504 Head Gasket Problems and Misc.

The most common spot for the 504 head gaskets to fail is on the front or back of head. In the first pic the pencil points at the erosion the fire ring in the headgasket caused to the head. These heads have to be surfaced to clean up that worn area if the new gaskets are going to have any chance of sealing for a while. One must remember the block has similar wear and that is not a easy or cheap fix, so if you do anything the heads must be good. This engine does not need a overhaul yet so hopefully the new gaskets will hold a couple years. The second pic points out the area where combustion gases like to sneak by the gasket and into the cooling system. When this happens coolant is forced out the overflow resulting in low coolant levels. The one pic shows good inserts from the oil passages in the gasket and on the right side shows failing inserts from coolant passages. For some reason the one's sealing coolant are falling apart. The cylinder pics show the first with normal wear for thousands of hours and the second pic shows the cylinder that the coolant has been leaking into and it does not look very good, could even have a possible broken top ring. This tractor only gets used to feed cattle a couple times a day or we would possibly replace that cylinder. The last pic shows the crud build up on the top of heads, I have never seen one this dirty. This tractor has close to 20,000 hrs and has been overhauled once. Rod.

Hello Rod. It is wonder these old engines keep on running. Thanks for the engine class. We all learn from your pictures and exclamation. Thanks Steve

Cool pictures do you have any pics of heads that have been fire ringed?

Hello Rod,

Thanks for the tutorial on Case 504 engines. It's always good to hear from the pros. Don

Rod: One thing the CASE Service Manuals stressed was "Re-Torquing" the heads after initial warm-up. I find this is most often overlooked. Also, very few know the proper procedure CASE describes for re-torqueing. Following this procedure will eliminate many, many instances of gasket failure.
Would be curious to know what brand of engine oil has been run in this engine.

John you are right about the retorquing, a lot of the time I do not think it gets done. I retorque almost everything. Admittedly on the 504's it seems as though I might be wasting time, these gaskets do not seem to crush like the ones used on 30 series and earlier engines. The top of the blocks on a lot of these higher houred engines are getting so darn bad head gasket failures are likely to be common, retorquing or not. Rod.

Rod: I remember re-building a Cummins Truck engine, several years ago, a 855 cu in. & in certain areas on the block, they recommended using silicone sealer.
With the CASE engines, most people do not know the re-torquing procedure CASE outlines, ie. backing off & coming back up to torque.
BTW, any idea what oil was used in that 504?

Rod, Interesting. At the dealer we were instructed to do everything perfect. But we never retorqued a head on anything...ever. And I still don't. Most manufactures do recommend retorque. But how many engines leave a machine shop each year and nothing is ever done? Agree these deck surfaces are getting ugly on these tractors, I think that is the biggest battle. Most importantly use an OEM head gasket. Which I'm sure you do.