Repeat head gasket failure. Oil out front of head every time

Bustedknuckles said:
Ill tell him to check it. Btw the truck makes 90-100 psi of boost with this setup, maybe he just needs to limit the boost?
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I would only run fire rings on that setup. But that's me everyone else will argue. However if its keeps pushing out oil I would be looking at the oil system.
 
Bustedknuckles said:
2 machine shops, both very good! cummins brand gaskets every time. Now the torque wrench idea never crossed my mind!
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Only reason I bring up the torque wrench is my snap-on torque wrench was the cause of a broken stud in my previous truck. I don't trust them at all anymore and always use two just to make sure they feel the same when I torque. Sad part is the $30 NAPA one I have has been more reliable than my crap on one.
 
He just said hes used 3 different torque wrenches to double check

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Bustedknuckles said:
Ill tell him to check it. Btw the truck makes 90-100 psi of boost with this setup, maybe he just needs to limit the boost?
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I do not see this being an issue unless it has stupid timing down low. Fwiw I have 425s in a mechanical truck making more boost, timing is at 24*.
 
Could always have your torque wrenches calibrated, do the ones at work all the time.

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No idea, we have to do ours on various intervals for our QC program. We have our own torque readers to check the wrench with. Then if it's out of tolerance, most of them can be adjusted by removing the handle.

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95cummins5.9 said:
What does snapon charge for a cal?
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Most of the dealer's have a calibration tool on there trucks. Set the wrench to a certain torque and the needle tells you what it's putting out. It's free. If it has to be sent in to be certified it's $50 I think. Or it was. I can't remember what it cost if the wrench needs to be adjusted
 
As a self-proclaimed resident expert on blowing head gaskets: I've lost count this year on how many blown gaskets..... but oil pressure is not likely a culprit. My truck idles at 85 psi warm and around 125 psi when cold, the current blown headgasket that is still running is leaking coolant from the back of the block on #6 and it has zero fluid cross over and zero oil leaks.

By the way, this gasket held about 40 full power dyno pulls, (12) 11 to 10 sec 1/4 mile runs down in Texas, and about 40 more dyno pulls here at the shop. It blew when I ran it up at full power in 3rd gear and short shifted to overdrive with converter locked on the dyno trying to make a ridiculous high 2000+ ft lbs Torque Spike and full power at 1500 RPM after being around 2500 rpm at full boost and full fuel led to instantly lifting the head a little and coolant spraying out of both the overflow bottle and the back of the head. The truck has since made another 50+ dyno pulls with a single 369sxe and 366sxe while moderately leaking coolant but they don't make the big monster torque numbers of the compounds so the head is mostly staying down.....

The only gasket that has forcibly blown oil out of the gasket was when we cranked timing up to 38* and got after it hard on the dyno around 2200 rpm, by 2400 rpm it sounded like a machine gun as fire was visibly shooting combustion out of the block/head sealing area and oil sprayed in a 20' radius and coated the walls, floor, truck, dyno computer, bystanders... everything!!! It was clear on that gasket that every cylinder had fire/combustion going every direction as the head lifted.

I've learned a lot about o-ring protrusion, re-torques, torque amount, various brands of head studs, etc. A fire-ringed head with ARP 625 12mm studs or ARP 2000 14mm studs are the only two combinations we've tried at the shop that have never had a head gasket failure. In my opinion, on a 12v with composite gasket and o-rings, anytime torque numbers surpass 1500 ft lbs to the tire, you are playing with FIRE.

For your commonrail with MLS gasket, I don't know what to tell you, just that in my opinion, oil pressure is not your issue!
 
