Why does the head gasket appear to cover 16 of the 18 coolant passages from the block to the head….69 350.

Car has been progressively getting worse and overheating over the past five years.

Head gasket appears to be same for 1964-1991 olds v8.

Help

 

Most of those passages are there for the casting process and are not intended for coolant flow. The head gasket has the correct openings for proper coolant flow.

 

Why do people always think that the head gasket is made wrong? Do you really think the engineers who designed the engine were that stupid? Yes, someone asks this same question every time they pull a head for the first time.

As noted above, the block is made with a sand casting process. Getting the sand cores out of the block after casting is always a problem. That's why there are freeze plug holes on the sides of the block. The extra holes in the deck are also passages to get the sand out of the casting. Look at the cooling system diagram in the Chassis Service Manual. The flow of coolant in the engine starts at the water pump, flows backwards through the block around the cylinders, goes up into the head, then flows forward in the head to the t-stat crossover at the front of the intake manifold. There are a couple of carefully sized holes in the head gasket to allow SOME coolant to flow from the block to the head, but most of it goes all the way back first. If you opened up all those holes in the gasket, coolant would take the path of least resistance, which would cause it to immediately flow up into the head and out the t-stat. The result would be that the back cylinders would run way too hot.

 

In todays quality control world I question everything.... Sure, some things are more obvious to some of us but I have been asking somewhat dumb questions out of fear of the lack of quality these days.

 

If one is asking about the OEM gasket that came out, QC isn't an issue. And while I've had even brand name stuff that was made wrong (like the batch of FelPro gaskets that had the four locating bosses stamped incorrectly some years ago), one should ALWAYS compare the new parts with the old ones.

 

ignore Joe Pee…he’s an angry old man who needs to prove to everyone he’s smarter than everyone, even those who never opened up an Olds before.

 

I never got that impression. You, on the other hand…. Well, let me just say that your attitude could use some improvement.

 

you should mind your own business ..don’t answer for someone else.

 

You should take your own advise.

 

if that ever happens…I’ll think about it.

 

 

In fact, some of them are ...