head bolt sealer ques.

[310stanger]

How critical is it that you put a thread sealer on head bolts? I ask this because ive seen a few threads on the subject and a coworker used some on his new engine. This made me think about whether I remembered to do this when I did my h/c/i. It was over a year ago and for the life of me I cant remember. My coworker who is senior master certified Ford techinician says its a good idea to do it but not the end of the world if you dont. Says hes never really had a problem on heads where he didnt do this. Jus lookin for another opinion on this, preferably from someone that has built a lot of well built windsor engines. thanks guys

 

[modusmortis]

haven't built any windsor blocks.... yet....

BUT, due to my imminent head swap have been doing some heavy research in the area so I'll chime in.

Forgetting to put pipe dope/thread sealer on the lower bolts can cause the block to seep coolant. I would just take a flashlight a peek under the exhaust manifolds or just feel by hand to see if you're getting any leaks. I wouldn't worry about it otherwise.

 

[BlownFiveLiter]

I would say it's absolutely critical that you do use some sort of thread sealant. Some of the head bolts pass through the water jackets in the block, so without some sort of sealant, you run a very high risk of mixing oil and coolant together. While the oil may not hurt your cooling system, the coolant will hurt your oiling system. Bearings aren't lubricated very well by an oil milkshake, or water for that matter. Permatex blue is cheap, pick some up.

 

[vikingpower]

I recently had to replace a head gasket. When I pulled the lower head bolts out there were small amounts of vapor condensation on the bolts. Which I'm pretty sure came from me being a lazy ass and using Ultra Black on the threads instead of actual thread sealer (when I did my head swap some time ago), which allowed small amount of coolant to seep up the threads. So, follow the directions and use thread sealer!