Bubbles coming from Head/Cylinder Gasket

After recently reassembling the engine, I was adjusting the idle in the driveway and I noticed there was some drops on the ground below it. I looked and it seemed very watery (gasoline?) After looking more closely I saw that there were tiny little bubbles coming from various places between the head and cylinder. My compression tested at 90 PSI on a harbor freight compression tester.

Before I take this thing back apart - what all is likely going to be required to fix this?

Piston rings, head gasket, machining the head and cylinder surfaces?

Thank you,

If not already done, would re-torque all head nuts/bolts when the engine is stone cold after sitting overnight.

Good Fortune!

Sounds like a head gasket leak. Did you clean the gasket surfaces and measure the head and cylinder to be sure they were flat? Use a torque wrench when installing the head? Use factory Kawasaki gaskets?

Yeah - I used an OEM gasket set, and I torqued it down in the sequence exactly like the manual said.

I cleaned all of the old gaskets off, but I would not be surprised if the surfaces weren't compeltely flat.

Reqtorqing the head would definitely be a easy solution. However, if I I waited to do that tomorrow, that will likely add 2 weeks to this fix...

Just guessing, but perhaps 30 minutes of strong air flow from a box fan would cool everything down to ambient temperature before re-torquing.

Re-torquing is I believe best done after the first heat cycle.

Good Fortune!

k1z947060 wrote: Yeah - I used an OEM gasket set, and I torqued it down in the sequence exactly like the manual said.

I cleaned all of the old gaskets off, but I would not be surprised if the surfaces weren't compeltely flat.

Reqtorqing the head would definitely be a easy solution. However, if I I waited to do that tomorrow, that will likely add 2 weeks to this fix...

If you do it while engine is hot it will potentially reduce your bank account by hundreds of dollars, trying to cool with a fan will not help, 2 weeks sounds better to me.

Put the fan on it. It only takes 30 mins or less to cool down. As long as you can rest your hand on the engine and not sense it as warmer than your body temperature you are fine.

Do it at your own peril!

I already took the engine apart, because I'm impatient. Nothing felt loose. In fact, 5 of the 8 cylinder studs came out from loosenng the caps.

Could I just add gasket sealer/maker to the head gasket? Please pardon me if that's a dumb/novice question.

Check flatness of the head and jug surfaces if out of spec it will happen again.

DO NOT PUT ANY KIND OF SEALENT/SEALER ON A HEAD OR BASE GASKET !!!!!!!!!

Okay - I won't. Now time to find some gaskets....