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Plan to. Time to play "940" for a bit. Got a coolant loss issue going on there too. Not the head gasket - fortunately. Seems to be losing it all around the waterpump. A new one is on the way from IPD. Regardless of how it plays out, fixing a red block engine is infinitely easier.
That picture doesn't really do the gasket justice. The warp/kink in the gasket deviates a full 4mm from true. I was extremely lucky to have ONE additional replacement manifold gasket on hand - which was exactly what I needed.
What seems to have lead to the near-immediate failure of that gasket was the irreparable damage to several of the manifold studs. When I say that the old nuts can't be removed - it's because some of them destroy the stud at the end. They tear the threads right off the stud. I lost 4 studs trying to remove the original manifold nuts.
After an extended search of all the local parts places, I finally found some replacements at the better local hardware store.
Trouble is, not all the replacements were fully threaded studs. So when I torqued one of the partially-threaded studs down, the un-threaded center bit was thicker than the thickness of the manifold and washer - just enough. So it *was* fully torqued, but not holding the manifold properly around the #1 exhaust port.
To really add to the fun, getting the studs far-enough back into the head was a real chore. One failed to set and I lost 5 mm of aluminum head threads when it stripped. I was *very* lucky that I had enough thread left in there to set a replacement the stud.
However, I expect that I will have a helicoil installation to perform in my future... Hopefully it can last long-enough for me to rebuild the engine properly... the high variation on those compression readings concerns me.
The total cost for this repair (and a lot of attendant repair and replacement under the hood) plus x3 car rentals, is *still* less than half of the lowest estimated cost for the repair.
Anyway - I can now say that I feel significantly more comfortable with a whiteblock engine and the turbocharger. I may even be able to help out others with this hard-won knowledge. Thanks for sticking with me to the end.
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