My leak was in cylinder 5. I bore scoped it and you can see the coolant from center of pic, going down diagonally the lower right corner. It began in a very subtle way. Truck used start on the very first crank...then it went to cranking for about two seconds. Now it's back to instant start after using the K&W. I guess the spark plug was getting wet.

 

I can not make heads or tails of that pic.. Is it upside down? Is that the piston on the top part?

 

Yeah, sorry. The brown part is the piston and the gray is the cylinder walls. Piston shows up top. Barely green liquid is coolant. Since the cylinders are in a "V", it settles that way.

 

Think I found the issue... only one bolt was tight holding the heads on..
I broke most of them loose with my air ratchet and that thing has almost no torque.
And I have removed 1000s of head bolts before all about the same torque of 100-110. And they gave my air impact a few seconds of strain...

The gasket was blown between the cyl I said that aire came out during the pressure test. The heads have been off before as there was Felpro gaskets in there.
I inspected the heads and from what I can see so far no cracks.
I am going to use my bore camera and look in each runner to see if any cracks in there.
Those compression numbers are scaring me.. With the broken gasket between CYL there should be a lesser amount with the broken gaskets between them.

 

Ok I pressure tested the heads. No leaks.
BUT I do have A crack in each head between the intake and exhaust.

SO what should I do? New heads are expensive... But so is doing this again.

 

Just replace them. Do it once, do it right, don't worry about it again. Unless, of course, you ENJOY this particular exercise?

 

From what I been reading just replacing them dont mean they dont crack in short order afterward.
Plenty of post say the crack going between the intake and exhaust valves dont go anywhere and it dont seem to hurt anything... AND where the cracked ones are, they was not leaking coolant. It was #8 an #4 had crack...

And i dont want to spend 800 on those redesigned ones..

 

BUTTTTTT......

IF I did feel like buying new heads or rebuilt ones..

Where is a good place to get quality ones at a GOOD price... Good being cheap as hell

 

I found a set for 540 shipped.. They are the newer design and NEW...
That plus all the gaskets gonna push the price to fix over 800..
I am going to do the plenum also. The gasket KIT comes with a gasket but not sure on using it.
I read that the intake bolts need replaced too as they are TTY,... But I been going over the FSM and did not see where it warned to no reused them..

 

Odessa, or Clearwater sells new castings that have thicker decks, which deals with the cracking problem. Which may be exactly what you found.

The debate still goes on about the intake bolts...... You are correct, nowhere in the FSM does it flatly state you should replace them, but...... a new set if fairly cheap, and a bunch of mine broke, so, I replaced all of them.