antifreeze pooling in sparkplug wells

[keats]

This issue is happening on a CJ3A but since it is a L4 I thought I could post it here and get some answers.

The antifreeze seems to pool in all the plug wells but mostly on #4. I have pulled all plugs and with a light see no antifreeze in the combustion chambers on all plug holes. The valve is dry. Not even damp. Fire end of plug is dry.

I have a heater valve on the back of the head but it is not leaking, and if it was I can see no way for antifreeze to get to #1 -#3 cylinders from it without leaving some trace.

Also, this issue seems to happen only in the winter while in storage.

The engine starts fine and runs smooth with no smoke at all. No blue and no white. I just started it in a shed and would have noticed it for sure.

No oil in coolant and no coolant in oil.

Original head and engine. Can the head just be porous from age. Cracked??

Head gasket??

[wesk]

Gary,
I would start with the thermostat housing. On oil saturated cast iron it is not uncommon for the very slick anti-freeze to not leave any trace of it's travel path. I have had this happen over the last 47 years on many of my flathead engines. My Dodge M37 230 flathead 6 was doing the same thing last winter. Lower surface of the thermostat housing was heavily corroded and the gasket couldn't seal well. First three plug wells always full of anti-freeze yet no path showing. In your case the same with the heater port on the head. Only takes a few minutes to pull the valve, clean both sides of the threads and seal the threads with a good quality sealer like Tite-Seal Medium. Don't overlook the head studs that are rooted in the water jackets. They may need resealing as well.