replaced head gasket...over heating

hey everybody

I had a thread a while back about replacing a head gasket and the cherokee still running a little rough. well we found a vacuum leak and solved that problem. Now my friend has been driving it steadily for 4-5 days and its starting to get hot pretty quickly. we were having the same problem at first, but thought we got it solved.

we replaced the t-stat, radiator and all the fluid, and it would run at 210 for no problem the first couple days. well now hes burning coolant, and the shop says it looks like there was a problem with the install. We had the head resurfaced so thats not the issue.

only 2 things that I can think of are
1) there was still some coolant in the head bolt holes when we put the head back on which could have thrown off the torque settings. Would be pretty a pretty insignificant amount though wouldn't it?

2) I thought i read in the FSM that your not supposed to put any kind of RTV, or additive onto the head gasket. Well I had a friend at a dealership who swore that you are supposed to coat the gasket in a copper spray which we did?

either way looks like its got to come apart again, and done want to make the same mistake twice

BASICS--year/engine/etc.?

The FSM specifies DRY. That is, of course, for a dealership part.

Follow the directions for the head gasket you use--most specify DRY.

Now, here is some food for thought:

How many times has the head been done before? The head bolts are good for two uses MAXIMUM. Depending on how much the head was shaved you might not even get that many uses! What happens is the bolts stretch when torqued. Stretch, stretch again, shave the head--oops, the head bolts are now bottoming out and you are getting the correct torque on the bolts, but because they are too long for the application the head itself is not torqued down. This problem can also come about if the holes for the head bolts are not cleaned out--torque the bolts down onto a pile of gunk built up in the holes, you get the bolts to torque specs but the head isn't.

Normal procedure for a head job is for the person doing it to mark the top of the head bolts with paint--that tells the next guy that they have already been used TWICE and need to be thrown out.

Good luck.

1996 4.0, 160k-ish miles.

first time the heads been off, and we will be replace the head bolts next time

Definitely make sure you holes are dry. The fluid does not compress and will hydrolock. I've heard of people snapping bolts on some occasions.

I used a FelPro gasket set from O'reilly's that went on dry. You may also go back and check the head and block water jackets for blockage. Something may have gotten lodged after running for a day or two and is affecting flow. Let us know what you find.