Hello. I have a ‘70 Jeep Gladiator with the stock 350. Bought it about 1 year ago and been driving it around as I slowly take care of the issues it has... most will get handled when I actually pull it all apart and do a full rebuild. Currently, I am trying to just get it reliable. That entails decreasing the oil leaks. That lead me to pull the intake manifold to just replace the gasket. Or so I thought. There is a lot of build up near the middle of the driver side head and some on the left. Also chunks sitting on the valley pan gasket portion. The truck was a true farm truck with a lot of rigged Fixin’s. Knew there could be a problem when I started to loosen the bolts and they were not all the same torque. Back two right bolts had Way more oil On the threads than the others and that is what leads me to my question. When looking at the heads, it looks like the driver side water jacket closest to the firewall is completely closed up. The left side same hole is mostly closed up. ***EDIT: Just looked at the intake and those are blocked water jackets at the head to intake. So doesn’t seem to be the problem I thought.*** Hopefully I can get some picture posted to show what I am talking about. Would this be a fixable thing without pulling the motor? It was fully running without any issues, other than non maintenance stuff. Without any real maintenance on this 350, how does this compare to normal intake areas? Should I be looking for anything in specific before putting it back together?
That gunk is carbon mixed with oil. Clean it up and it will be fine. Trim the little ridge off of the top of the rubber end seals and stick them to the block with this stuff. Put the valley pan on, make sure it's centered over the bolt holes. Then squirt some rtv in the corners where the seals fit under the heads and swab some of that Indian sealer on top of the seals. Let it tack up a little then set the intake on. Start a few bolts on each side to center it and let it sit for an hour or so. Run the rest of the bolts down amd torque to proper spec in proper sequence.
After your done do yourself a favor & drop the pan to remove all the crud that has run down there over the years. Farm truck could mean it never really got warm which messes with the internals & most likely not enough oil changes over it's lifetime.
Exactly what I thought as soon as "Farm Truck" was mentioned. Toss the rubber end seals and use a decent bead of RTV on the rails of the block where the rubber seal would go. Those hard chunks are coked oil from the heat of the exhaust crossover, its normal, especially with non frequent oil changes, and turn it on, turn it off life of a farm truck.
A lot of idle time. Pretty much normal . Exhaust crossover gets hot. Bakes oil. Coolant passages in rear of head do not pass coolant anywhere. So not a big deal there either. Clean it up and change gasket. Change oil .
I have yet to find Indian Head gasket sealant. I do remember when I was a kid, every farmer or mechanic had a bottle of that stuff. And it worked!
All that sound great. I will get the intake manifold gasket delivered tomorrow so will get that swapped out. Valve covers are cleaned up now with new gaskets too. Water pump and other bits up front come in same time as the intake. Should be able to clean it up some so I can pull the wiring since that has been completely hacked and spliced everywhere . As I work down the oil pan will be last. Thanks for the help everyone.
