by glenn » Sun Sep 30, 2018 4:13 pm
I'm a few years on the wrong side if sixty years old. I've restored a variety of cars including Rovers dated from 1947 to 1978; that's steel blocks and aluminium blocks in the V8 versions. I've never come across a warped block before let alone heard of it happening.
I would suspect that you may have a crack between bores 3 and 4. A cracked block isn't a common occurrence but it isn't unknown either. A crack can appear around the exhaust valve are - simply because that's where most trouble usually appears. A crack can also occur in the cylinder/water jacket area - if you're positive that the head/gasket is ok then I'd suspect somewhere around the water jacket as you're getting water in the bores?
A crack can be invisible to the naked eye. Hot gases or coolant still manage to find their way through the crack and cause no end of headaches .. Have you considered using 'Engineer's Blue'? It's on Ebay .. Simply rub the engineer's blue into the metal and then wipe off. Any engineer's blue that remains is embedded in the crack .. and shows where the crack is.
You seem to have done a lot of work - don't give up. You'll find the trouble eventually. It may not sound much of a consolation - but the Vauxhall engine is 'meccano'. Easily fixed (or replaced..) and pales into insignificance when you have similar problems on the likes of a 4.7 V8 Jeep or V12 Jaguar.
Much has changed in the 45 years or so I played around with engines. Decades ago a quick fix for a head gasket was to shove in a few cans of Radweld .. which never worked for long. Nowadays the modern 'head fixes' are light years ahead of what we used to use - have a look on Ebay for 'Steel Seal' which has a good reputation and is now being used by the trade for cylinder head fixes.
Good luck. You'll get there eventually!
Life without a 4 litre Jeep would be terrible