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I have a question about the "glove method". On an engine I'm working on I found several areas where the coolant was getting into the oil compartment (visa versa). I think I've fixed them but upon filling the radiator and running the engine to temperature it promptly started leaking into the oil again. I didn't observe any cracks in the cylinders or the head, but the gaskets were leaking (replaced/head planed/valves reseated) and the water pump disintegrated (replaced) and scraped holes into the timing cover plate (patched).
Getting a new timing cover was going to take a long time and following the hype I tried JB steel to patch it. I made sure the clearance was still ok and it looked solid. However I am worried about expansion under heat, but I assume the additive in the epoxy is supposed to help compensate for that and saw some video where they repaired a head with it.
But now that I still have a major leak, I'm not so sure JB Weld was a good idea. So I tried this test:
Remove rad cap
Remove overflow hose, Plug overflow hose port with gum, putty, vacuum cap, hose with bolt in it........etc
Put glove over rad cap opening and seal it with rubber band or zap strap
Or use a balloon or condom in place of glove
Crank engine.......watch the glove
If you have a cylinder leak glove will start to bounce, if its a bad leak it will start to inflate, lol
If glove just lays there then no leak, 100% accurate
If glove does bounce, then you can remove 1 spark plug at a time and crank engine
When glove stops bouncing then last spark plug removed was from leaking cylinder, reinstall spark plug to confirm
If glove bounces less but still bounces then you have more than one cylinder leaking, continue on
This test has been used since there were water cooled engines, so long long time
Shops don't like it because its pretty much free, lol, they prefer the chemical test, Block test, they can charge much more for this and it sounds more technical, but chemical tests do a lot of false positives, a lot
And there is absolutely no movement in the glove while cranking. So I fired it up just to compare and there was some very slight inflation but pretty slow and never really made the glove fill just very slowly enlarge a little.
Does this imply that the block is probably ok and my patch to the timing plate or maybe somewhere else (intake manifold?) needs repair/replaced?
A cylinder has 150psi pressure during cranking and 900+psi when firing(running), so glove would hop cranking or inflate quickly running
So head(s) are fine
Is it a 3.0l engine?
If so most common place for coolant to enter oil pan is the front cover, timing chain cover, where coolant pass thru from water pump to block
Next would be the lower intake cross over coolant passages
Yes this is a 3.0L. I replaced both timing cover and water pump gaskets and used some permatex to help seal them. There's no signs of external leaks.
If I pressure test the intake manifolds, is 40 psi too much pressure? I'm thinking I might be able to isolate it, or at least have a method to verify it's fixed before putting it all back together again.
Happy New Year everyone! I'm hoping to get this beast up and running before 2021, lol.
Looks like the JB weld didn't hold up on the inside of the timing cover. But to be sure I'm trying to pressure test the block. So I plugged up the outlets to the heater on the top. Then I plugged one of the ports (green circle) and injected 20psi into the system at the port with the red circle. The bolt hole for the timing cover (yellow circle) let out a stream of coolant and also air during this test. This seemed odd, but I thought maybe this is a factory test point for pressure testing....?
Should I let it sit for a certain amount of time before calling it successful? It seems to hold pressure very well in the short term (10-15 seconds) but I do not have a way to monitor the pressure in real time.
I have a question about the "glove method". On an engine I'm working on I found several areas where the coolant was getting into the oil compartment (visa versa). I think I've fixed them but upon filling the radiator and running the engine to temperature it promptly started leaking into the oil again. I didn't observe any cracks in the cylinders or the head, but the gaskets were leaking (replaced/head planed/valves reseated) and the water pump disintegrated (replaced) and scraped holes into the timing cover plate (patched).
Getting a new timing cover was going to take a long time and following the hype I tried JB steel to patch it. I made sure the clearance was still ok and it looked solid. However I am worried about expansion under heat, but I assume the additive in the epoxy is supposed to help compensate for that and saw some video where they repaired a head with it.
But now that I still have a major leak, I'm not so sure JB Weld was a good idea. So I tried this test:
And there is absolutely no movement in the glove while cranking. So I fired it up just to compare and there was some very slight inflation but pretty slow and never really made the glove fill just very slowly enlarge a little.
Does this imply that the block is probably ok and my patch to the timing plate or maybe somewhere else (intake manifold?) needs repair/replaced?
Thanks
Is this the same as the glove: engine warmed up fully, runs good, idling fine. Removed radiator cap (slowly, small amount of spillage), watched coolant. It pulsed or surged up and down . Did not see bubbles. Tailpipe clear but some water laying along bottom. Did not have chemical tester. Would this be head gasket leak
Is this the same as the glove: engine warmed up fully, runs good, idling fine. Removed radiator cap (slowly, small amount of spillage), watched coolant. It pulsed or surged up and down . Did not see bubbles. Tailpipe clear but some water laying along bottom. Did not have chemical tester. Would this be head gasket leak
Welcome to the forum
What engine?
You shouldn't/can't take the radiator cap off a fully warmed up engine, it should have 14psi pressure inside it
Glove test is done on a cold engine, because there is NO PRESSURE in the cooling system when an engine is cold
So if glove inflates the pressure could only come from a cylinder, so bad head gasket or cracked head
Chemical tests are not as reliable as Glove Test, just FYI
Shops just can't charge enough if they just use a latex glove, lol, so they use the chemical test because they can charge more and it does false positives for leaks, so better money to repair head gasket even if there isn't one, win-win..............for them, not you
Just FYI, for my engine with the problem I also pulled the timing cover and put rubber plugs into the coolant passages and did a 20 psi pressure test of the whole block using a tire stem valve in one of the rubber plugs while plugging up the heater hoses too. For me this seemed to back up the glove results (no glove movement) as the block held the pressure fine.
I had the timing cover repaired and I put everything back together. I've purged the oil and coolant twice and it seems the water has stopped leaking however it is taking a while to get all the of the previous water intrusion out of the engine and the oil goop out of the cooling passages. So I'm not 100% convinced all the problems are gone but it is looking good.
