Hi all,

I'm about to go through a Rambler 195.6 OHV inline 6 and need a bit of help on a problem area. This will be a full rebuild/freshen, and while my budget is small, I won't be cheaping out on anything that matters. My goal is enhanced reliability and a few mods for performance. It's in a 1963 Rambler American hardtop, Twin Stick (3spd + OD on the floor).

Last year I began vintage rallying, and to everyone's surprise, especially mine, the car actually handles well and 130hp is fine in a 2600 lb car. I drive my old cars hard, no abuse, but hard. I stay away from the redline (4500 here) but I make it work. I commute 100 miles/day on the infamous 405 freeway here in Los Angeles, some 15,000 miles/year, and it does pretty good and keeps me on my toes!

Pics of the head here: http://wps.com/AMC/1963-Rambler-American/Nash-195.6OHV-engine/heads.html

Anyways -- head sealing. I've personally examined 4 or 5 of these things and in their very old age, what always does them in is head sealing issues: combustion chamber to water jacket leaks, always involving the headgasket. One of them showed signs of *two* overhauls; and all of them had been overbored at least once, so these are not pampered wilting flowers, but old motors run hard and long.

This is an OLD! motor. It's Nash lineage back to the 1930's. Very robust, well developed, heavy, unpowerful. It's very, very short, important in this tiny car. Crank and rods are all forged. Long stroke, and really long rods. Huge bearings, decent oil supply (and I'm modifying the pump for full filtration). I'll run synthetic oil, great success with that in other motors.

The factory manual says "check torque" every 4000 miles and "retorque head" every 8000. "Nobody" does this on an old daily transport, so eventually the head leaks water, runs low and gets hot. Owners top off the radiator (this goes on for months or years) and eventually it runs dry and the head cracks. You can tell it's gone on a loooong time from the amount of rust spray and the fact that there's nothing but clear water in the cooling system!

The headbolts are very small, and relatively few. They're 7/16-14 thread, only about 5/8" engagement into the block. 15 bolts, and spacing is a bit erratic at the ends. I sliced a junk head up into many pieces, and I can say with some authority there's no room to add any more headbolts, and even drilling them out for 1/2" would leave things close to cylinders or the edge of the casting.

Here's pics of the sliced up head: http://wps.com/AMC/1963-Rambler-American/Nash-195.6OHV-engine/Head-examined/index.html


So the problem at hand -- headgaskets on old motors in the 21st century.

I will have the block deck milled FLAT AND SMOOTH and the head surface too, one "NORS" shortblock I bought, all new parts, had a crap block top surface. I think that is/was common. I will do better. Recommendations here on what a good sealing surface treatment would be? (Compression is low and it's mech. adjustable rockers so I can take off a few .010's without worry.)

The blue-type self-sealing headgaskets are not available for this motor -- only the old fashioned steel composite jobs. I've been using spray Permatex, but is there something better these days? This isn't a place for me to get cheap.

It was suggested I try studs instead of bolts. When I pull the motor from the car I will check that I have clearance to install/remove a head with stubs. I assume the advantage is I can Loctite the studs into the head, and deal with torque and thrust etc at the nut on the head instead of deep in the block.

Everything I work out goes here http://wps.com/AMC/ since there's so little info on this cars.

Thanks in advance for any help you might have, and I apologize for the long post!