So, I've been dealing with a misfire in my R/T for the last few months. The car only misfires for a few seconds if it has been sitting for more than an hour or so. Well, after troubleshooting a few ignition things, I decided to pressurize the coolant system and pull the plugs. After an hour or two, sure enough, I had a little puddle of coolant on cylinders #2 and #3. A few years ago I replaced the head gasket with a cometic gasket sprayed with copper on both sides. I removed the head due to the typical oil leak at the corner of the head. Both the head and block had a good surface finish (If I remember correctly, I used one of those plastic finger finishing tools).
Anyway, I was expecting a bunch of cracks in my cylinder head since the car has had small coolant leaks for years and I figured a little air in the system caused a hot spot in the head and a few cracks. So far, I've been unable to find any cracks. The head is soaking in some identification dye right now, so I'll let you guys know if I find any cracks. The car was never overheated.
So far, no obvious cracks in the deck of the head, no external plug leaks (I replaced the core plugs in the head with aluminum years ago). I'm going to check the head for flatness, check the block for cracks, and if I can't find anything, I'll assume the gasket was weeping coolant.
If everything else checks out, is a modified T2 gasket still the way to go? If the head and block are flat, I'm not sure I want to re-use the cometic gasket. Anyway, let me know what you guys think. For the sake of completeness, the car was assembled with torque to yield bolts (I'll check the threads for yielding while I'm in the garage).
Pictures of the gasket, starting with an overall, then cylinder by cylinder, starting wtih #1:
So, after a closer look, cylinders 1, 2, and 3 had coolant in them after a long duration pressure test. Notice a trend in the close-up pictures? I'm down to bare steel on cylinders 1, 2, and 3.
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