1958 D17 Diesel Head gasket

i have a 1958 D17 diesel and this past summer i noticed that the engine was somehow putting pressure into the water jacket and the antifreeze had an oil film on it when drained. So the other night i pulled it in the shop and today i pulled the head off of it and found number 6 cylinder had blown through into one of the water passages. It has obviously has been doing it for quite sometime before i noticed any symtoms because the head around the valves is quite pitted, but the valves and power cell are not damaged. I was just wondering if these engines are prone to blowing head gaskets? The book says to torque the head to 105 ft pounds is it possible to torque 10 or 15 ft pounds more to hold it, i was planning on spraying the head gasket with the High-Heat gasket spray by permatex. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

Your gasket blew into the water passage that's really close to the fire ring on the gasket in the very back didn't it? Did it always leak a little coolant out from the back between the head and block? I'm told that that little leak is a warning sign that you will be pulling the head off soon. Like Denis says, once you have the head off, check all of the sleeves in several places around each sleeve. What you want to see is .002 above the block. The original specs for the sleeves is flush + or - .002 according to the original blue prints for the 262. If your sleeves are below that .002 mark, it is unlikely you will have a head gasket hold long term. The original A-C shop manual states the head bolt torque is 120 ftlbs. Increasing the torque is not going to help if the head or block is warped, pitted or if you have sunken sleeves. I would recommend having the head surfaced for sure. If you're lucky, your sleeves are OK. When you go back together, inspect your bolts closely. To ensure maximum clamping force, go with ARP studs and nuts in place of the original bolts. If any of your bolts are pitted, don't reuse them. The ARP studs and nuts are actually cheaper than O.E. bolts from AGCO and are far superior too.

Edited by Brian Jasper co. Ia - 05 Feb 2011 at 9:25pm

Put a straight edge to the tops of the sleeves and to the head... Heads will warp sometimes. Somebody made a comment some time ago where they had special fire rings made (out of copper?) and put in instead of the origional fire rings to compensate for the lack of proper standout.

The 77 ft-lb spec is right out of Cat's Engineering Standards.  Even Cat's special high torque for these Grade 8 bolts is only 100 ft-lb.

Throw the new fire rings away that comes with gasket and make them out of neiled wire .010-.015 thicker than new head gasket. Torque the head down from center to outside 20 ft lb at a time until you are up to specks.