Dodge 318 engine advice
Discussion
Hello all,
Last year my dad bought himself a 1977 Dodge W200 pickup truck. It's an ex USAF M880 military spec one technically so a standard 318 with two barrel carb, no power steering etc.
After a little bit of use we noticed it was losing more oil than the Exxon Valdez and seemed to leave a small puddle wherever it went so we decided to pull the lump out and reseal everything along with a lick of paint and a minor refresh.
Last year my dad bought himself a 1977 Dodge W200 pickup truck. It's an ex USAF M880 military spec one technically so a standard 318 with two barrel carb, no power steering etc.
After a little bit of use we noticed it was losing more oil than the Exxon Valdez and seemed to leave a small puddle wherever it went so we decided to pull the lump out and reseal everything along with a lick of paint and a minor refresh.
All has been going well so far, I've resealed all of the bottom end and fitted a new timing chain as the old one was pretty slack. The heads were skimmed at a local engineering place and had new guides fitted too along with the seats recut. It's all ready to go back together now but upon trying to refit the heads tonight I noticed that the Fel Pro gasket set we have doesn't quite seem to make sense in regards to the heads/inlet manifold arrangement.
Here's a few pictures to try and illustrate what I'm thinking:
In this photo the front of the engine is at the left, as you can see there's the obvious coolant galleries, then two in the uppermost left and right corners.
As you can see fitting the gasket blocks off some of the galleries and in particular the top left coolant channel.
Looking at the heads both channels continue, but where it runs through to the inlet manifold the path is blocked off, see the left side of below photo:
I thought I'd hit the nail on the head, thinking put the closed side of the gasket on the blocked manifold channel side, but as the gasket can only be fitted one way due to the head dowels the closed side of the gasket actually ends up on the wrong end of the engine to the closed end of the manifold? I'm a bit confused really, according to the paperwork in the set it should be the correct set so either I'm being a bit paranoid or it's the wrong gaskets. Unfortunately I don't have the old ones to compare it to!
Here's a few pictures to try and illustrate what I'm thinking:
In this photo the front of the engine is at the left, as you can see there's the obvious coolant galleries, then two in the uppermost left and right corners.
As you can see fitting the gasket blocks off some of the galleries and in particular the top left coolant channel.
Looking at the heads both channels continue, but where it runs through to the inlet manifold the path is blocked off, see the left side of below photo:
I thought I'd hit the nail on the head, thinking put the closed side of the gasket on the blocked manifold channel side, but as the gasket can only be fitted one way due to the head dowels the closed side of the gasket actually ends up on the wrong end of the engine to the closed end of the manifold? I'm a bit confused really, according to the paperwork in the set it should be the correct set so either I'm being a bit paranoid or it's the wrong gaskets. Unfortunately I don't have the old ones to compare it to!
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