Internal coolant leak - Snowmobile Forum: Your #1 Snowmobile Forum

jnutter · 01-16-2006, 07:02 PM

I've got an '81 El Tigre with the 500CC liquid cooled engine. I got it for free becuase the previous owner had an internal coolant leak that filled the engine. He replaced the head gaskets, but the problem came back right away. Looking at the head gaskets, I think he botched the job. The head bolts weren't very tight (just a little more than finger tight) and there was some substance on them like uncured RTV.

Head gaskets are a given at this point but I'm wondering if I need to bother with base gaskets too. I have dried up the coolant passages in the cylinders, and I don't see any coolant passages connecting to the crank case. Someone please tell me if I'm right in thinking that base gaskets aren't a part of a coolant leak on this engine.

The motor seems to be in good shape other than this. Compression was 150 and 149 psi. Spark is nice and hot. Haven't started it yet for the obvious reason.

**smallengineguy** · 01-16-2006, 07:31 PM

Do the base gaskets while it's torn down. i did the head gaskets on my wife's Mach Z, come to find out it was the base gasket that was the problem.

jnutter · 01-16-2006, 10:04 PM

Thanks for the advice.

I only want to do this once, so I'll do the base gaskets too.