I just looked through the service manual and didn't see anything about re-torqueing the heads. Just wondering if that could have caused a problem? I don't know. Maybe someone else will chime in. :bigthink:

You'll need to do some testing to see if you do in fact have a bad head gasket first.

Yeah, I couldnt find anything in the manual either and the instructions didn't say anything about it. I only did it because I saw it mentioned here a few times. FWIW, none of the bolts turned more than an eighth of a turn when I did the retorque.

Ill get a tube hooked up today and see if I can eliminate the carb as a problem. My wifes uncle owns a machine shop. He builds race engines. Maybe I can get him to stop by one day and have a look and tell me something before I proceed. I don't wanna keep dumping money into this engine if its just gonna continue to fail.

Now we are getting somewhere! You could also take the engine to him so he can check it with his shop tools being handy.

I would have had him look into it a while back but he is also a union carpenter and works out of state most of the time. Assuming the 2165 isn't gonna break down on me, I can afford to wait for him this time.