Please don’t say head gasket…

Looking over the truck this afternoon and I noticed a wet area around the #6 exhaust manifold.

All areas around the intake manifold including the coolant passages, and valve cover appear to be dry. It almost appears to be black and sticky.

Maybe a bad exhaust gasket, and the “fluid” is my wmo fuel mixture?

I have included some pics…Thanks!

That looks more like incomplete combustion or "wet stacking" but only on one cylinder. Bad/stuck stuck #6 injector possibly?

Gypsyman said:

That looks more like incomplete combustion or "wet stacking" but only on one cylinder. Bad/stuck stuck #6 injector possibly?

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I’ll probably pull all injectors and test them. Finally got all my fittings to convert for a pop tester.

I could be wrong but it looks like theres the black residue above the head gasket? Valve cover leak maybe (hopefully)

banditt1979 said:

I could be wrong but it looks like theres the black residue above the head gasket? Valve cover leak maybe (hopefully)

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Ill surely take another look.

Looking at the first couple pics it around other exhaust ports too. I say wet stacking and or maybe valve seal leaking a little. Spray her down with some brake clean or some degrease. Take her for a drive and make her work. Need to pickup gravel ,etc... this be time to do it then found some hills to pull. when you get back from the run look see if it came back.

Definitely coming from the exhaust port not the head gasket. Like mentioned above could be many different causes. I would probably start at checking the injectors. Does it seem to start any differently or make any more exhaust smoke than normal.

As @smoke said, wash the area down with de-greaser and a hose, check the nuts on the exhaust manifold studs for tightness (the nuts may be corroded in place but the stud can be backed off), take the valve covers off (what a great time to set valve lash!) clean and rejuvenate the valve cover gaskets (products available) and do not overtighten the bolts when you put the covers back on.

Then drive and see whether or not the gunk returns and where it comes from.

Just from the pics and the absence of the typical symptoms, I'd say it is not at all head-gasket related. Do not fret the head gasket. It is very do-able and as they say
"There is two kinds of Deuces. The ones that had the head gasket replaced and the ones that will need it done".

Looks like oil residue but it's hard to tell from just looking at the pictures. However, even if it was the head gasket, it's really not all that uncommon as many of them will weep oil as they age.

I haven’t had the time to poke around yet; unfortunately. I’m sure this coming weekend I’ll find a few hours to get into the garage.

That's not nearly as much stuff as I have weeping from various locations. I've been looking around and that's why I stumbled onto this post. It looks like I'll be doing head and valve cover gaskets soon.

Thanks for sharing your experiences and insights! Now I'm not so intimidated by the prospect of the head gasket replacement.

Do you drive the truck and not just start and idle it? Those are old style gaskets, when they start to leak the leakage will start oozing out of the tabs under the manifold. De grease it and drive it. Looks like it is just slobbering out the ports. Pop testing injectors is un necessary unless it runs funky, it will be a waste of time. Multifuels like to be run hard. Go drive it like you stole it.

Edit..when/if the head gasket(s) fail, cylinder sealing wise, it will sound like an exhaust leak or a ticker in the overhead. Oil or coolant will mainly leak at the front or rear of either head and run down the head/block joint. On the old multi piece gaskets there are no oil or coolant passage seals, just the clamping force. New gaskets will be like a SB chevy, multi layer with permaseal around the fluid passages.

WillWagner said:

Do you drive the truck and not just start and idle it? Those are old style gaskets, when they start to leak the leakage will start oozing out of the tabs under the manifold. De grease it and drive it. Looks like it is just slobbering out the ports. Pop testing injectors is un necessary unless it runs funky, it will be a waste of time. Multifuels like to be run hard. Go drive it like you stole it.

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Every time this truck gets started it’s driven, but there’s literally only been one time I drove/creeped it 2mins to my barn and shut off.

Other than that, I start the truck, idle for 5-10mins then drive it, usually at LEAST 25miles if not way more at a time.

