I would remove the heads since you are this far. You can get most of the water out by rotating the crank with the cyliner heads off. Make sure you put the head gaskets on in the proper direction they will be labeled which end is the front.Make sure you change your oil you likely have water in there too.
dj808; If you can find them, get new head bolts. It may be a head bolt that twisted or lost torque, or stretched and caused your problem. I had one snap off when I torqued it back on, and it was on the problem cylinder when I had your problem. Just good insurance against a bad night of trying to get a snapped off bolt out of the block. Good luck!
from this point it seems like alot more work to get the heads off and also I've never done it before so I'm still deciding on if I should do it or not. Last time when I took the stock Intake off and put the new one and carb on it took me two long days. Today when I did it it took me 45 min. But I need the car done by Monday so how hard is it to do the rest. It looks like a pain in the ass to get the a/c, headers and other stuff bolted on the heads off. When I pulled the intake off some of the bolts were real loose do I need different intake bolts its a Holly street dominator.
I'm with you Rick, unless it is a low mileage engine and everything in decent shape. I would drain the oil and put in some inexpensive stuff with filter. Then take a compression check on each cylinder to determine if the gasket is blown or not. Also will give an idea of the condition of the rings etc. After initial run in, drain and replace the oil and filter with good stuff. The intake bolts on these engines have a tendency to stretch over time and become a bit loose. I always replace these with grade 8 and hardened washers. torque from the center out. Usually have to go over them several times to bring them all up to max torque. If the engine is high mileage, it would be a waste of good money and time to replace the head gaskets only, in my opinion. A complete overhaul would be more the norm in most cases, and will prolong the life of the 302 and give good service. Ran into the cheap gasket deal yesterday at AZ, asked for the Fel=Pro 1011-2 gaskets and the parts man said he had the 8400 series for 15.00. Ended up driving 90 miles rd trip to get the others from a good parts place that handles race stuff too. 50.00 a pop but worth it. Have never blown one even running 14 to 1 compression at one time. The1011-1 is the one most used but the -2 is .001 thicker if deck height and valve clearance is a problem. Also put a small bead of silicone around those water ports on the intake gasket when assy. Hope this helps.
The engine only has 38,000 original miles and has never been driven hard until I put the new carb. and intake on. Thanks for the help old tymer.
i would spin the motor to get the water out of the cylinder and then spry some wd40 or crc in the plug hole to retard rust. spin it again, reinstall the intake with a good gasket reinstall everything and see how it runs. if vibration, you might have bent a rod, but that would be unusual. if runs good, have fun.
You said you already had the intake off and replaced it? Did you install the new intake properly? Torque it right and in the correct order? I know on my Edelbrock intake using the recommended Fel-Pro 1205 I have to go around torqueing the bolts to 20lbs at least 5 times before the intake is down solid and the bolts hold 20lbs of torque ... You are also supposed to check the torque again on the intake bolts after the engine runs and then cools ...
Looking back at everything I think my problem was I did not bolt the intake on tight enough or in the correct order, a lesson learned the hard way. I'm going out tommarow and getting a torque wrachet. Thanks for the help dmhines.
