360 Coolant found in Spark Plug Ope

Haha Bob! LOL and still chuckling as I type! I'm acutely aware of that and was wondering when it might come up!

Hi Tom, good to "meet" a fellow Dub here. Thanks for your input - first Ferrari owner posting a positive from their personal experience I think.

Don't suppose you're an "Octane"(.ie) guy are you?

FBB, I appreciate your wisdom and I know you're coming from a position of experience. If I do go the stop-leak route I'll be taking steps to ensure that the problem is from waterway to external only. I certainly don't need to buy trouble and welcome your input in terms of ensuring that my cylinder(s) are not effected. I don't have leakdown equipment at my disposal but I do have a compression gauge. I've never used it on this car as I'm not sure how to isolate the ignition and fuel and would be concerned about turning over the engine repeatedly without first disabling those two. Any thoughts on further diagnosis?

Steve, thanks for your input. The chap I was speaking with today works on 360s, 430s 458s, GT3s and F1 engines. I guess he knows his stuff. They had a contract not so long ago to overhaul a number of 360 engines all with 100k+ miles on them and came across every conceivable weakness in the process. That said, as someone working in a specialised engineering workshop, I guess it comes as no surprise that his natural inclination is to recommend repair involving machining out the old liner and then re-lining with new. He has all the necessary equipment at his disposal and can manufacture a new liner also.

One of the issues facing me is that with an engine of this age and mileage (50K) where do you stop once you start? I can't help feeling it could be like peeling an onion if I take that head off!

So, in summary, I'm still contemplating the options and I'm keen to diagnose for sure that the problem is not effecting the combustion side.

 

Well, for better or worse, richer or poorer, I've done the dirty deed and thrown a bottle of Novastop Radiator into the cooling system.

It was recommended by my local motor factors as a very effective product and one which has no negative side-effects as far as they were aware.

http://www.novatio.com/content/media/pdf_tech/en/740103000-PI-Novastop%20Radiator-EN-080602%20-%202.pdf

The product is very similar to that recommended by Pap - has a metal flake granular thing going on.

Before application I'd spent some time carefully cleaning out the effected spark plug hole, and had thoroughly cleaned and dried the #8 plug and coil. I'd taken the car for a drive with the expansion cap on loosely so the system wouldn't come up to full pressure. The car was running fine, no miss and there wasn't any evident leaking of coolant. Reasonably satisfied that there weren't any combustion issues I decided to proceed with the application.

Followed the instructions, applied the product yesterday and haven't seen any fluid leaking since. It seems to have stopped it dead, at least for now. Temperature readings are absolutely normal. I pumped the system to 15lbs psi and left overnight. Previously this had caused the entire spark plug void to completely fill with coolant - there wasn't a drop to be seen there this morning.

I'm not absolutely certain that the coolant levels are rock solid. The level in the reservoir does seem to have been falling a few mm bit each time I measure but I'm conscious that this may be down to a certain amount of air having entered the system and slowly being purged so I'll be monitoring carefully and will report again in a few days time.

Once again, many thanks to all the contributors. As ever here on F-Chat there was a diversity of opinion. I appreciate everyone's individual point of view but ultimately I had to make my own decision based on the advice given and my own research versus contemplation of pulling the engine apart, likely at considerable expense and time off the road.

Hopefully it works out but if it doesn't I'll let you all know!
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Well, 10 days and circa 200 miles later and all remains well. Notwithstanding the low mileage the car has been driven every other day and coolant temp has been up to 100c many, many times.

No leaks, no loss of fluid, no temperature level problems. Fingers crossed..............

 

Haha! You guys are "crack"ing me up!

 

No way, she's stronger and better than ever now! New tyres went on today, track oriented alignment coming up next, all is well...... for the moment.

Incidentally, having topped off the coolant five days ago to 40mm below the neck and with 300 miles up since I am happy to advise that the level when checked today was precisely 40mm below the neck. Ever since I've owned the car I've always found that whenever I topped off to the correct level that the system would quickly loose about 15mm and then sit, so the "juice" seems to have found whatever other leak there was and plugged that too. Temperatures remain perfectly normal also.

Early days I know, but I'm feeling reasonably confident about this now.

Thanks again to all the contributors here. I was pretty shook when I found this problem but thankfully y'all came to the rescue.

 

Adam, I presume you're talking about having coolant in the engine oil (and not the transmission oil)?

I guess that if you have coolant in the ope for the spark plug you must have the same issue I had, but compounded by some other problem.

I'm sorry but I can't really offer any suggestions as regards the cause.

If you feel the leak is relatively minor, and at your own discretion, you might like to try something like I did. Mine has held up fine ever since.

Bar's Leaks HG-1 Head Gasket and Cooling Sealant - 33.8 oz. : Amazon.com : Automotive