Waterleak from cooling duct into the exhaust duct in the cylinder head

[BjH]

With reference to my thread a few days ago ( Installing a Rover 3,9 EFI with gearbox - advice please ) I believe I know what is wrong. The symptoms were now and then white smoke in the exhaust. Sometimes really much white smoke. But the car was still running, with only minor sign of faulty ingnition. I think there is a whole between the exhaust duct and the water duct inside the aluminium cylinderhead. I believe it is the exhaust since the car apparently has been running a few short trips without really giving signs of something being wrong. It was only last friday that the temerarure gauge suddenly decided to cross the red line. It is a bit odd that my Wolsely Hornet Special 34 mod suffered a similar situation in that the preheating ducts on the intakemanifold ( straight six block ) coroded through the more tha 75 year old manifold. Here it was exhaust leak so it was not so dramatic, just noisy. However the WHS club directed me to a member that was in the position to reproduce new replica manifold excactly the same as the original thanks to the original mould still existed.
Well, now I thing it is the Stags turn. This is more serious and more expensive than a manifold. Looked at Rimmer bros to find out what will be the cost of a reconditioned cylinder head or the cost of actually rebuilding a new one. I believe I am on the right track in getting a complete new setup with a newer engine and consequently a new gearbox. Tomorrow I will get the top off and then I will know. I was hoping the top would not be wharped, but now i think it does not matter as the whole cylinder head probably is destroyed by corrosion. Any comment on this. Since I live in Norway I am most interested to know the cost of a new reconditioned cylinderhead. I let you know tomorrow the result of my investigations. Excuse my attempt on technical english.
Bjørn

[V Mad]

Hi Bjorn
Firstly, if you have a lot of white smoke (steam) in the exhaust, can you confirrm that your coolant level keeps dropping? If this is the case then you clearly have a problem with coolant leaking internally somewhere. I dont think you can conclude that this is caused by a hole in the cylinder head as there are other more common paths; for example it could be an inlet manifold gasket failure or a head gasket failure.

Your comment about head corrosion also seems pessimistic unless your engine has been run without adequate protective antifreeze.