This is from my personal experience, I think there is a bad batch of headgaskets going around from mahle/clevite/victor reinz. There are two types. One gasket being gray, the other is almost black. Same brand. Ive spent hours on the phone trying to resolve this issue with the manufacturer with no results. I'm not gasket maker, but the gray gasket fails much quicker. It appears to have less glue on the paper gasket. Oil is eating away around the head stud hole, eats to the fire ring, and making its way to the front/rear of the engine and blowing oil out under load. We have had numerous failures with the same issues your seeing. I am about to lose my mind trying to figure it out. My advice is get an mls gasket and set your oring to about .005 protrusion and I highly doubt youll have anymore issues. I dont see it being torque wrench issue or stud problem from my experiences this year with these problems. A combination of a change in gasket material and a lot of oil pressure/type of oil is causing this issue. Just my opinion from what Ive seen this year. Our old gaskets never had failure and our next order have all blown....
 
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I've had it two times on my puller and once on a customers truck, finally gave up and fire ringed them and haven't had any issues.
 
lenahan05 said:
This is from my personal experience, I think there is a bad batch of headgaskets going around from mahle/clevite/victor reinz. There are two types. One gasket being gray, the other is almost black. Same brand. Ive spent hours on the phone trying to resolve this issue with the manufacturer with no results. I'm not gasket maker, but the gray gasket fails much quicker. It appears to have less glue on the paper gasket. Oil is eating away around the head stud hole, eats to the fire ring, and making its way to the front/rear of the engine and blowing oil out under load. We have had numerous failures with the same issues your seeing. I am about to lose my mind trying to figure it out. My advice is get an mls gasket and set your oring to about .005 protrusion and I highly doubt youll have anymore issues. I dont see it being torque wrench issue or stud problem from my experiences this year with these problems. A combination of a change in gasket material and a lot of oil pressure/type of oil is causing this issue. Just my opinion from what Ive seen this year. Our old gaskets never had failure and our next order have all blown....
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I agree, I've gone through 2 fire ring headgaskets in the last 8 months. Pushing oil out of the front of the head on my 12 valve. And then the next one was coolant being pushed out on the exhaust side #6 cylinder.


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I don't know if my issue is a matter of gasket quality or if it's beyond that.

I've been having no luck getting new head gaskets to seal on my engine after a rebuild. I've tried 2 heads and 3 new gaskets so far. The first gasket was a Victor Reinz, the replacement 2 I bought directly from Cummins. Both heads were Cummins reman units but surfaced and true. One head with o-rings, the other without and it's weeping coolant out the very rear, middle to the driver side mostly. All while cold, without the engine even running. Merely just the head pressure of water/coolant within the system.

It's baffled me.
 
He went to a MLS gasket and less o ring protrusion and so far so good. He said hes gotten a bad fluttering noise like the heads lifting under full boost but haisley told him he'll never keep a head gasket in it at 90+ lbs of boost so he's installing 75 psi wastegates on the intercooler pipe.

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jimbo486 said:
I don't know if my issue is a matter of gasket quality or if it's beyond that.

I've been having no luck getting new head gaskets to seal on my engine after a rebuild. I've tried 2 heads and 3 new gaskets so far. The first gasket was a Victor Reinz, the replacement 2 I bought directly from Cummins. Both heads were Cummins reman units but surfaced and true. One head with o-rings, the other without and it's weeping coolant out the very rear, middle to the driver side mostly. All while cold, without the engine even running. Merely just the head pressure of water/coolant within the system.

It's baffled me.
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While I'm not the biggest fan of this idea, Some Permatex "Right Stuff" around the water passages would pretty much guaranteed take care of it. Never had to do this on a 5.9, but yours seems to be determined to leak.
 
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Good stuff. Keeps a tac to it even after heat cycles.

I used it on my deck around the water ports because I have some corrosion damage.

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It may not be similar but I used Permatex copper spray on the last 2 gaskets. Waited until it got real tacky before setting it on the deck.

That might be what I just need to do, even though I hate 'bandaids' but I'm also getting tired of torquing these studs. Had to have run through the sequence close to 10 times in the last few months.

My neighbor, an old timer car guy, said that he'd drive it a bit with straight distilled/demineralized water to put some heat cycles through it and maybe it would seal up. He also mentioned some stop leak stuff. I've always been skeptical of that stuff plugging up where you don't want it to though and creating costly issues down the road.
 
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Stop leak is for vehicles you are about to sell ??

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