Head gasket direction

My BN is leaking water into the cylinders so I just took the head off and am wondering which direction the head gasket should have been put on. I don't know the manufacturer - its a gasket with metal on one side and what ever the other material is on the other side. Which way should it go on - metal down or metal up?

The old gasket should be discarded and not re-used. Especially if you suspect it was the cause of the leaking water. So, which way it was put on (right or wrong) is pretty much irrelevant.

What is relevant, is getting the new one on right. It is probably marked some how, which is the top side.

Is what I'd be looking for on the old one, is where it was leaking. There should be metal rings in the gasket where the water ports are. If one of those looks bad or blown, it basically proves that the gasket itself was leaking. Proving that it was the gasket itself that failed. Because if it's not the gasket that failed, then you got a crack someplace. Likely in the head. You won't know that until you get it back together and see if it fixes it, if you don't visually see the point of leakage in the gasket. If you find/see that damage now (or not), atleast you know that while you have it apart. And know if you should have the head checked out (as in, magnafluxed at a machine shop).

If you don't know what your looking at, perhaps you should have an experienced mechanic look at the gasket. They could tell you more than just whether it was on the right way.

I wanted to know about which side up for future knowledge. I'd never consider reusing a head gasket and the head is going to the shop tomorrow to be checked out. I'd still like to know which side should have been up. There was nothing I could find that stated direction. I've changed others and they have said up on the new one.

water in how many cylinders? cant see it leaking into all the cyl's. so no water getting in the oil pan? on them old gaskets they had metal on one side and copper on the other side. copper side was up. have never saw a gasket with only one side metal. most were a composite gasket and it dont matter on the sides. i would think the metal should be up towards the heat side but not sure on that.

Most head gaskets, can be put on two ways and the holes are still matched up. As long as they are flipped over end for end, and not side ways. Most modern replacements look basically the same from one side to the other. Although they generally indicate to put a certain side up. Your old one probably did too. The slight indention indicating this, probably got smashed flat when the head was torqued. Or if it was in ink, the ink is no longer there.

Really, the only difference that there might be, is one side might be able to take more direct heat than the other side. That side being the head side. But to tell you the truth, I don't really think a guy would run into problems just by getting one upside down, as long as it still matched up with all the holes. The block doesn't run all that much cooler than the head. And the same coolant runs through both.

If you got 2 different looking sides to the old gasket, the side that looks like it could take more heat, should of been the side that went up. If you can figure that part out. That's about the only way you can figure it out, at thus point. But bottom line, it still really doesn't matter now.