MT Woes

First time poster, long time lurker.

Looking for some advice. About six months ago my MT started smoking white. I replaced the head gasket and changed the oil and it's been running great. I went to change the oil again a couple of months ago and it still had quite a bit of water in it. I flushed out the crankcase with diesel and took the pan off and cleaned it. It looked nice and clean on the bottom of the engine. I put the pan on with a few bolts and decided to give it a few of weeks with no oil.

Last night I took the pan back off and there was about a 1/2 teaspoon coolant in the pan. Taking a look at the bottom looks like it might be seeping around the pipe that comes from the bottom of the distributor to the oil pump.

Is that common? I am not sure if there is a seal in there that may need changed or how to proceed and thought I would ask.

Cheers!

That area sounds like it must be collecting there from another spot farther up in ? If you could put a wee bit of pressure in the cooling system it will speed up the looking process. May possibly be able to use a air regulator and hook something up to the overflow tube ? Keep it low 4 or 5 lbs. maybe max.

i would bet it is coming from a cylinder wall below the piston
like mike said, try to put a little pressure on the rad and have a look
lay down some old carpet or cardboard and get right under there with a good flash light
a cylinder wall could be cracked or you have a crack between the valves on the head and its leaking on top of the piston
then running down past the piston.
did you put a new head gasket on
did you put the gasket on right side up
did you have the head checked for cracks.
be patient you will find it.
at least you know its leaking into the pan and hope you caught it in time before damage to the rest of the engine.

I did put a new head gasket on. I ordered it from this site. I believe it was right side up. I took the head in and had it magna-fluxed and it came back no cracks. I ran it for a couple of months and had no white smoke at all.

If it is cracked on the cylinder walls will there be anyway to fix this? What would be the harm of continuing to run it? I just play with it and it doesn't do much work.

Cheers!

Might try retorquing first ?

(quoted from post at 13:47:21 09/11/18) Might try retorquing first ?

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But I'm not getting any white smoke...so I thought all was well with the head gasket?!?

If you can't find anything obvious I would put some Bar's stop leak in it, I have had it fix minor leaks and be good for many
years.

not every time there is white smoke when coolant enters internal engines.
sometimes you will smell antifreeze burning and not see smoke if its very minute leak.
i have seen the block cracked between head bolts on the head gasket surface and cause this problem
but you should have noticed it when cleaning the surface for the new gasket.
like mike says try to retorque the head
what will it hurt.
well if you are running prestone in the coolant system and it gets into the engine it could possibly bugger up the
bearings on the crank and mains.
you will notice the oil turning milky, and that is the first signs of contaminate., as you have found out.
there is no way of fixing the engine quickly, except for total disassemble and taken to a machine shop to put in a sleeve.
you can try stop leak like mentioned, but it is just a band aid. if you are 100% sure the head is good, its a faulty head gasket or a cracked block. let us know what u find

There is no water pump on an MT so stop
leak is a waste of time. Retorqing might
help.

When you put it back together did you
premix the antifreeze? If not there is a
good chance you now have a crack from a hot
spot.

I had it work on our M, maybe I'm just lucky!

Thanks everyone. I did premix the antifreeze in a 5 gallon bucket before adding it. It's mixed to -20 according to my tester.

I tried to turn down the regulator on my little air compressor last night nearly all the way down but it still registered around 10 PSI. I guess I would need to borrow or buy a manual pump and somehow plug up the overflow.

I looked all over it last night from bottom with the pan removed and nothing is standing out other than i see a little green around where the oil pump line and a few drops here and there.

I've not ran in it in a few months since I discovered it. If I re-torque the head, won't I have to take off the water jacket and all that to get to the back two bolts? I can't remember off the top of my head. Seems like it was a big mess when I went to re-torque the head after it was hot. I purchased the service manual for a M and torqued in the correct order of the picture and went in increments.

I have used bars leak before in a car. I agree without a water pump it won't circulate well but it should some, right? I think at this point a bandaid would be my first choice. I really don't want to mess with taking it all apart right now if at all possible. Would be ok to just drain the coolant between runs or change the oil more often to get by? I only run it a couple of times a month.

I appreciate all the posts. Cheers!

If you had some work to do and put the bars leak in and then go work it long and hard it may circulate enough to do some good. Worked on my B head gasket weeping. Use the kind that looks like mud and not the pellets type. You could run plain water in it as it won't leak nearly as fast as antifreeze does and then if it does get in the oil it is not as corrosive to the bearings. But then if you forget to drain it and it freezes you got bigger problems !