It's a fool that won't admit that he's wrong and as embarrassing as this is, I was wrong!!
Finally got out in the garage this weekend to re-torque the head on my 216. And to my surprise the head bolts were quite loose, probably took a good 1/8-1/4 turn to pull them down to 80ft.lb.
I then topped off the radiator to about half way up the top tank cold and took a ride. Between yesterday and the one I took into town today I put a total of about 50 or 60 miles on her and the water level is holding right where I filled it to, bout half way up the top tank after she cooled down.
Before I re-torqued the head, when I took it out for any sort of trip, even a short one it would have sucked it down some and on a longer 100mile or so run to just above the cooling tubes.

Lesson learned; ALWAYS RE-TORQUE THE HEAD AFTER YOU HAVE A FEW MILES ON A FRESH VALVE JOB!!!!! Even if you have done dozens and never had a problem like I have over the years.
I'll keep my eye on things for the next few weeks and see if all holds OK.
The good part of this is that I changed the plugs also and the set that I took out were burning nice and clean. So from the plug readings I don't think the #3 combustion chamber is cracked. Hopefully this was just a dumb bullheaded assumption that there would not be any creep or flow in the head gasket if it was properly torqued the first time.
Believe you me, I got my fingers crossed on both hands for the next month or so.
So go ahead and say, "I TOLD YA SOOOOO DUMMY"!!!!!
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Last edited by Denny Graham; 11/08/2008 11:25 PM.
Denny G
Sandwich, IL