Good luck to you brother. Head gaskets are a heck of a lot of tear down for no extra vroom-vroom.

Hopefully, I'll be digging into my engine for a cam swap in a few weeks.

 

I don't know what it's called, but a friend of mine had a plastic type brush that we used when doing my plenum. Hooked it up to a drill. Thing worked like a charm for removing old gasket and crust. Didn't even make a scratch in the metal surfaces.

 

dang man... at least you KNOW what it is now.. and if you're going that deep in the engine- don't ya think a sausage cam is in order? :-)

 

I still think the IAT was part of the issue. After all, I've been driving in 100º+ heat for a couple of weeks and she's been better behaved.

I've been tempted to stroke it, but I doubt I'll do that. I'm thinking maybe going .010 over. I'll check wit the guy at the machine shop to see what he says. This time around, I won't be as rushed to get the engine built as I was when I did it the last time. I'm going to take care of that damned plenum one and for all by having the bottom plate welded to it for a nice, fool proof seal.

 

OK, so it's going to be a while before I get around to tearing the engine down since I can live with a tiny, tiny, TINY head gasket leak. This past weekend, with outside temps in excess of 100º, my son and I drove 200+ miles, round trip, to pick up some VW parts from a retired VW mechanic. All went well with the truck staying around 198º. Yesterday, when I headed to work, the temp gauge wouldn't budge above 150º. While stopped at an intersection, I turned on the heat (FULL) and placed my hand in front of a vent. The air was was warm, but not impressive. So it looks like the Failsafe thermostat has decided to stick partway open or has failed.

 

Never much cared fit the failsafe thermostat, it just looks too damned over-engineered.

If it's really tiny, you ever thought about checking the torque in the head bolts?

 

I did within the first few thousand miles after the rebuild. After 4+ years, would it really make a difference?

 

That's the way a failsafe thermostat is supposed to fail, in the open position.
I had one too and it failed the same way.

 

Thermostats are supposed to fail in the open position. It pisses me off that the damned thing costs too much and lasted about as long as a bag of heroin in Amy Winehouse's possession.

 

I use to be a hardcore supporter of failsafe's, but when I began to have overheating issue's, I bought an OE stealership stat and compared them. The OE stats open and closing tolerances were much tighter then the failsafe's. I run an OE stat now.