440 head gasket seal advice

[Phoenix440]

Hi all
After some head gasket advice.
Have searched the forum but cant seem to find an answer.
Have an overheating of 440 looks like it was caused by non sealing head gasket.
Heads were badly milled, some head bolts seemed a bit loose around middle cylinders, motor had standard felpro gaskets.
The deck has surface variations of between .004" and in one area .0065".
My question is with everything else being perfect ( head surfaced, new bolts, bolt hole threads cleaned) and a composite gasket,will the head gaskets seal, or am I just rolling the dice here?

 

[451Mopar]

Yes they will seal if the block and heads are flat. I have ran the standard Fel-Pro PT(forgot the number) gaskets with 11:1 compression and no problems (but the engine did have head studs.)

 

[dvw]

The deck surface variation is way over spec. You didn't mention is it was the head or the block. Either way it needs to be addressed. A tip; after torquing the bolts loosen each in order and pull to full torque. The fastener will allways move further.
Doug

 

[dan juhasz]

Block deck surface .004 to .0065 that spells trouble

 

[Phoenix440]

Thanks for replys, looks like worst fears confirmed.
The block is toast. Has already been decked a lot to get pistons at deck height, so looks like starting from scratch.

 

[Phoenix440]

The deck surface variation is way over spec. You didn't mention is it was the head or the block. Either way it needs to be addressed. A tip; after torquing the bolts loosen each in order and pull to full torque. The fastener will allways move further.
Doug

Deck, heads are ok

 

[turbo t]

You could get your block redecked and get thicker head gaskets from cometic, the surface finish has to be smooth though.