The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Expensive boat anchor?

I recently purchased a 235 engine. according to block casting # 3738307, stamped serial # F205A, Con8 B48 with head cast # 3836848 Con 9 E93, this should be a 1958 chev. car engine. As I need to clean this engine up and paint, install a water pump adapter plate to raise the cooling fan up to 216 level and paint this engine. I also need to drill the front plate for the 216 front motor mount. All is good UNTIL I turned the "Engine stand" mounted engine over 180 degrees and removed the oil pan. Piston holes 1,2,3 and 4 look what I describe as fairly normal. 5 and 6 look really PUKIE. Also the pan has some Not Normal crap in it
At this point, I remove # 6 spark plug and I see that green stuff run out. NOT GOOD. I then turned the engine to head on top AND REMOVE the HEAD.I find Hole 4, 5, and 6 have coolant on top. I see nothing ,to my untrained eye, abnormal on head gasket and also see nothing abnormal on head or 4,5 and 6 cyl. walls as in Cracked Block and Cracked head. I do observe at the top of # 6 hole some rust at the cyl ridge. For your info , this block is bored .030.
Any thoughts as to how to proceed? Please don't tell me I have that spendy boat anchor, I don't own a boat! Thanks, Jerry

Was the green stuff coolant? That would indicate a bad head gasket. Head gasket failure on 5-6 wold make sense since that part of the engine is hottest next to the firewall.

Hi Jerry,
Since your cylinders shouldn't be cracked to allow coolant to enter, I would suspect head or gasket (the only other choices).
Since you said the gasket looked good, I'm thinking head.
If you can't see a crack in it, take it to have it magnafluxed.
I'm betting there's a crack.
Worst case scenario, another head purchase to be made. It could be worse.
Good luck!

So, when you were taking the head off, were the headbolts all still pretty tight? Maybe someone was tampering with it before you.

If you look at the combustion chambers in the head, you will probably see carbon on most surfaces. If there are a few spots that the carbon is strangely absent, it could be because a leak of coolant coming from a crack.

my engine's head gasket looked fine too, but it leaked coolant into the combustion chambers when i tried to start it........ either somebody else had messed with it before you, like truckernix said, or it just is so ridiculously old that it needs to be replaced. i would go the least expensive route first, that being to either tighten the head bolts a little more or to replace the gasket. just my two cents