Well what a night I have had, I just finished installing the a15 into the sedan and bolted everything up nice and tight. I filled the engine with ouil and hooked up all the wires then I started filling the coolant system with coolant. But to my suprise I seen coolant pouring out of the back of the head, I used a small mirror to get in between the rocker cover and fire wall to see where it is coming from and it looks like it is leaking out of the head gasket, I put a brand new gasket on and the head is freshly machined, the block is clean and free of old gasket and I torqued the head down to the recomended torque setting. The coolant port on the back of the head has been plugged with a big grub screw which is in real tight and I can't get it out so I can't use the heater in the car.
I think it is a H72 head on an A15. But I had to test the new motor out coolant leak or not, with open extractors, cam, 38 DGAS weber and big compression it fired up and sounded fantastic, I ran it for about 30 seconds and shut it off, I am happy it started but this leak has me stumped, I thought any A series head would fit any A series block with only the coolant ports on the intake manifold differing
Does anybody have any idea what I should be looking for to fix the prioblem? Tomorrow I will remove the rocker cover and retorque the head studs incase the gasket didn't seal right, if that doesn't help then I guess the head will be coming off

Very strange indeed.

I guess the gasket is around the right way ?

nothing else I can think of just make sure the head is torqued right.Unless they stuffed up the milling of the head.

You have successfully put the head gasket on backwards (I've done this once before) , if the gasket isn't marked"front" it is easy to reverse.
Water comes screaming out the back of the head in this really cool inch wide paper thin jet , sound familiar??

Tom

Yep, sounds familiar to me, having put the head gasket on upside down myself...

My only worry is Blowfly said the coolant was comming out the back of the head. When the gasket is put on upside down, the leak is on the side towards the rear under the intake manifold.

Gary

Mine leaked out of the left rear corner.......it was truly the sight to behold.....it started before I even fired the motor up.........thankfully I do not work on space shuttles for a living.

Tom

OH thanks guys I couldn't even sleep last night! I am off to attack the head with some spanners right now

yeah, upside down head gasket. don't worry, its very commonly done on A series. And luckily enough, its about the easiest engine in the world to pull the head off.

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LOL classic.

yep the head gasket was upside down and I had the orange stuff on the head side of the gasket, I will have to wait for tomorrow for the new head gasket to arive, I ordered a monotorque head gasket which cost about $20.
I didn't want to use the old head gasket just incase it was damaged, I would hate to bolt it all back together only to find I have to pull it off and change it again.
Can't wait to get it running again so I can take it out for my first tough A series test drive

LOL!! I did exactly the same thing 2-3 weeks ago. On the third attempt a friend mentioned that maybe its on the wrong way. Ofcourse I did not want to hear of it but on closer inspection I realised he was right

The compression dropped to much with 2 gaskets so I'll be doing it a 4th time in the comming month or 2