I pulled the #6 injector last night, some soot and a very very TINY amount of white coke, cleaned it up, then put it on the tester and it was chattering nicely around 2800psi and no leaks. I bumped it ever so slight to roughly 3000psi and reinstalled. Brake cleaned the area(the best I could get to), and went for a 30-45mins drive. I ran her hard, peaking RPMs and boost, hitting hills and getting the EGTs up(confirmed with boost/egt gauges).

I just laid the little one down for a nap, so I’ll head out shortly to see if any “mess” returned…

In the meantime, I would also like to thank everyone and the knowledge shared here. We all kinda know things, but it’s always that one rare case that someone somewhere has dealt with that gets shared

banditt1979 said:

I could be wrong but it looks like theres the black residue above the head gasket? Valve cover leak maybe (hopefully)

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As of now, the valve cover gasket areas are 100% dry.

V8srfun said:

Definitely coming from the exhaust port not the head gasket. Like mentioned above could be many different causes. I would probably start at checking the injectors. Does it seem to start any differently or make any more exhaust smoke than normal.

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It takes a few extra cranks to get her started, but I also blame that on my wmo/fuel mixture.

As for smoke, it has never seemed to puff extra smoke. It does puff a little blue because of my wmo/fuel mixture, but has never puffed any “extra” when reving or driving hard that I have noticed, definitely not like I see on YouTube coming from some deuces.

Picture1: which is what I first found and started all this.

I then cleaned, and went for a drive.

Picture2: Found this the next day, it reappeared.

It is not unusual for the head gasket to seep a little.
You could consider a retorque of the heads. The nuts on the head studs can become surprisingly loose; far from the torque specs they get tightened to when they were installed.
I did not believe it until I put the torque wrench on mine. If you have a thick-deck "TD" engine, they should be 157 ft.lbs. I put the new head gasket in, the one where everyone says "you can omit the re-torque, it is the new style!". I was amazed; some were in the 120 ft lbs and I think only one was still anywhere close to spec, about a month later!
Maybe the benefit of the new gasket is that it is more tolerant against wrong torque values!!!

cattlerepairman said:

It is not unusual for the head gasket to seep a little.
You could consider a retorque of the heads. The nuts on the head studs can become surprisingly loose; far from the torque specs they get tightened to when they were installed.
I did not believe it until I put the torque wrench on mine. If you have a thick-deck "TD" engine, they should be 157 ft.lbs. I put the new head gasket in, the one where everyone says "you can omit the re-torque, it is the new style!". I was amazed; some were in the 120 ft lbs and I think only one was still anywhere close to spec, about a month later!
Maybe the benefit of the new gasket is that it is more tolerant against wrong torque values!!!

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Ill put a torque wrench on them probably tomorrow; I have a few other parts to install also

You know after rereading post you pick things up. With you running WMO/Fuel mixture that could be it. You are not completely burning the mixture. Some of the mixture not getting burned could be come out of exhaust ports. You said injector pop at 2800psi. You turned it up to 3000 psi. If I remember correctly they should be 3200 to 3500 psi depending on which injectors you have one or two hole. The higher the psi the better atomization of the fuel more complete burn of fuel. Wmo does burn but not as clean or complete as diesel fuel. It also take more heat to burn it also. If you bump up the injector psi on all of them it may help the problem. Also agree with trying to re torque head bolts too.

smoke said:

You know after rereading post you pick things up. With you running WMO/Fuel mixture that could be it. You are not completely burning the mixture. Some of the mixture not getting burned could be come out of exhaust ports. You said injector pop at 2800psi. You turned it up to 3000 psi. If I remember correctly they should be 3200 to 3500 psi depending on which injectors you have one or two hole. The higher the psi the better atomization of the fuel more complete burn of fuel. Wmo does burn but not as clean or complete as diesel fuel. It also take more heat to burn it also. If you bump up the injector psi on all of them it may help the problem. Also agree with trying to re torque head bolts too.

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You're right. I have the same issues when burning wmo. I see a lot more of the black runs from the exhaust stack because of that. Thinning it more with gas or diesel helps, but wmo in general is more difficult to burn in comparison to diesel or jet fuel. However, I'll take it considering the amount of $$ wmo saves especially when diesel is $5.50/gallon.