Posted by Mr. Farmall A on August 01, 2014 at 10:34:47 from (68.32.185.8):
My 1946 Farmall A has blown it's 3rd head gasket in 5 years. I only use it for mowing with a 5 foot wide pull behind rough cut mower. I have been mowing with this tractor for 13 years now. About 5 years ago the old head gasket blew, motor still ran but the crankcase would fill up with coolant and smoke badly. Took the head off, installed a new head gasket with copper sealant, torqued the head to the revised IH specs, then retorqued it warm. After 2 years it blew again, so I checked the head for flatness and sure enough it was warped. Had it milled flat again and repeated the install. After 1 and a half years the head gasket just blew on me again today, just started pumping out white smoke like a steam engine.
The motor doesn't seem to be overheating, but thinking back it seemed to be slowly losing a little power over the summer. Could it be the copper gasket sealant? The head gasket instructions said to use it but can that stuff be failure prone? I also had to replace a shim head gasket in my small block Chevy 6 years ago and it is still holding up fine and I did not use sealant on that motor. Any other throughts? Is it just common for head gaskets to not just last that long on these tractors? Are some brands of head gaskets just better than others? Maybe the deck on the block itself is warped? Does the A need to be jack supported in a special way while the head is torqued since the block is also a load bearing member? Just really stumped by so many failures.
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