coolant leak into exh. port

[1880cc]

Guy,
I vintage race a 1760cc Lancia Beta and at the last race meet the engine overheated from low coolant level and it was pretty steamy out of the exhaust. I thought that it was a head gasket but when I removed the head, all four combustion chambers looked of equal colour. I then discovered that the #4 exhaust port had some white crystal looking stuff and a bit of liquid coolant in it. It seemed to be all down stream from the seat. I pried on the seat to check for looseness but it didn't budge. Is it normal for the seat to be in contact with the water jacket? I thought I should get some input before I start to rip and tear. thanks, Bob

[Guy Croft]

Can I see a good quality closeup photo or 2 please?

To help me and for the general interest,

GC

[Derwyn]

I had a very similar symptom to this on ford CVH engine. Eventually traced to a crack behind the exhaust valve guide, but there was more to the story. The same valve had dropped on running in the engine, and the head returned to the manufacturer for repair. The engine was very reliable for a fair few years in both road and competition use, but while doing a course car for a historic event on a very hot summer weekend the temperature needle went into the red because of a faulty fan. There was no harm evident at the time, but a few weekendlater and half way through another event the coolant started to leak from the said valve. On stripping down of the engine, the guide was found to be very loose and had been playing in the head and had actually made the hole oval with a visible crack just behind. I got the head pressure tested, but the outcome was not good sorry to say.

My conclusion was that the engine has a weakness from the day that the valve dropped in that cylinder. It probably had cracked then, but was not an issue until the engine overheated on that historic rally.

Have you had any previous issues with this cylinder in a similar manner?