Yesterday, my son came over and as I was explaining the leak issue to him, I noticed that the underside of the thermostat housing, lit up brightly with my blacklight. I have a bracket to hold a McCulloch supercharger (from a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk), it is designed to mount directly to the head and then the thermostat housing mounts to it (using longer bolts to go through both the thermostat housing and the supercharger bracket into the head)
Since it clearly showed symptoms of leaking I decided to take it apart too. Boy am I glad I did. While there is evidence of the engine builder using a paper gasket and sealant between the supercharger bracket and the head, all he used was a very thin layer of sealant between the bracket and the thermostat. When I took the thermostat off of the bracket/head, it was 75% metal to metal with the sealant having been squished out.
Fortunately, in my bag of "stuff" I found the correct size gasket and reinstalled the thermostat and the water pump this morning. There is now a gasket and a liberal amount of sealant between the thermostat and the supercharger bracket, as well as between the water pump and the mounting bracket and the mounting bracket and the engine block.
I'm letting it set overnight, will put the radiator back in tomorrow along with coolant and do a pressure test. Fingers crossed.
As for my patience with this truck, it is running thin..... I have been working on this truck for three years now and have signed up to take it to three car shows starting in mid-May. I did the same last year, but with the engine being rebuilt, that didn't happen. I'm hoping for better luck this year.
