Anyone ever used liquid glass in a motor before?

[JeepFreak]

This is sort of off topic but technical never the less. I recently purchased a Chevy Suburban for my wife and have been fighting a miss on the number three cylinder. Well to make a long story short the cylinder is getting a small amount of water in it causing the miss at idle. The plug is the only one that shows signs of water as all others are a normal brown color and this one is snow white. The motor is less than a year old and my guess is that the crush ring on the water jacket is leaking. Well my neighbor is an old school wrench and he said that on a small leak like this that liquid glass would seal it right up. He said they used to get it from the drug store but didn't know if they still sold it or not. I hate putting anything like this in my motors and will most likely take the heads off and have them milled and put on a new head set. But I am still wondering if anyone has heard of this.

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: JeepFreak ]</p>

[Crazy_Jeepman]

I guess I would wonder what makes WATER be the culprit, are you looseing coolant? Never seen water cause plugs to go white. Wite plug is generally to hot or preignition. Coolant in the chamber enough to show up on the plugs you should have a fair amount of white smoke, as well and a poor compression reading, as well as overheating in radiator, and water in oil from when parked. I highly doubt you have a head gasket problem. Pressure test the system before ripping it down. LIQUID GLASS..........Never heard of it, doubt I would ever try it. ;)

[JeepFreak]

Ok Pete here is the story. When I bought the Burb it had several problems. Fixed all of them except for the number 3 cylinder miss. All of the other plugs where a nice brown and this one was completely bridged with white carbon looking material. Now this was when I bought it. Since then I ohm's tested the plug wires and found that that plug wire was in need of replacing. So I replaced the wires and put in new plugs with factory heat settings and the miss went away. Then after 20 or 30 miles the miss was back. Pulled the plug wire again and it looked white again but was not bridged closed yet like before. Then I ran a compression test and it came out to 150lbs with no leakdown found. Comression tested cylinders 1 and 5 and everything looked good there to. The only thing I could guess was possible water in the cylinder(maybe a cracked head???). There is no water in the oil and the coolant isn't lossing enough for me to notice it. I have had rigs with blown head gaskets before and you are right, this doesn't seem like one. I am just dumb founded at why this one cylinder is having trouble and all the others are fine. Do you think that a burnt valve could be causing this same condition? It is TBI injected so I know it is getting the same gas the other cylinders are getting. The dizzy is new and so is the cap and rotor.

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: JeepFreak ]</p>

[Alaskaman]

Liquid glass...probably means water glass aka sodium silicate. It's radiator/block sealer popular with used car salesman a generation or two ago. Same league as sawdust or bananas in the noisy differential. Sure wouldn't use it on my rigs, it all goes somewhere, not just to the leaky spot.

I have seen a lily white plug from a cylinder with a leaky head gasket. In that case the piston top was clean as new also....steam cleaned!

There aren't any good short cuts if you are getting coolant in a combustion chamber. Easy way to find out for sure is wave a emmissions tester probe over the radiator with the cap off (talk nicely to the guy at the emmissions test place). It will show hydrocarbons in the coolant if there is the slightest leak. There are other ways as well to tell, but if the leak is there, the head has to come off.

[Crazy_Jeepman]

The fact that it takes a very short distance to go white plug again tells me its a leaned out or preignition for some reason. That short of distance it would have to be pumping water through it. I would change heat range in the plug, check timming. Valve guide seal could also do this but not White, usually. TBI it is possible to get a lean cylinder.

[JeepFreak]

Timing is right on. When I got it it was way off. Actually it was set at 3 degrees after top dead center. Since the computer controls advance it still ran but had no power. I since have put it back to "zero" which is what it calls for on the base timing. Just seems weird how all the other plugs look great and this one is white. I will go a step lower on the heat of the plug and see if that helps. Has anyone had to run different heat settings from one cylinder to another before? This would be a first for me.

[TexasJ10]

I wonder if this problem has been present from the time the motor was rebuilt. Could there be a slight obstruction, like a slight slip in the intake manafold gasket, causing just this one cylinder to run lean and therefor hotter than the others? It is definitely odd that a new plug worked for only 30 miles before being apparently damaged. A much cooler plug would probably help diagnose the problem. Just my thoughts.

[JeepFreak]

See it's not looking like a "hot" plug. No blistering anyway. It's almost when you run a cleaner through a motor and get that additive type deposits. I am going to look at it some more and do a few things and see what happens. Back to the original question of liquid glass. I really had no intention of putting any in my motor but was more or less wondering if anyone had heard of it. I myself had never heard of it so that's why I asked. When I was younger and stupid I actually ran some Slick 50 in a motor with 100,000 miles on it and spun a main bearing and every since I am very selective with what I put in the crank case.

[ March 17, 2002: Message edited by: JeepFreak ]</p>

[jeepbob]

Yes you are talking about water glass and you must be careful when using as it will plug up stuff that you do not want it to. It is real good if you have a block that is cracked and leaks water. We used to use it on Ford 6.9 diesels that had a crack in the water jacket at the freeze plugs. A little goes a long ways. As for your problem, I would pull a valve cover and make sure the valves are operating.

[JeepFreak]

I was just thinking after reading you reply Bob that the rockers may be to tight not allowing the valves to fully close when warm. Well at least it's easy to check. I will also get out the carb cleaner and spray around the intake at that runner to see if there by chance is a vacuum leak. After getting back to basics I believe you all are right and it is most likely a lean condition.

[243]

It sounds like #3 is not firing much if at all, are you positive you have good spark to that plug?

[patrick heeney]

Check the throttle body to manifold gasket for vacuumn leak. VERY common on SB chevy TBI. also check all vacuum lines near that cylinders runner. Just hit around the base with carb cleaner while running. Usually find it on the back side passenger corner. Any idle speed problems? High, erratic etc? also can check for vaccum in crankcase for under intake vacuum leak and topside around head interface for vaccum leak.If the intake is aluminum you could have bad pittting around that port causing a lean out leak. ( I was teching at Chevy truck dealer until last August)

[roll-over]

JeepFreak,
Sorry i didn't catch this thread earlier... Water Glass is available as "K&W's Block Sealer" at AutoZone for around $7 FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS! the most important thing to know is that it will polymerize anti-freeze (ie. glob of goo) flush the system *CLEAN* before and after using it. I have used it on 4 engines one cracked block two head gaskets and a cracked head. It sealed all of them. as for how long it will last I don't know as I made the physical repair within about 2-3 months in each case. Good luck, though unless you ARE loosing water unexplainably, I would look elsewhere first.

[carrotman]

What year is the Suburban? Chevy had a bad problem in the 80's or 90's with camshafts that had soft lobes. One or two lobes would flatten, so there would be a dead cylinder or cylinders. Pull the valve cover for that cylinder and see if all the rockers are moving.

[JeepFreak]

Wow this was a old thread. I don't even own that Burb anymore. It was a flat lobe on the intake valve causing a lean condition which then caused a burnt valve then the guide went then all it could do was burn some oil in that cylinder. The cam was so bad that it only opened the valve about 1/4 inch. That was what was causing the miss at idle and when I got it on the highway the oil burning would eventually cause it to bridge the gap. I had never seen it happen before. Valve was already burnt before I bought it so the only fix would have been to rebuild the head and hope the cylinder looked good. I just opted to sell it.

[gsmikie]

i will bet it is a flat lobe on the intake valve on the cam remove the rocker cover and check the lift at the rocker on the intake valve for the bad cyl by the sound of it i would say that the valve is burnt by now and the guide is most likley shot and now you are burning oil