Last year I was asked to look at a Ford 4000, which had been laid up for a couple of years. The owner had been told that the oil on the side of the engine block was coming from the head gasket.
Locating the leak
I had a look and discovered that the oil was coming from a bit higher up - the exhaust manifold, to be precise. A new manifold gasket was ordered, but before fitting it, I put the manifold in the parts washer to clean it up a bit. Putting a straight edge across the manifold, I discovered one port was about 1mm below the other two. I set it up in my shaping machine and took several cuts until all ports were in the same plane. I fitted the new
