I hope someone experienced with these engines can help me here. On the 230CI six in my 64 C10, water has been coming up around one of the head bolts and leaking down the side of the block. It is also getting into the oil a little bit, but not very much. There is a tiny bit of milky-looking oil on the breather cap, but the rockers and everything else look fine. There is no water in the oil when I drain the oil. I drained the coolant, pulled the leaky bolt, re-sealed the threads, and re-torqued it. This did not solve the problem. Thinking the head may be cracked, or the head gasket blown, I removed the head. I don't see where the head could be cracked, and the gasket looked OK too. Also, the bolt that is leaking is on the driver's side of the engine. With the head off, you can see that most all of the coolant passages between the block and head are on the passenger side of this engine, so now I'm really stumped about coolant coming out around this bolt. Did I just do a poor job of re-sealing perhaps?

One final question...cylinders 3 and 4 have a white crusty stuff all over the piston tops, valves, and combustion chambers. Is this a lean condition? Since the carb is closer to the center cylinders, these are not the cylinders I would expect to be lean. Could the white stuff be due to coolant getting into these cylinders? I really don't lose that much coolant...maybe a quart every 100 miles or so. I'm just really lost here. The engine does NOT run hot, under any conditions.

Thanks,
Mike

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Mike Newby

69 Chevelle 355/TH200-4R
97 Grand Prix GTP
64 Chevy C10 Pickup
79 Suzuki GS550

BillK? Anybody?

I'll take a shot at some of this. With respect to the white foam in the breather that was common back then. If the engine is not equipped with a pcv system hook one up. Usually that will cure the foam. If it does have a pcv system make sure it works properly. In those years the PCV valve was changed at tune up time routinely. Now the pcv valve sometimes never gets changed.

With respect to the "white crusty stuff" it's my opinion that those two cylinders are your two best running cylinders, probably because they are closest to the carburetor. Further upstream and downstream the mixture quality changes. Again not unusual for an inline 6.
with respect to coolant getting into those two cylinders my guess would be that if that were the case those cylinders would be squeaky clean. Coolant usually inhibits the formation of cylinder deposits.

Finally with respect to your coolant leakage two things come to mind. One it may be that there is a slight crack that only opens when the engine is at operating temperature OR you may have some nominal warpage that a lite milling would cure.

JMHO
good luck.

Sounds reasonable. Thank you sir.

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Mike Newby

69 Chevelle 355/TH200-4R
97 Grand Prix GTP
64 Chevy C10 Pickup
79 Suzuki GS550