Learned something this past weekend!

[JIPJOBXX]

This has nothing to do with Mopars but Fords. As some of you know I have a 60 T Bird and last week I noticed that I had an exhaust header leak. So Saturday I removed enough engine equipment to install a new exhaust gasket.

Well here's something interesting and it may help some-one here in the future with the head gaskets for a 352 Ford engine. When I took oft one of the heads I noticed that the head gasket had one hole at bought ends of the head but did not notice that one end had been eaten away by water and chemical reaction. This is turn when I looked at thought that the gasket would have a hole at bought ends. Well when I installed the new head gasket it only had one hole and at the other end of the gasket no hole.

I took the gasket back thinking that I had gotten the wrong gasket but the store manager assured me that this was right and the old gasket had just worn a hole through it by that water action in the engine.

This morning I got this reply oft of my T Bird site as to why these gaskets block one water port and I thought it would be interesting just to let you guys know this as like I said befor it might just help someone here.

There is a reason for the blocked holes and it is critical that it be installed properly. Head gaskets are marked front and the life of your engine and your hairline demand it be installed properly! The heads and blocks have all of the holes because of the way they are cast and the fact that the heads can be used on either side. It would be much more expensive to make left and right heads especially in light of the fact that just making the gasket do the job works the same way. The holes in the head gasket force water flow. Water flow out the water pump is forced to the back of the block up into the head and forward to the front of the head where it exits into the intake manifold and out to the radiator. If that big opening at the front of the head and block were connected then water would tend to flow in and up and out without circulating through the engine. Unfortunately many people rebuild engines and then have overheats that can't be explained and often the excuse is the cylinder walls were too thin (almost impossible to be fact). If you install it backwards you will pull your hair out trying to find the problem! LOL You can tell if a Ford head gasket is installed properly because the two ends are a different shape. Ford did this so they could be verified after assembly and all aftermarket gaskets I have seen were the same way. Below is a picture of the passenger side front of the block and you can see a bit of head gasket hanging out. If you can't see any then the gasket is backwards and you will find the gasket hanging out at the back.

Just a little help if you ever work on a Ford 352 engine-Jon:)