Engine question.

[caper]

Unfortunately the engine I had a line on was not as advertised. Let me give you the back story. I just bought this car about a month ago. It had a miss and I found that the number four cylinder was down on compression. I did a cylinder leak down test and the pressure was coming through the radiator. I removed the cylinder head and found that the head gasket was blown. I visually checked everything out and of course replaced the gasket as well as some other stuff that needed attention(water pump, t-belt, cap/wires/plugs that sort of stuff). I'm a mechanic and should know better but I didn't bother sending the head out to have it checked. I drove the car last weekend without any problems until I did a highway run. At steady throttle, without pushing it, it wanted to overheat. Once you let off the throttle the heat gauge would return to normal. Driving around town the gauge would stay normal. I drove it to work this week to see what would happen and sure enough the coolant level was slowly dropping down and on Thursday it started missing. I pulled the spark plugs and the number four cylinder is wet inside. I'm not even sure if the head is cracked or warped so this weekend it's coming apart again and this time I'll send it out to see what the verdict is. The car works amazing and only has 200,000kms on it so if the head needs to be planed I'll have it done and replace the head gasket AGAIN! A hard lesson learned I guess! I'll let you know how it goes.

A quick question for you. I noticed the block had some small etching in it where the head gasket was leaking around the number four cylinder when I had the head off. I assumed it was from the coolant passing over it when the head gasket was bad. Any recommendation for this or any experience with this causing problems? I've seen this kind of thing on other engines I've worked on with no troubles but this is the first time I've had a 4AGE apart.