88 mercruiser 4.3 small crack in block and head

[Nick2020]

I have been tryIng to find a compression issue on my 4.3 and after taking the head off I found that the head gasket was blown between 2 cylinders and there is a small crack in both the head and block where it blew. The crack does not go very far. I don't know if it would be ok to replace headgasket or replace engine. I know this engine had overheated at some point.

 

[achris]

The head's gone, that crack will be very deep. The block has a burn, you MIGHT be able to have a machine shop do a weld build up and refinish, but it likely will cost more than just getting a second hand block and starting again.

Putting another head gasket on that will see it also blow within a very short time (minutes)....

Chris.............

 

[Scott Danforth]

Block is fire slotted from running with a blown head gasket

Its toast.

Time to buy a new block and heads

Suggest a 93-95 block and 9y and later vortec heads

 

[Grub54891]

Yup, Seen this before. Needs a new block, One I saw the guy replaced the head gasket, it lasted about a week. The block finished burning through about 1/8" groove.

 

[achris]

...fire slotted...

That's the word I was looking for!

 

[Nick2020]

Ok thanks

 

[Lou C]

Yep with that kind of HG failure you get that kind of damage, when mine went because of an overheat the heads cracked in the exhaust valve seat area but the HG blew near the coolant passage, so no fire slotting on the block, had normal compression actually but water would seep into a cyl when the engine cooled off and sat.